Assessing Custodians of Safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults: A case study of the STAGE Project in Ghana.

• In Event: Gendering the Work of Teachers and Education Professionals

Proposal

Background: The Strategic Approaches to Girls’ Education (STAGE) project focuses on girls in Ghana who are highly vulnerable and systematically marginalized due to factors such as illiteracy, early marriage, pregnancy, disabilities or other reasons. STAGE lowers the barriers that girls face by providing them with formal and non-formal education and specifically targets districts and communities where high levels of extreme poverty and deep-seated traditional and social norms, negatively impact women and girls. Recent cases of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment of girls and young women in Haiti, Nepal as well as in Ghana illustrate the harm that can be done when working with vulnerable groups. In order to ensure the safety and well-being of the girls and the other stakeholders, World Education Ghana has established rigorous Safeguarding policies and practices and invested in establishing mechanisms on community level to report SEAH. In line with FOCD’s Safeguarding standards, WEI is also strengthening case handling protocols to manage Safeguarding cases.

This study sought to ascertain the knowledge and attitudes that staff from local NGOs and District Social Welfare officers possess regarding Safeguarding measures established for the STAGE project.
Specifically, the study sought to respond to the following questions;
1. What motivates respondents to focus their work on girls in education?
2. How do respondents understand and value child protection policies?
3. How do respondents evaluate appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in their line of duty?

Method
Both secondary and primary sources were employed to examine the level of safeguarding knowledge among staff of 7 STAGE project implementing organizations from December 2019 to February 2020. Qualitative data collection instruments were used to elicit responses from 7 designated Safeguarding Officers and 7 Program Leads working with the implementing organisations. In-depth interviews were conducted with 7 government Social Welfare officers from each of the project implementation districts to examine the district and community level resources for escalating safeguarding concerns. In all, 21 field-level project implementation staff were interviewed in this research.

Findings:

The findings indicate that respondents from the local NGOS in particular are Motivated to work with girls due to their personal experiences in their own youth. Several staff members reported that their own negative experiences influenced their ambition to make a difference for girls in STAGE. NGO staff are recruited based on their skill set and ambition, whereas government staff comes with their skill set and also tend to automatically rise through the ranks to occupy the district social welfare officer positions.

In delivering their duties, most of the social welfare officers make efforts to Value of the importance of child protection and adult safeguarding but they are also overburdened with a variety of other tasks and have limited resources to work with. The extensive bureaucratic processes of government, coupled with the top-bottom approach in the implementation of the existing child protection policies hinder the District Welfare officers in responding timely and independently to Safeguarding concerns.
Supported by WEI Safeguarding policies as well as financial support from FOCD through STAGE, NGO Safeguarding officers can be instrumental in immediately securing the safety of survivors of abuse as well as provide support in case management. The challenge lies in Sustaining this work after program support is no longer available.

Responding to the question on their own professional Behaviour, both NGO workers as well as staff from the Department of Social Welfare demonstrated a clear understanding about how to establish safe and appropriate relationships with community members. Guided by a code of conduct, they were able to mention examples of both appropriate as well as inappropriate behaviour.
Both groups reported that community perceptions around acceptable norms, cultural practices, and the use of traditional authorities to handle Safeguarding cases was of major concern and may sometimes prevent stakeholders from effectively addressing safeguarding concerns in girls’ education

NGOs and Government stakeholders should work together in the decision making processes on girls’ education and safeguarding at the community level to diffuse negative socio-cultural practices that hinder the progressive response to beneficiary needs.

Authors

• Richard Boateng, World Education Inc.

• Susan Adu-Aryee, World Education Inc.