“Getting it right for every child” is the slogan of a new seminar recently held by Partnerships for Every Child (P4EC), with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Ministry of Education, and decision-makers in child welfare from 11 partner regions of the project “Children in Moldova live in safe and secure families” implemented by Partnerships for Every Child. The goal of the event was to build a joint understanding of child welfare framework between the decision-makers and specialists working in education, health, and social assistance agencies across the country.
The training was provided by an expert from Great Britain, who worked for the Scottish Government to produce and pilot the national framework “Getting it Right for Every Child”. The Scottish model is focused on a joint approach to child welfare and foresees the involvement of and tight collaboration between specialists from all services provided to families, in order to make the best contribution to the ensuring of the eight indicators of child, youth, and family welfare: health, safety, inclusion, responsibility, respect, activity, nourishing, and achievement.
The seminar organized by P4EC met in two components: one to prepare national trainers, and another one, to work out and adapt a national framework on the integration and application of welfare indicators in all universal services, that will be piloted by P4EC.
The main issues discussed during the seminar were: Work in collaboration and Principles of welfare; Record; Evaluation and analysis; Child’s plan, Evaluation, and Strategic analysis; Change management, etc. All these principles are based on tools of collaboration, accessible to all specialists involved in the identification of solutions for common cases that come into their attention.
Referring to negative experiences of child abuse, the Scottish expert Mike Mawby said that previous researches revealed drawbacks in communication between different areas involved in the process:
“… Each time when a tragedy occurred, the investigation showed that the same problems would arise: people didn’t talk to each other. People talked, but as if in different languages, they did not understand each other; specialists in medicine used medical terms that teachers and social workers did not understand, social workers used social work terms from psychology and development that other professional did not understand. Police officers used legal and criminal investigation terminology that other specialists did not understand (…) So, knowing all these problems, the model we developed in Scotland had the goal to provide a language that specialists from all areas could use in their communication, to discuss what is happening and to describe it more efficiently. Later on we decided to go further and produce our own language that can be understood even by the children and their families. So, this is not a language used in professional environments, this is a language understood by moms and dads, a language that can be used by youth, and we hop that while people become more confident and this language becomes more accessible to them, we will come to better communicate with each other, with children and their families. And ultimately, we will provide better protection”.
The participants of the seminar showed their interest in this new approach that can be adapted to the national context and integrated into work practices with children and families:
Viorica Marţ, Consultant, Preuniversity education department, Ministry of Education:
“Doubtlessly, these indicators can be accepted or used in the educational process. I think, for example, that it would be useful to provide a training to specialists from the Psycho-Pedagogical Assistance Service, at regional levels, so that when they assess one case or another, they keep in mind these indicators. And this is indispensable for a more efficient collaboration with social assistance specialists, because we cannot collaborate separately. I think that each time a complex evaluation of child’s development is done the social assistant should be involved. And again, if the teaching staff of the multidisciplinary commissions or members of social work commissions are informed and know welfare principles, then, I think, they will be able to coordinate goals and actions in order to obtain efficient results”.
Tudor Rădeanu, Head of Social Assistance and Family Protection Department, Ungheni:
“The issue is actual in social assistance. Ungheni social assistance department makes lots of efforts to organize such trainings, because we delved deeply into capacity building and the development of quality of social work. I think it is absolutely necessary that we start to work on capacity building and improve the indicators, to successfully achieve social assistance standards”.
Silvia Tocari, Main specialist, Social Assistance and Family Protection Department, Orhei:
“These tools are very useful. Their need has long been sensed. The tools we use to evaluate families do not contain information on indicators – what are the risks, what are the protective factors – and we should start, in parallel, to train the staff and produce new tools based on welfare indicators. Until we start working with welfare indicators as work tools, we will not be able to achieve the desired outcomes. (…) Unfortunately, our medicine highlights only health-care aspects, police – only safety, social work highlights only some of the indicators. But it is important that we work with these 8 indicators – all, in collaboration – in compliance with Law No. 140, and in line with the principles of HG270. We have a legal framework, but we need work tools adapted to new welfare indicators.”