Dear Tamila

It was a pleasure to meet you at the UNICEF social service strengthening conference in Bucharest and to hear your excellent contributions. I look forward to hearing how Georgia's social work law implementation progresses and how UNICEF and their other government partners take up the challenges set out in the Call to Action. I am writing now on something quite different.

I am working with Oxford Policy Management on an assigment focused on the development of child welfare services in China for the Asian Development Bank and the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Chinese government. Part of the assignment is to help the Ministry to organise a study visit to two European countries to learn and exchange on child and family social work services. I proposed several options to the Ministry and they have selected Georgia and Sweden. So I am writing to find out if you can advise whom I should contact to ask about organising an official visit by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China to Georgia. The Ministry of Civil Affairs can also send an official letter requesting support for the visit and will need to receive an official invitation from the relevant ministry or department of the government of Georgia. 

It is envisaged that the study tour would aim to provide exposure (observation, discussion, learning) to participants in relation to:

1.           Social work services for children of all ages from birth up to 18 years of age: children with disabilities or chronic health conditions and their families, children and families living in poverty and social exclusion, children at risk of abuse, neglect and violence, children without adequate care or guardianship of their family. 

2.           Government and non-government (civil society) community based social work services that work with children when they are living with their parents, their wider family (such as grandparents or aunts/uncles), or with substitute families where their legal guardians are not relatives. 

3.           Social work policies and services that have demonstrated evidence of effectiveness and that are flexible in meeting a wide range of individual needs by supporting parents and families to provide adequate care for their children.

 As part of the programme I would like to arrange for them to meet with your Ministry and SSA, to visit municipal child welfare services and other SSA community services for children and families, meet with the Georgian Association of Social Workers and other NGOs and with the Parliamentary committee that is overseeing implementation of the new law on Social Work. The main focus will be on services delivered in the community and not in residential settings. Some exposure to small group homes or other residential services may however be useful to provide a full system overview. It may also be relevant to meet the Ministry of Education to talk about social workers in school settings. 

Please confirm if you are the right person to whom we should address this request and I will be happy to share more information about the participants, the background to the visit and the kind of services and social work they are interested in visiting. We are provisionally aiming for June 2019 for the visit, but obviously the actual timing will depend on the availability of the host Ministry and organisations. 

I hope you will be able to advise how best to go forward in order to begin setting up such a programme for a visit to Georgia. 

With many thanks and kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

Joanna Rogers

International senior specialist in social work for children

ADB project 'China: Policy and Social Work Services for Vulnerable Children'