On 29 April 2010 EveryChild Georgia marked the closing ceremony of the EU funded “Support to Child Welfare Project”.  The closing conference brought together 150 stakeholders, including representatives of different child welfare organizations, Georgian government, local and international NGOs and other interested parties. The participants were given the opportunity to attend plenary sessions and participate in two workshops (six workshops, split into three simultaneous sessions) provided in parallel sets.

The event opened with a speech by the Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia (MoLHSA), Aleksandr Kvitashvili who spoke about the crucial importance of the project in the process of Child Welfare development in Georgia and thanked all parties involved in support and implementation activities.  Ms. Joanna Baskott, Team Leader of the Project presented an Overview of the Project Results and spoke about achievements under each result set by the project:

a)Secondary legislation and child welfare policy framework strengthened b) Child welfare system functions transferred to the MoLHSA and the responsible central and regional structures are delivering relevant modern statutory child care services c) Capacity at national and lower administrative levels to plan, manage, and monitor the reformed child care system is strengthened d) Capacity of the implementing bodies at lower administrative level to offer alternative child care services created and strengthened and e) Throughout the country people have a better understanding of the importance for a child of growing up in a family environment.

Following this, a presentation on Child Welfare Government Action Plan was given by the Deputy Minister of MoLHSA – Mr. David Lomidze. Achievements made in respect of Child care Standards and further steps planned to drive changes in quality of care were highlighted in presentations made by Ms. Salome Chichinadze (Chief Specialist of Child Care and Social Programme Division, MoLHSA). Ms. Salome Namicheishvili (Training Expert of EU SCWR Project) overviewed Georgian National Minimum Standards and spoke about the steps taken from piloting to implementation phase.

 The closing part of the conference was dedicated to an overview of future steps in Child Welfare Reform, where the importance of building on the achieved results was again highlighted and a special emphasis was given to continuing collaboration between different state and non-state parties in further endeavors to support children and their rights.

We thank everyone for taking part!