By Anna Jolly, Senior Associate, Maestral International; Lameck Kampion,Senior Program Officer for the SCP5 Malawi Reintegration Project, Catholic Relief Service; and Trophina Limbani, Principal Social Welfare Officer, Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare
Since July, Maestral’s Senior Associate Anna Jolly has been providing technical assistance to the Government of Malawi, via the National Children’s Care Reform Taskforce under the Ministry of Gender, Social Welfare, and Community Development, to conduct a national care system assessment and draft the National Children’s Care Reform Strategy.
Together, Anna and the Taskforce adapted Changing the Way We Care’s national care system assessment toolkit and led a highly participatory multisectoral self-assessment workshop with more than 30 participants in July. During the assessment, participants explored the current status, strengths, and gaps in the legal and policy framework, services, M&E, workforce, financing, and social norms and practices related to all types of care in Malawi.
The findings from the assessment workshop were then collated into a National Care System Assessment Report in August, which was then examined by the Taskforce at another workshop in the first week of September. During this workshop, the National Children’s Care Reform Taskforce reflected on the implications of the assessment findings and constructed four priority strategic pillars to underpin the National Children’s Care Reform Strategy, including:
1. Family strengthening and prevention of unnecessary child-family separation
2. Enhancing all forms of family- and community-based alternative care and adoption
3. Transforming residential care
4. System strengthening and governance
By the end of the week-long workshop, the Taskforce had generated a zero draft of the National Children’s Care Reform Strategy. The draft then underwent review via district consultations across the south, central, and north regions, and feedback is being consolidated ahead of a final technical review and formal validation process. The Government of Malawi is aiming to launch the National Children’s Care Reform Strategy 2026-2030 by the end of the year.
Anna’s support to this assignment has been funded under Catholic Relief Service’s strategic change platform, Strengthening Families – Thriving Children.