150 years of St Dominic’s Children’s Home

By Sr Arlene Greenidge OP, Manager

Since 2008, St Dominic’s Children’s Home (SDCH) has been engaged in an organisational change and transformation process which led, in 2014, to the adoption of a new approach to our care practice—the STEPERS Model and, in 2020, to major ongoing changes in the Home’s governance and organisational structure.

Sr Arlene Greenidge

Many of the factors driving these changes were external to the organisation: legislative reform within our child welfare system, the incongruence between the new legislation and existing pieces of legislation and regulations within other stakeholder-ministries and departments.

The changing needs of the children and families we serve were, however, the primary push-factor as was the growing emphasis, locally, on professionalism and ‘good practice’ within the field of Social Work in general and the care and protection of children.

Change is never easy, and the conflicts and challenges have been many. Nonetheless, our Dominican spirituality as captured in one of our mottos: En Cruce Vita (In the Cross, There is Life), has allowed us to stay the course and so experience the glory.

There are times, however, when, like Mary Magdalene, we are slow in recognising Jesus in an event or outcome (Jn 20:15) but it is our lived experience that, with patient endurance, the glory does come.

As the Home moves into this new dispensation, it is providential that such a pivotal point in our history should dovetail into its jubilee celebration for, inherent in any such celebration, is the opportunity to both look back and look forward: reviewing, refining, refreshing one’s values, vision, and mission, in line with the strategic direction one has chosen.

This idea of looking back at our past as we move ahead into our future is visually and symbolically expressed by the Akan people of West Africa as the mythic bird, the sankofa, that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolising the future) in its mouth.

It teaches us that we should reach back and learn all that we can from our past, so that, in our onward journey, we can grow into our full potential. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone, or been stripped of can be reclaimed, revived, preserved, and perpetuated—we must “go back and get it” (usi.edu; 2021).

In our own scriptures, a jubilee year is a time of liberation (Lev 25:10–13), a ‘year of the Lord’s favour’ (Is 61:2). As such, we also recognise within this year-long celebration a grace-filled kairos moment—a time to release energies and resources that are trapped in an unproductive or even destructive momentum; a time to refresh our vision and mission in line with the values and practice principles which we profess.

Throughout the jubilee year, our Jubilee Planning Committee and sub-committees will be providing us with a range of  ‘sankofa’ events, activities and sacred spaces: seminars and workshops on various issues confronting residential childcare providers today; a publication reviewing the past 150 years at SDCH, events honouring Sisters, chaplains and lay-persons who once served at the Home; a family fun-day bringing together members of our SDCH community—past and present … all of this and more.

If you would like to get more information, share a resource, or contribute to the SDCH 150th Jubilee celebrations do contact us via email at veritassdch@gmail.com or contact our Planning Committee Coordinator Alana Shanklin at 625-7081 or 624-7883, extension 154. You can also keep updated by checking us out on Facebook.