Children First software: Zambia, Uganda and beyond

    by | Aug 30, 2018 | 0 comments

    The Journey Continues… 

    Something spectacular happened at the African Summit… 5 countries were trained and created implementation plans with the intent to use Children First software.  We continue to work together to move those plans forward, believing in a not-so-distant future where every child grows up in a family.  Teamwork will make the dream work!

    Following the successful African Summit in Zambia, the BEB Delegation travelled to Kampala, Uganda to meet with the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development (MGLSD) and key partners, including UNICEF, MEASURE, USAID and the CDC.

    We shared the vision of Children First software, providing demonstrations, answering questions and talking through how the software can work in various real-world scenarios.  This is one of the most important aspects of our country visits:  listening to the questions and feedback, learning more about the specific challenges in each country, so that we can continue to improve the software to meet these needs.  

    We collaborated with the Ministry and key stakeholders to define a pilot plan to use the software in 5 children’s homes during the month of September.  Following this pilot, an implementation plan will be created to expand the software to 70 licensed child care facilities by the middle of 2019.  Ministry participants and key stakeholders shared their enthusiasm for the initiative, believing that Children First Software will meet their needs and exceed their expectations.

    Another highlight of our trip was a visit to The Naguru Reception Center.  The staff generously shared their experiences and we discussed how the Children First software could be used to more efficiently identify children and manage their permanency plans. We learned the story of the center, which now houses over twice the original capacity, and in the middle of the night will receive sometimes 100 children at a moment’s notice. When a child comes in, they manually search their records for any previous account of the child, binder after binder, using the date the child was last in the center, trying to locate the name that the child has told them.

    This visit and insight provided by the staff will assist us in further enhancing the software to meet the needs of not only the facilities in Uganda, but in other countries around the world.

    We are grateful for the warm reception and hospitality shown to us by our Ugandan friends.  We are honored that they have selected Both Ends Believing and Children First software as their solution to provide these key indicators.  Together, we believe.