Peduli Anak » Socialization of Child Social Welfare Program

Socialization of Child Social Welfare Program

27 July 2011

Peduli Anak was invited as a guest speaker at the Socialization of Child Social Welfare Program for Children in Special Protection. Peduli Anak, as one of the NGOs in charge of supervising the Child Social Welfare Program for Street Children, shares its experience with social workers from all over Indonesia about who we are, what we do, and how we deal with children issues especially children in special protection.

Mr. Muchammadun (School Coordinator), supported by Mrs. Nurdiana (Director) and Mrs. Martina (PR), delivered an engaging presentation with the social workers. He explained what child social welfare means to Peduli Anak in correlation with common social issues on Lombok island, such as early marriage, poverty, health care service and illiteracy. "In our understanding of child social welfare, Peduli Anak teaches children to understand their purpose in life, manage stress, and take opportunities to express themselves. These three aspects are the most important things that our clients, the children, need to learn. This is because their difficult backgrounds bring them tough challenges and they have to be stronger and more motivated than other children in order to be successful in life," explained Muchammadun.

During Q & A session, participants were curious to know about any special cases we deal at Peduli Anak and how Peduli Anak sustains itself as an independent organization. Mrs. Martina Natratilova (Public Relations) answered their questions with details from real-life cases and described how Peduli Anak promote its work to the world by using various media tools and also stressed the importance of maintaining good networking and relationship with partners and sponsors.

After the session with Peduli Anak, the socialization continued with presentation from the Director of Rehabilitation and Child Social Service, Mr. Harry Hikmat. He highlighted the importance oh standardization and certification of social workers in Indonesia especially those selected to work in the Child Social Welfare Program. Social workers may come from different educational backgrounds, however they must take specialization in social work. Social workers often work interdisciplinary in dealing with some cases. For example, social workers for children in special protection may cooperate with health professional to acquire tests of an abused child. The social workers for this program face the most difficult challenges due to the sensitivity of the cases that they will encounter. Unfortunately, he till receives many complaints from institutions regarding the poor performance of some social workers.

The Child Social Welfare Program starts in five provinces, including West Nusa Tenggara Barat, with currently about 170 social workers distributed nationally to help government organizations and non-governmental organizations like Peduli Anak to monitor the use of government subsidy for thousands of disadvantaged children in family care.