Redefining support and care for children and adolescents.
“There is no simple definition for a social worker. Is a social worker an economist, a psychologist, a sociologist, a caregiver or all of them wrapped into one?”, Mr. Kireria mused at the end of the three-day workshop for social workers and caregivers working with children and the youth. The engage seminar took place early in the year from 6th to 8th January and was a culmination of an interactive, educative and a great networking experience aimed at building social workers technical skills and foster a culture of collaboration, among caregivers working with children in Kenya and beyond its borders.
The seminar was facilitated by HEFDC at The Clarion Hotel in Nairobi’s Central Business District and hosted attendees working in a variety of caregiving professions including women empowerment, counselling and psychosocial support, advocacy for victims/survivors of GBV/SGBV, Education, youth empowerment programs among others.
The Seminar commenced with an address by Lady Justice Martha Koome, the guest speaker, who provided a well of knowledge on the position of the Kenyan Law on matters child protection. On this she stated, “The Kenyan constitution has good policies to protect the children but there are gaps,” which are being addressed in a new proposed bill. Justice Koome, challenged the caregivers as the principle implementors and enforcers of the child protection policies, to ensure they understand the policies and systems in order for them to cascade them in their spaces of influence. The policies are only as good as their implementation and before one can effectively implement a policy, they need to understand it, was the take home message.
The training covered a variety of topics, which included Mental Health Realities for Children and Youth, Children Protection – Developing a referral network for your organization, Ethics in Social Work Practice, Supporting Young Women experiencing Gender Based Violence and Creating Harm Reduction Systems for Children and Youth, among other topics. In addition to having the facilitators run the sessions, the pool of participants brought on board a wealth of knowledge and practical experiences. The seminar encouraged peer learning with practitioners sharing best practices. The final day saw the facilitation of a panel discussion on Safe Spaces which included staff from AMURT, Right to Thrive and Kutoa Project.
The attendees gained practical skills, participated hands on in developing child protection referral pathways, as well as harm reduction strategies in their organizations. One of the attendees reported, the collective process of building a referral network for cases of child abuse was a major accomplishment, as this is a monstrous task for many.
Participants engaged in song, dance and developed new professional relationships with one another, in addition to the development of technical skill sets and hands on application of the content. The end of the seminar saw attendees tasked with attrition of their newly acquired information and skills, in order to reinforce their current practice. To quote Lady Justice Koome, ‘Social work is a lot of work but doable.’
Special thanks to HEFDC for facilitating the seminar, to The Clarion Hotel for hosting the seminar and providing a location with great ambience, to the facilitators Mwari Muthaura, Nafula Wafula, Edith Muluhya, Valerie Akinyi and Nkirote Muriithi for delivering interesting and engaging sessions, the attendees for making the seminar informative, engaging and fun-filled and to our guest speaker Judge Martha Koome for gracing the seminar.
