On March 31st, the Taroudannt Family Tribunal hosted a productive planning meeting to discuss child abuse case detection in Taroudannt Province. Convened by the tribunal’s Cellule pour la Mise en Charge des Femmes et Enfants Victimes d’Abus, headed by the Family court Prosecutor, the meeting included representatives from all statutory services and non-governmental organizations involved in child protection in the area, including Education, Health, Police, Entraide National, local lawyers, and several nonprofit associations.
Short presentations by the Prosecutor, the Cellule’s social workers, FAPE’s Abdellah Soussi, and MCT’s own Dr. Hands presented the importance of effective and timely case detection. Dr. Hands especially reiterated the importance of a clear procedure, and the training and buy-in of all actors involved; he also warned of the danger of improving detection without also preparing viable responses for child protection cases.
The presentations led to valuable discussion and comments from the participants; the meeting signals the beginning of a series of upcoming planning workshops to prepare a training scheme and further codification of local child protection case detection and evaluation procedures.