MANILA: Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rex Gatchalian has urged all residential-based facilities catering to children nationwide to include adoption and alternative care programs and services to their menu of agendas.
‘We are asking you to diversify and add to your existing mandates. Bibigyan lang natin ng dalawang bagong program ang mga bata (We will give the children just two new programs [adoption and alternative care programs and services] that will serve as an exit mechanism for reintegration,’ Gatchalian said during the consultation meeting with partner-stakeholders on DSWD’s two proposed implementation of the two programs at the DSWD’s office in Quezon City on Tuesday.
He emphasized to the heads of all child-caring facilities run by the DSWD, local government units, and private organizations to provide children at their centers with other opportunities as they exit the facilities.
‘It is an option that should be ready in your arsenal of interventions,’ Gatchalian said.
Gatchalian said this initiative is being undertaken in collaboration with the National Authority for Child Care (NACC), an attached agency of the DSWD.
‘The [law creating the] NACC took effect already with the whole mandate to find the children [their adoptive] families. But we are not saying that our other exit mechanisms are bad. We are just saying add two more,’ Gatchalian told partners.
He also highlighted that the consultation with the stakeholders is part of the efforts of the DSWD and NACC ‘to come up with a policy that will strengthen the adoption and alternative child care system in the country’.
He also promised that the child-caring facilities run by the DSWD, local government units, and private organizations will be assisted and capacitated to implement the programs through the DSWD Academy and Regional counterparts of NACC.
‘There are multiple avenues to capacitate yourself,’ Gatchalian said.
Under the initiative, identified facilities without existing adoption and alternative child care pro
grams will be provided with technical assistance from DSWD’s Standards Bureau (SB) to comply with the licensing and accreditation requirements, and from NACC as technical experts in establishing these programs in their facilities.
Joining the Secretary during the consultation meeting were Undersecretary for Standards and Capacity Building Group (SCBG) Denise Florence FB Bernos-Bragas, Assistant Secretary for SCBG Janet Armas, Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Attached and Supervised Agencies Ellaine Fallarcuna, SB Director Megan Therese Manahan, and SB Assistant Bureau Director Cynthia Ilano.
NACC Executive Director, Undersecretary Janella Estrada, and NACC Assistant Secretary Rowena Macalintal also participated in the discussion.
For external partners, lawyer Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana of the Association of Child Caring Agencies of the Philippines (ACCAP), ACCAP Executive Director Josephine Matol, and representatives from different clusters of Area-Based Standards (ABSNET) and other child car
ing agencies attended the meeting.
Source: Philippines News Agency
