Atoll Social Protection
Service Centres
Child and Family protection involves a lot of complexities.
It is an enormously sensitive service that needs to be provided
conscientiously with the use of trained professionals. However
the Maldives lacks trained staff in the area and in the past
these services have been centrally established in Male’. To other
Atolls, phone counseling services are being provided. Island
Child Protection Workers (ICPW’s) were trained and sensitized
on child rights and child protection (short training programs)
in islands over the years and under direct guidance from the
staff at the Ministry of Gender and Family, these ICPW’s have
been working as semi-skilled workers with great determination
in providing services and reaching out to those in need.
Following changes in structure of Ministry of Gender and Family,
a three year target has been set to decentralize its services
and to establish a social protection service centre (SPSC) in
each atoll in the Maldives, and eventually in every inhabited
island and at every ward in Male’. With assistance from UNICEF
and the British Council, 27 individuals from different atolls
have been sent to Sri Lanka, on a one year tailor made course
designed especially to fit the Maldivian context, to be trained
as Social Service Officers (SSO), expected to complete the course
by mid 2007.
Social Service Workers (SSW) that are to work along with these
SSO’s are to be trained in the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS)
in Male’ and two international consultants were hired to conduct
a needs-assessment to assist in designing the SSW course at FHS.
It is anticipated that these SSO’s will monitor and evaluate
projects related to children and women’s rights protection, manage
the Social Protection Service Centres in the atolls, assess and
supervise the work of the Social Service Workers in consultation
with the Ministry of Gender and Family and conduct continued
training for the Social Service Workers in the islands. It is
hoped that two SSO’s will be placed in each atoll.
The initial SPSC centre has been opened in S. Atoll (Addu atoll)
Hithadhoo on 17th June 2006. Several attempts are being made,
with the much valued funding and assistance from the UNICEF,
to ensure that a productive service is being set up. Accordingly
an international consultant currently based in Addu, has been
appointed in order to strengthen the services. A Child Care Coordinator
and six Resource Workers are presently carrying out Child and
Family protection work in the Addu SPSC.
Structural work has been initiated in further three atolls (Laamu,
Meemu and Thaa atoll) Social Protection Service Centres in the
year 2006 and work on seven more centres in seven atolls is expected
to commence throughout the course of the year 2007.
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