Approbation of the monitoring tool of the implementation of the rights of children with disabilities in a residential institution

A working group of specialists from the Research Institute of Labor of Ministry of Labor and Social Protection,  from the Institute of Advanced Studies and Retraining of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University, the Republican Scientific Practical Center for Medical Expertise and Rehabilitation and public organizations tested a part of the working version of the monitoring system of the implementation of the rights of children with disabilities on the basis of “Gorodishche house- boarding institution for children with special developmental needs”
As a part of the testing, interaction with the administration and the staff of the house-boarding institution was carried out with the aim of informing about the importance of monitoring (motivational conversation), the goals, objectives and procedure of conducting testing, preliminary results of testing (reflection).
During the testing semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of the house-boarding institution - the administration, staff interacting with the children and also directly with the children themselves.
After testing, the tools were adjusted to assess the implementation of the three rights (the right to identity, the right to a family, the right to health), including: a statement of the most successful wording of the questions used in the testing in order to adapt the wording of the relevant indicators; adjustment of wording of indicators or methods of monitoring / group of respondents for the survey (for example, in relation to a number of indicators, the age of the group of residents needs to be clarified; it is advisable to specify a number of indicators regarding general information about families of children not from educators, but from administration / social work specialist); exclusion of single indicators as not relevant / not informative.
Recommendations were also prepared on the organization of the monitoring process in order to increase its effectiveness (for example, conducting a survey of personnel directly at their workplaces; the need to obtain from the personnel of the institution a brief description of the children who are supposed to be interviewed in advance).