Meeting: Social Services Monitoring and Evaluation – Progress Measurement Indicators
Second meeting for establishing an effective monitoring and evaluation system for community-based social service delivery for people with disabilities, is establishing quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure progress in implementation. The meeting was held with active participation from representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the EU Delegation in Skopje, the Institute for Social Activates, social work centers, community social service providers (public and private) and the project team of the project “Support to the modernization and deinstitutionalization of social services”.
Tatjana Todoroska, EPTISA Country Manager, endorsed the initiative “In these extremely difficult circumstances caused by the pandemic, the efforts of all parties involved are already indicating positive initial results.”
Maria Marinakou, Project Team Leader, believes that it is a historic moment for Macedonia concerning the monitoring and evaluation system of social services. “Moreover, I believe that because there is a conjunction of things that are happening at the moment. Indeed Covid 19 is a factor that has impacted all efforts in one way or another. Nevertheless, this historical opportunity for all of us is to see prospects and the potentials that this work on the monitoring and evaluation can help social services and to consolidate. There is a very strong commitment from the stakeholders.” stressed Marinakou.
According Nafi Saracini, representative of EU Delegation, the process of deinstitutionalization, of resettling the people, is a one way road. “There is no going back, we go in one direction. So, there is not much space for making big mistakes, because there is no other road. We have to be very careful and we have to be committed, all of us involved especially the people in the government, people in the municipalities, experts, and especially social work centres. Therefore, the fact that everybody who is going to work has to be committed and try to give their contribution in defining the indicators and defining all structure of monitoring it is very important part of this road” highlighted Saracini.
Mihaela Stoichici Varlan explained that the projects` intention with this type of indicators is to insure uniformity and consistency in implementation of the social services for persons with disabilities. The indicators were developed based on available standards for social services for persons with disabilities. She believes that no matter of the funding source of one service is, the same standard should be followed. “Diversity of social services is a crucial point. When we talk about quality, we also need to talk about diversity of the social services. The reform and the implementation of the case management, monitoring and evaluation system, and all other procedures should be related to the development of networks of social services. Not only networks of similar services at local level, but we should ensure diversity” emphasized Stoichici Varlan.
Aleksandra Georgievska reffered to the second category of indicators related to the results and impacts of social services set in the community for people with disabilities. For this type of indicators, the project worked on the development of indicators for the existing five services for people with disabilities in the Republic of Northern Macedonia. “We developed a table for a series of results, i.e. in this type of indicators we follow the service delivery process from start to finish” stressed Georgievska. The consultation process for establishing an effective monitoring and evaluation system for the delivery of community-based social services for persons with disabilities will continue in February 2021.
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