Mentorship Support to Improve Social Welfare Services for Children and Families

Three mentorship meetings were held at the Republic Institute for Social Protection to support the improvement of services such as day care for children with developmental disabilities, home-help service, and family counselling. These meetings followed a series of mentoring visits during which key development needs and opportunities to enhance service quality were identified.

The first meeting gathered providers of home-help service for children with developmental disabilities. Discussions focused on professional procedures, daily challenges, and good practices, as well as ways to further develop the service within available resources.

The second meeting brought together representatives of day care services. A situational analysis based on observations from the field was presented, alongside a discussion on expanding work with parents. Day care providers from Pirot and Raška shared inspiring examples of practice that encouraged their peers to further engage families.

The third meeting focused on family counselling centres and addressed how support for parents of children with developmental disabilities can be integrated into existing counselling activities. Participants exchanged experiences and explored approaches to provide more effective and sustainable family support.

The mentorship meetings were conducted as part of the “PRO – Local Governance for People and Nature” programme, jointly implemented by UNOPS, UNICEF, UNFPA, and UNEP, in cooperation with the Government of the Republic of Serbia and with financial support from the Government of Switzerland.