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Developing social services accreditation in Moldova: Lumos facilitates expert guidance from Ofsted UK
15 October 2011
Our vision is a world in which all children have the opportunity to grow up in a safe and caring family environment or, where there is no alternative, in specialist placements that meet all their needs, respect their rights and ensure that they can fulfill their potential. It is absolutely essential that the community-based services where children move are of top quality and children and young people feel safe there. For us, the journey does not end with the child leaving an institution - we want to make sure that the social services overseeing these new community-based care services, are themselves accredited and regularly checked.
This summer, our Lumos Moldova team facilitated a visit to Moldova by a representative of Ofsted - the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills in the UK. The organisation is independent and impartial and inspects and regulates services which care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills. Chris Batty, Divisional Manager for Social Care at Ofsted, met with the public authorities of the Ialoveni District to discuss the development of an accreditation system for social services providers, including standards on evaluation and accreditation of these providers.
Mr Anatolie Melenciuc, Deputy Chair of the Ialoveni District, outlined the work of social services in the Republic of Moldova and the importance of developing the accreditation system to help improve the lives of children and families in Ialoveni.
The team also took Mr Batty to Gangura village, for him to experience first-hand the day-to-day work of a rural social worker in Moldova.
Larisa Ilascu, a social worker from Gangura village showed Mr Batty around a local day-care centre for children, where young people develop skills in crocheting, embroidering, tailoring, and carpentry. She explained that their social workers meet on a daily basis with members of the public who access social services, including elderly people, people with disabilities, families at risk and children with different care needs. She pointed out that one of the big challenges that social workers face is having to travel to villages that are quite distant. However, she was positive that social care provision has improved considerably and it is really encouraging to see that the current local government administration supports the implementation of more projects like this.
As multidisciplinary work is key to the smooth functioning of services and the addressing of children's needs, the visit also looked at partnering with specialists from other regions to provide specialist services, cooperation with education and health care services, working in partnership with local NGOs, case management and the approach to particularly challenging cases.
Mr Batty will be making a series of recommendations to help the Moldovan Government develop a regulatory framework on social service provision, alongside existing European standards.
