Capacity and Gaps of Ghana's Health Sector Response to Child Abuse
Providing preventative and responsive medical and forensic services in cases of child violence, exploitation and abuse
Highlights
The Policy promotes the wellbeing of children, prevents child abuse, and protects children from harm. It assigns the health sector the responsibility among others, of providing preventative and responsive medical and forensic services in cases of child violence, exploitation, and abuse. To fulfil the assigned role in the policy, the Ghana Health Service with support from UNICEF Ghana embarked on a process to develop child protection Guidelines for use by health sector professionals.
The Guidelines are needed to assist care providers in validating and addressing health concerns of abused children and minimizing the trauma victims of child abuse may experience. As part of the processes of developing the Guidelines, a comprehensive capacity and gap analysis of the current strengths and weaknesses of the health sector in responding to child abuse was undertaken. The study generated information on the situation of health facilities and the capabilities of professionals in the prevention, handling, and management of child abuse.
