Ace Africa - Tanzania - 2018
Child Welfare Counsellor
Children and communities who are empowered, healthy and self sufficient.
Years: 2018
Ace Africa counsellors provide a lifeline of support to children and their families in remote and rural areas of Arusha, Tanzania, where Ace implements its Community Development Programme.
Children and their families have a harsh environment in which to develop with 71% of households living below the poverty line and 41% living in absolute poverty. Knowledge on child rights is woefully lacking and 30% of children and involved in some form of manual or casual labour.
Ace Africa counsellors are all highly skilled and experienced. Each counsellor has the approved Government of Tanzania HIV and AIDS counselling certificate and/or is a qualified child welfare and social worker. The Child Welfare Counsellor is an instrumental member of the Ace team i) helping provide training and support to teachers in order that they can counsel children in schools as well as ii) providing direct counselling sessions at Ace Resource centres tackling important issues including poverty, gender based violence, sexual violence, rape and child labour. The community workers at the resource centre call Ace Counsellors whenever such a case appears, and help connect the Ace Officers with community leadership before transferring the case to superior judicial bodies and the health facility.
Supported by the ALMT, the Ace Africa Child Welfare Counsellor will conduct the following activities in school resource centres and the wider community setting:
Train teacher and students in Sexual and Reproductive Health Education (SRH)
Train teachers and students in Trauma Based Counselling (TBC)
Train teachers and students in Life Skills
Provide support to teachers and students in the development and implementation of participatory forum drama on issues surrounding child abuse
Train community child welfare mentors to provide psychosocial support to children and families in the community.
Liaise with nations, regional and district social services to establish and maintain Child Protection Teams (CPT), safe houses and drop in centres in Arusha, Moshi and Kome districts.
In partnership with Social Services, the Ministry of Education and the judiciary, facilitate the identification, reporting and resolving of cases of child abuse, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and sexual violence.
Identify safe places and people in the community for victims of abuse
Provide one to one and group counselling to traumatised children.
