Mrs Ruth Addison, a Child development consultant has said that early childhood care and development issues should cut across sectors and not limited to one Ministry.
“Early childhood care and development issues is not a one
Ministry business and we should work to ensure that every Ministry, Department
and Agency implements some aspect of Ghana’s early childhood care and
development policy,”
Mrs Addison who is also the Former Director of the
Department of Children said this when she addressed participants of a workshop
to review and discuss Ghana’s Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Policy.
The participants were drawn from the various Ministries, Departments
and Agency as well as representatives of selected non-governmental
organizations, community-based organizations, Faith based organizations, the religious
bodies, some parents of children with disabilities as well as the academia.
Mrs Addison tasked participants to ensure that issues that affected
children with special needs and their families were addressed in the new
policy.
“Make a conscious effort to ensure that the needs of children
especially children with special needs are rolled into government policies…All
sectors must create desks that addresses issues of children with special needs
just like it has been done with the gender issues and do not forget about their
caregivers,” Mrs Addison reiterated.
Mr Terrence Beney, the Consultant for the project, said the
old policy did not address issues affecting children with disabilities and
their caregivers.
He therefore called for differentiated packages that
addressed the needs of children with special needs and their caregivers
Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) involves the
timely provision of a range of services that promotes the survival, growth,
development and protection of young children between the ages of zero and
eight.
Mrs Florence Ayisi Quartey, Acting Director at the
Department of Children, said the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social
Protection is revising the ECCD policy in partnership with UNICEF.
She said they are adopting a highly participatory approach
to ensure the involvement of relevant stakeholders and to develop a
comprehensive policy that addresses Ghana’s ECCD needs.
She said initial stakeholder consultations were undertaken
to solicit inputs for the policy review and series of consultations are being
carried out as part of the review process to assist in the drafting of a costed
implementation plan as well as a monitoring, evaluation and learning framework.
Participants at the workshop agreed to work towards a policy
that was inclusive and to ensure that all sectors adopted and implemented components
of the ECCD policy
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