Better Care Program

Period: March 28, 2025 – December 31, 2025
Budget: 4,144,099 MDL

Donor: Government of Sweden
I.P. Keystone Moldova is implementing the project “Better Care Program” in partnership with UNICEF, with financial support from the Government of Sweden, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Moldova.

Project Goal:
The project aims to strategically strengthen Moldova’s capacity to support the development of integrated child protection systems, with a particular focus on promoting comprehensive child care reforms to ensure that children are cared for within families and communities.

Project Objectives:

• Strengthen families: Keep them together when possible and safely reintegrate children from care back into their birth families by investing in social services, with a particular focus on family support services (trainings, workshops, group and individual mentoring and coaching, as well as direct technical assistance).
• Strengthen and diversify family-based alternative care (foster care, guardianship, and adoption) to meet the diverse and sometimes complex needs of children.

Final Beneficiaries:
Institutionalized children in residential institutions, children at risk, family members/caregivers of deinstitutionalized children, and staff from social services.

Activities:

• Development of the initial training curriculum and the module “Valuing the Social Role of the Child in Difficulty” for training members of the Child Protection Commission (CPC). Three one-day trainings will be organized for commission members from 8 districts, including the municipalities of Chișinău and Bălți. Approximately 72 CPC members will benefit from the trainings.
• Mentoring for staff from family support services (2 mentoring sessions in each district involved in the project).
• Technical support provided by the project’s deinstitutionalization specialists to multidisciplinary teams in 8 districts for the following tasks: (1) conducting child assessments, (2) assessing families in the children’s home districts, and (3) developing individual plans for deinstitutionalization and social inclusion. Support will also be provided for medical evaluations of children, if needed.
• Creation of community support groups for each deinstitutionalized child. Coordination of these groups’ activities to facilitate children’s integration into the community and implementation of individual plans.
• Provision of material support for deinstitutionalized children and their families based on identified needs (approximately 20 children).
• Review and adjustment of the framework regulation and minimum quality standards for the Community Home social service, in line with the EU Guidelines for Independent Living and the EU Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization.
• Development of 7 testimonials to promote deinstitutionalization and social inclusion of children.