The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and its partners have launched the Social Welfare Information Management System (SWIMS) as well as the Social Service Directory (SSD) and the Inter-Sectoral Standard Operating Procedure (ISSOP) to improve upon the Ministry’s operations and service delivery.

The three tools were launched on Friday, June 25, 2021, in Accra as part of efforts by the ministry to strengthen collaboration with the various stakeholders at the local and national levels to efficiently support the marginalized and vulnerable.

Speaking at the launch on behalf of the sector minister, Sarah Adwoa Safo, the Chief Director of the ministry, Dr. Afisah Zakariah, indicated that the Government of Ghana expects all social welfare and community development officers to adopt and use the tools for the management of cases, family reunification, alternative care, information-sharing, incident monitoring and reporting.

She added that the tools and systems will help address multi-dimensional poverty and vulnerability, with a strong focus on promoting linkages between health, child protection, sexual and gender-based violence, and social protection services amongst others.

“It seeks to strengthen inter-sectoral collaborations and centralized and national level to ensure more efficient service delivery for the most vulnerable. They are to equip social workers and social service providers to render better quality service to vulnerable children and families.”

Dr. Zakariah disclosed that 993 staff from 100 District Assemblies have been trained on the Integrated Social Services and together, they have entered 1,910 cases from their various agencies.

The Country Representative of UNICEF, Anne-Claire Dufay in her speech said the new systems will have a positive impact on the lives of the vulnerable and less privileged in society.

She commended the Government of Ghana and other stakeholder institutions for their close collaborations in ensuring the successful implementation of the project.

“We want to promote effective, efficient management of information, case management, and referral of cases across the different sectors in Ghana and at the end of the day, we want to have a positive impact in the lives of the most vulnerable children and families in the country. We congratulate the various ministries that are involved,” she noted.

The Head of Local Government Service, Nana Ato Arthur, said he is excited that Ghana is the first country to be pioneering the latest version of the management system and that confirms the deep collaboration between UNICEF and the Government of Ghana.

He said the implementation of the systems will ensure continuity in the management of cases as social workers will be able to access the full history of cases started or worked on by other social workers.

“The data stored permits proper social planning and decision-making amongst others. Currently, 60 MMDAs have been trained to use the SWIMS. However, plans are far advance to train 40 more, to be routed into the system to make the total beneficiaries 100 MMDAs by the end of this year,” he noted.

Nana Ato Arthur said the enormous benefits of the systems make them urgently imperative for all local assemblies to adopt them and work to digitize existing cases.

The key issues the system will address include Case Management, Family Reunification & Alternative Care, Incident Monitoring and Monitoring and Reporting.

The project was supposed by DFID, USAID and UNICEF.

Source: citifmonline.com