Goal:
Build the capacity of the Government of Moldova to implement a coherent social policy reform in the childcare field and decrease reliance on institutional care.

Objectives
- Support the Ministry of Health and Social Protection with the Ministry of Education in developing working models of alternative childcare and decrease the reliance on institutional care;
- Support the Government to develop the competence of staff and their managers in best practice in the field of child protection and childcare;
- Increase public awareness of the effects of institutionalisation and the effective methods of working with children at risk in the community.

Achievements:
(1) Improvement of legal framework in child protection field, improvement of secondary legislation for services implementation, improvement of services delivery standards and quality;
(2) Development of flexible financial mechanisms that would allow for the development of community-based services and delivery of targeted services, in the context of guarding the money-follows-the-child principle;
(3) Development of a system of community-based social services for children and families in difficulty, focused on gate-keeping, social rehabilitation and reintegration of children with their families in pilot regions of Cahul, Orhei, Ungheni, and the dissemination of the project in 50% of regions from Moldova;
(4) Development of the following documents: the Regulations with regard to the work of the Rayon Gate-keeping Commission (Commission for the Protection of the Child in Difficulty) as an independent and efficient system of prevention of institutionalisation, implemented in pilot regions; Foster Care Service Regulations; Family Support and Reintegration Service Regulations; and their approval by MSPFC and local councils;
(5) Assessment of residential institutions in pilot regions; development and implementation of a sample strategy for the reorganisation of local child protection system;
(6) Support and development of National Action Plans for residential care system reorganisation;
(7) Development of policy for redirection of money from residential care to family-type care;
(8) In-service training and retraining of 450 specialists within the system;
(9) Setup of National Resource Centre for the dissemination of best practice and development of the team of national trainers in the field of social care;
(10) Development of Strategy and Curriculum for national training and retraining of social care specialists, etc.

Developed services within the project:

Family Support and Reintegration and Social Integration
Foster Care
Gate-keeping System

“…Obviously, the initial terms of reference for this project were too ambitious in the political circumstances at the moment when the project was launched. Due to a lack of Government’s engagement in reforming the child protection system, two years had to pass before the President’s office became involved. If the project had not been extended for another year, this objective would not have been fulfilled. Taking this into consideration, it would probably have been better if / when the agreement for the project was signed with the EU, the Government had been fully aware of the engagement and the role it had assumed.”