In August we hosted a three-day workshop in Haiti as part of our Transition Support Services (TSS) program. We invited social workers from across Haiti to attend. We had a lot of interest and were forced to cap the attendance at 20!
The workshop began with high-level sessions on the rights of the child and an overview of what family-based care means. These were followed by more practical application sessions about the steps involved in reunification and how to effectively provide aftercare. At the end of the trainings the social workers received a certificate of completion.
Although there were a few social workers who said they felt their orphanages were not ready to transition to family-based care, we were able to generate some leads of organizations that are interested in receiving one-on-one coaching from our TSS staff. And those who were not ready walked away with better knowledge of child protection practices.
The 20 social workers who attended work with a combined total of 1,065 children in orphanages across the country! We scheduled another workshop for November and are expecting 30 social workers to attend. We are excited to see how the TSS program has the potential to exponentially impact orphans and vulnerable children in Haiti.