Data for Impact’s Digital Skills Assessment: A guide to build digital skills in the child protection workforce On September 27, 2022, Data for Impact (D4I) hosted a one-hour webinar introducing a new guide to build digital skills in the child protection workforce. Panelists included Stuardo Herrera, Child Protection Information Systems and Innovation Team Lead for D4I, Palladium; Priyanka Pathak, Samaj Studio; Camelia Gheorghe, D4I Moldova Chief of Party; Ismael Ddumba-Nyanzi, D4I Uganda Activity Lead; Lillian Mageto, D4I Rwanda Activity Lead. Government agencies and implementing partners specializing in child protection require reliable data and digital tools to address vulnerable children’s needs and support the case management decision-making process. To successfully implement such tools and use the data these generate, they need to understand the local context and conduct a realistic assessment of a country’s situation regarding infrastructure, data security, and the digital literacy of caseworkers and other stakeholders. However, there is a lack of easy-to-use tools and/or methodologies to identify and assess the various competencies that caseworkers and other child protection actors need to manage digital tools, manage devices such as computers and smartphones, or transform and exchange digital data securely. In this webinar, the D4I team explored how to assess the digital competencies of child protection staff using the recently developed “D4I Digital Skills Assessment Guide.” It covered what digital competencies are needed, how to assess them, and how to use assessment results to improve the digital skills of staff. The panelists are child protection and digital specialists working in various countries and settings. They gave their perspectives on developing digital skills of child protection staff, while considering the particularities of each local context. Watch the webinar and access the guide.
