Ashgabat, 2 August 2021: The National Red Crescent Society of Turkmenistan (NRCST) and “Yenme” public association have completed a five-day intensive online training on issues specific to three new community-based social services to be piloted by these organizations from early August in Ashgabat with UNDP small grants as part of the UN-Turkmenistan Joint Programme on community-based social services.
The new social services will be offered to people with chronic illnesses, people with disabilities and elderly people living alone to support their independent living in their communities and prevent their placement in the residential care institutions.
The online training was attended by coordinators of new social services from the NRSCT and “Yenme”. It was organized by the UNDP in Turkmenistan in partnership with the Bulgarian Institute of Social Activities and Practice (SAPI) whose experts were involved in training of the social service workforce of Turkmenistan in the framework of the Joint Programme over the last nine months.
The training focused on the social work case management, principles and quality standards, human resources management, as well as methods and techniques in planning and provision of social services.
“We learned a comprehensive approach to social services planning, provision and monitoring based on the international practice and experience” – said Guljahan Tanalova, Coordinator of the social service for people with disabilities to be piloted by “Yenme.”
The online training was preceded by the in-service training of the social service teams of NRCST and “Yenme” in their preparation for piloting of new social services. In this training, about 15 service personnel built their capacities to work with target groups and enhanced their skills and knowledge of social work based on individual needs of service users and human rights. The in-service training was among other things the requirement for allocation of the small grants from UNDP.
Other than serving as a financial support, the UNDP small grants are aimed at testing the social contracting mechanism in Turkmenistan. This procedure entails the selection of non-governmental social service providers by the government institutions through a competitive tender process to render social services to the vulnerable groups using state funds. Both above-mentioned organizations successfully went through the competitive tender process to pilot new community-based social services and completed all their preparations to start provision of new social services.
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Joint Programme on “Improving the system of social protection through the introduction of inclusive quality community-based social services”, funded by the Joint SDG Fund, is being implemented by the Partnering UN agencies, namely, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, and UNODC and Government of Turkmenistan with the view of introducing a new model of social services at the community level accompanied by relative legislative reviews and capacity building of national social service workforce. Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan is a leading national partner. Other key national partners are Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Medical Industry, and Ministry of Finance and Economy. Implementation period: 2020-2022.
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Source: UNDP office in Turkmenistan.
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