Introduction
National Standards for Residential Homes for Children (RHCs) in Ghana are in place to ensure the quality and consistency of care of children in residential care in line with international and domestic legal frameworks. The Standards are intended to guide all those responsible for planning and providing residential care services, and for making decisions on the licensing or closure of RHCs. DSW is legally mandated to inspect and monitor RHCs to ensure compliance with the Standards.
These Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the inspection and monitoring of RHCs in Ghana are intended to provide guidance to National, Regional and District DSW Officers on how to plan, conduct and report on RHC inspection and monitoring visits and how to enforce directives to either address gaps in compliance with the Standards and/or to close the RHC. In case of compliance of the national standards, the RHCs can be licensed.
The SOPs are structured as follows:
- Section 1 describes the legal requirements for licencing and closure of residential care services in Ghana.
- Section 2 presents the roles and responsibilities of National, Regional and District DSW Officer in inspections, monitoring, licencing and closure of RHCs.
- Section 3 provides information on inspection related activities, including first licence inspections and licence renewal inspections.
- Section 4 provides information on monitoring related activities.
- Annex A contains the checklist for conducting inspections.
- Annex B contains the template for reporting on inspections.
- Annex C contains application for new licence/licence renewal.
- Annex D contains the template for reporting on monitoring visits.
