19 Nov 2018

The Central District Council (CDC) has started the ball rolling towards mainstreaming psycho social support and domesticating the SADC minimum package of service for orphaned and vulnerable children.

To this end, the council convened a social workers and stakeholders’ consultative forum in Palapye on November 13 -15.

The workshop featured presentations by different partners such as the Regional Psycho Social Support Institute (REPSSI) and the University of Botswana.

Zimbabwe-based REPSSI programmes officer, Mr Matowa Mason, inducted the workshop attendants on SADC’s position regarding issues of psycho social support, the situation on the ground and available tools such as REPSSI’s journey of life.

“Psycho social support is about helping children, families and communities to improve their social and emotional wellbeing.

 It is primarily anchored on love, care and protection within most importantly, families as a starting point, then extended to the community,” Mr Mason said.

He pointed out that domestication of the SADC minimum package of service for orphaned and vulnerable children required commitment from national level down to communities.

“At national level, there is need to engage the politicians and government so as to realize more resource allocation for ministries that provide service to children,” he said.

He encouraged his audience to recognise that psycho social support was part of social welfare service that strengthened families and communities through fostering integration, collaboration and coordination of various stakeholders at all levels.

In an interview, the council’s principal social welfare officer, Ms Daisy Ikaneng, acknowledged that there were gaps in the social welfare profession particularly in relation to psycho social support.

‘We realised that there is lack of common understanding of psycho social support and even the way we offer services differs in many cases.

After this workshop, we will be more equipped with knowledge to improve service delivery and offer psycho social support holistically not just piece meal as we used to do,” Ms Ikaneng said.

Social welfare service, she explained, was a multi-stream discipline hence required multi-sectoral efforts by different stakeholders anchored on common understanding of minimum package of service for orphaned and vulnerable children and youth.

She identified shortage of resources, lack of commitment and the need for further or in-service training as some of the gaps and challenges impeding effective service delivery.

“The forum created an opportunity for strengthening professional relationships and networking, re-direct, re-emphasis and re-focus the social work profession towards care, protection and support for clients,” she said.

Among the workshop recommendations, Ms Ikaneng mentioned that they wanted government to avail resources ranging from transport and office equipment to refresher training or courses and increment of staff noting that in the district 120 social workers were serving a population of over 500 000.

Ms Ikaneng said the workshop enlightened social workers to be proactive and engage the civil society to drive their mandate of improving people’s lives.

Senior assistant council secretary with the Tonota Sub-District Council Mr Motshwariemang Matseka noted that as part of the global village, it was important to ensure that the social work profession in the country complied with both national and international development goals or visions.

He also said there was need to strengthen child protection committees in the districts, standardize operational procedures, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the programmes. ENDS