Narrative Description of the Project:

The global objective of this Project is to strengthen strategy development and management capacity in the MLSA and the office of the Supervisor of Orphanages.

The main directions of this strategy are the following:

• Establishment of the position of the Supervisor of Orphanages and the redefinition of the responsibilities of the Department of Family, Women and Children of the MLSA-this was necessary to ensure a more effective involvement of the MLSA in the field of child protection and reduce the post-soviet heavy bias on administrative and legalistic considerations.
• An action plan to establish a network for child protection comprised of a National Commission for Child Protection and Marz (regional administrative subdivision) Commissions. This network should be supported by regional Social Service Centres, operating in Armenia since September 1993. Social Service Centres, in their area of responsibility, are best resources in identifying the situation of vulnerable families.
• Implementation of the Welfare Standards for childcare in childcare institutions developed in 2003 with very significant input by civil society, USAID/PADCO and UNICEF. A working group led by the Minister of LSA including all relevant GoA and civil society players was established in 2003 in order to draw, in a coherent manner, on all possible resources in the field of child protection in Armeni
• Involvement of civil society in all facets of policy development as well as in the delivery of state social programmes. In addition to the experience described above the MLSA outsourced to a local NGO, as part of a pilot exercise, the implementation of a new programme in the 2003 state budget for providing support to graduates from orphanage

The objectives of this contract are as follows:

• Provide expertise, in the form of written guidelines, to the MLSA and the Supervisor of Orphanages for the development of alternative models of childcare suited to the Armenian environment
• Advise the MLSA in the establishment of the National Commission and Marz Commissions for child protection
• Identify any other deficiencies in existing policy especially with regard to the responsibilities of the MLSA in implementation of the PRSP
• Assess the training needs in MLSA, regional Social Service Centres and local NGOs – implementers of state social programmes in child protection – with regards to implementing the new strategy for child protection.
• Identify potential bottlenecks in the existing legislative framework that may cause problems to the GoA reform agenda in the field of child protection and propose relevant solution.
• Provide recommendations and ToR for a TACIS programme to be implemented in 2005/2006