Held from March 26 to 28, 2018, the validation workshop of the Training Kit for Social Workers was held as part of the National Pilot Institute for Health Science Education in Kasavubu, DRC.

Opened by Minister of Social Affairs’ Chief of Staff, this validation workshop was intended to be a milestone in a long process that began with the collection of data from actors involved in the protection of children in six cities of the DRC including Kinshasa, Matadi, Bandundu-city, Goma, Lubumbashi and Bukavu.

The data collected earlier made it possible to hold a development workshop in September 2017 during which 11 themes were selected to constitute the substance of the training kit that was eventually submitted for validation.

The 25 participants from the various project intervention areas as well as the police, justice and social work sectors spent three days analyzing five of the six tools included in the training kit. They analyzed each tool and chapter to make the necessary changes when needed. Overall, participants felt that the content of the toolkit now allow the development of key work skills and that the objectives of the chapters have been well targeted to meet training needs.

On the third day of the workshop, the participants recognized the good quality of the kit and, consequently, proceeded to its validation, subject to the amendments and contributions introduced by a small committee composed of experts from the IBCR and the National Institute of Social Workers. 

The participants have then been informed about the future steps of the process, including the integration of comments and recommendations from the workshop, the organization of a pilot course, the training of trainers, the teaching of the first courses by certified trainers with the support of the project team, the printing of the kit’s final version and the retraining process of trainers.