Holy Name Con­vent Port-of-Spain has opened a con­fi­den­tial com­plaints por­tal for peo­ple wish­ing to sub­mit con­cerns and in­for­ma­tion as part of an in­de­pen­dent re­view in­to al­le­ga­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences shared by mem­bers of the school com­mu­ni­ty and the wider pub­lic.

The por­tal will re­main open un­til Ju­ly 10, af­ter which the In­de­pen­dent Re­view Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue its work and pre­pare a re­port for the board of man­age­ment be­fore the start of the Sep­tem­ber school term.

The move comes weeks af­ter the board an­nounced it would launch an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing prin­ci­pal Sis­ter Re­nee Hall.

The con­tro­ver­sy be­gan af­ter a Guardian Me­dia Moth­er’s Day pro­file on Sis­ter Re­nee’s 25-year ca­reer sparked a wave of re­ac­tions on so­cial me­dia, with past and present stu­dents shar­ing con­cerns and ex­pe­ri­ences. The dis­cus­sion led to wider calls for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­clud­ing an on­line pe­ti­tion call­ing for her re­moval.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the board said an In­de­pen­dent Re­view Com­mit­tee had now been for­mal­ly es­tab­lished to con­duct a fair, con­fi­den­tial and struc­tured re­view of mat­ters raised.

The com­mit­tee will op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly of the board and the school ad­min­is­tra­tion. It will re­view sub­mis­sions, iden­ti­fy themes and pat­terns where ap­pro­pri­ate, con­duct in­ter­views when nec­es­sary and pro­vide find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions to the board.

The com­mit­tee is chaired by Vin­cent Pereira and in­cludes at­tor­ney-at-law Raphael Ajod­hia, re­tired prin­ci­pal Paula Moses, at­tor­ney-at-law and se­nior cor­po­rate ex­ec­u­tive Frances Bain-Cum­ber­batch, and clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Isol­de Ali Ghent-Gar­cia.

The board has al­so es­tab­lished a Pro­fes­sion­al Care Unit to pro­vide emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port to cur­rent stu­dents, fac­ul­ty, staff, par­ents and oth­er mem­bers of the school com­mu­ni­ty.

The unit, which will op­er­ate sep­a­rate­ly from the re­view com­mit­tee, will not have an in­ves­tiga­tive role.

The board has en­gaged The Samar­i­tan Move­ment, led by Fr Ger­ard J Mc­Glone, to pro­vide the sup­port ser­vices.

Lu­cent Re­search has been en­gaged to con­fi­den­tial­ly col­lect and man­age sub­mis­sions through the por­tal.

The board is en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty to use the for­mal process and al­low the com­mit­tee and Pro­fes­sion­al Care Unit to car­ry out their work in­de­pen­dent­ly.

The con­fi­den­tial sub­mis­sion por­tal can be ac­cessed here: https://www.dooblo­cawi.com/client/Sur­vey.as­px?Tick­et=APOOWT4R