BY INDY MAEALASIA
LIMITED human resources, lack of capacity building are some of the challenges the Social Welfare Division and Self Pleis are currently facing when trying to tackle reported case of child abuse.
During a talkback show held yesterday at SIBC to mark the International Day of Social Work, the Ministry of Health and Medical Services’ (MHMS) Social Welfare Division Director, Linda Tupe highlighted the impact limited human resources has on their services.
“For the whole country, we only have seventeen social welfare officers, so you can imagine this number serving the whole country’s population, we need more human resource to boost our response services,” she said.
According to Tupe, the number of reported child abuse cases has increased significantly unfortunately, they cannot response effectively to all cases due to being short staffed.
However, Tupe assured that her division has tried their best and are using other service providers and social services available to tackle the reported cases.
As for Seif Ples, centre manager, Brigthlyn Beauty highlighted that the lack of capacity building has hindered social officers from dealing with victims professionally and suggested proper capacity building.
“Officers at Seif Ples usually get calls from children, girls and women and especially for children, there are existing referral pathways therefore, these officers’ need capacity building/ trainings on how to better guide victims on the process and the proper referral pathways for them,” she added.
