The Care Reform Initiative launched in 2006 to update and enforce the Regulations and Standards for the Operation of Residential Care Setting in Ghana is a joint venture between the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) and OrphanAid Africa. These Standards are part of a reform initiative programme that involves the provision of various forms of support by OrphanAid Africa and other partners; to enhance the capacity of DSW to encourage family based care. The aim of the programme is to ensure that institutional care is used as a last resort, and that when it is used, these establishments comply with the requirements of the Children’s Acts 560 (1998) and the UN Committee of the Rights of the Child, 1990 (UNCRC) and the UN Guidelines for the Protection and Alternative Care of Children without Parental Care. It will also ensure that Children’s homes operating in the country have adequate resources to sustain their activities as credible out-of-home care and support establishments, and set out the framework by which DSW can monitor the operations of Children’s homes in Ghana
