The Women and Child Development (WCD) department, with technical support from the UNICEF, recently organised in the State capital a two-day training programme for developing a pool of master trainers who could enhance the capacity of the department’s child protection workforce under the Mission Vatsalya programme.
The training, held on Monday and Tuesday, was held for 30 child protection and child development staff of the department selected after open applications were called for from the department’s permanent employees with necessary qualifications and experience.
The training, the first of many, covered child protection principles, laws, policies, case management, counselling techniques and so on.
These master trainers will play an important role in passing on knowledge, skills, and best practices to the child protection functionaries so that they can effectively identify, prevent, and respond to child protection issues, further strengthening the State’s child protection system.
Besides improving the capabilities of the staff in addressing child protection issues, this sustainable pool of master trainers will establish uniform training standards and methodologies to ensure consistency and quality in child protection training programmes. They will also provide inputs for developing training modules, resource materials, and teaching aids.
The master trainers will not only assess the child protection staff who train under them, but also conduct a post-training evaluation of their performance in the field to ascertain how much the staff have improved and to what extent have they been able to apply what they learnt during the training.
Aneesha V.L., legal-cum-probation officer, Thiruvananthapuram, one of the participants in the master trainers’ training, said it was commendable that the UNICEF understood the importance of training the staff by those not only well-versed with the subject but also familiar with the system.
In a nutshell, the two-day session focussed on what should be the qualities of a master trainer. The workshop was an enriching experience, especially since it helped identify one’s negatives and turn them into positives, she said.
