At the end of June 2009, EveryChild Moldova, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Protection, Family and Child, launched a course of initial training for 450 community social workers, recently employed in the social assistance system of the RM. The goal of the trainings is to build fundamental competences of social workers who have no formal training in working with the family and the community. The training is performed by representatives of the academic environment, practitioners, and representatives of voluntary sector. The training program is interactive and includes study visits to a variety of social services. In two training centres created within the Government Academy of Public Administration in Chisinau and State University “Alecu Russo” in Balti, about 300 persons have been trained by now.

The trainings are performed within the projects “Support in delivering effective and sustainable social services in Moldova”, funded by DFID and SIDA, and “Addressing the needs of vulnerable layers of the population”, funded by the European Union.

It has to be mentioned that the establishment of the community social workers network in the Republic of Moldova was launched in 2007 and till now were employed around 1000 persons from 1350 planned.