Department of Social Welfare and Community Development of the Bongo District with support from UNICEF has organized a two-day stakeholders training on The Inter-Sectoral Standard Operating Procedures (ISSOP) which was geared towards the protection of the child and family welfare.
This saw the attendance of stakeholders from the Ghana Education Service, the Police Service, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Ghana Health Service, the Judiciary, Civil Society Organizations among others.
This group was the second to be trained by the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development in the District. The first group of 30 were trained in December 2020 which was made up of stakeholders from various institutions who offer social services to children.
The training focused on the availability of institutional arrangements and roles of key duty bearers of ISSOP and the legal framework for child protection in Ghana.
According to the Head of the Department of Social Welfare And Community Development of the District and the program facilitator, John Azam Theodore, children face lots of challenges such as sexual and emotional abuse, adolescent pregnancies, child poverty among others which bar them from harnessing their ambition in life, hence the need to build stakeholders’ capacity to know the right paths in seeking for justice delivery for children when abused or addressing matters that are in their best interests at all levels.
Speaking to Dreamzfmonline.com, Mr Azam said, “This project we are implementing is known as integrated social service which is been supported by UNICEF. UNICEF supports us to carry out various activities in the area of Child protection and one of the activities that we are doing is that we are training stakeholders on inter-sectoral standard operating procedures on child protection and family welfare”.
He added, “This is a document that has been developed by UNICEF and the Government of Ghana and stakeholders. This document standardizes all the issues that have to do with case management of child protection cases in the country. We must train stakeholders for them to get used to it and use the appropriate forms, tools and guides so that we can work collaboratively so that we can give the services that children who need care and protection deserve”.
Mr Azam however said, every institution seems to be performing its role, yet in most cases, they don’t know the specific functions to perform especially concerning child protection services hence the essence of the training.
Source: dreamzfmoneline.com/James Nana Tsiquaye
