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INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR CHILD WELFARE

At last year’s WorldForum in Tallinn, Estonia, and one year earlier in Buenos Aries, Argentina, delegates to our General Assembly identified membership recruitment, retention and services as the key priority and challenge facing the IFCW. Your Executive Committee clearly heard that message and on behalf of them, I am pleased to report that there has been considerable activity and progress on all fronts with this issue over the past 12 months. However, before going into that detail I just wanted to reflect upon some of the key issues and realities for IFCW.

As a membership based, international organization which for the past 17 years has dedicated itself to fostering cooperation and information exchange in the field of child welfare, many hands have helped. To do its work, IFCW has always relied on the talents and resources of its membership. A situation that is as relevant today as it was in the beginning when our initial by laws and letters patent were developed by a small group of child welfare leaders from around the world at the founding meeting in Haikko, Finland in 1989. As Mauri Upanne from Finland, Roalndo Quiros from Costa Rica and Alan Davis from the USA can attest, it was a team effort from the outset and a clear expression of a commitment to a very important cause.

With modest dues to support its work throughout the years, IFCW has no ‘built in’ staff capacity or infrastructure. Rather, it relies on the talent, commitment, goodwill and resources of its executive committee and broader membership to get the job done. With that in mind, I want to pause at this point and acknowledge the outstanding leadership and contribution that a number of our members has provided:
Case in point, Alan Davis of the National Council on Child Abuse and Family Violence who has hosted, supported, developed and maintained the website for IFCW on a voluntary basis.

Similarly, Peter Hesse of…….. has represented IFCW in Geneva while Elba Montalvo of the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families has represented the IFCW at various committees and conferences at the United Nations in New York City.

Sharon Osborne of Children’s Home Society of Washington has proved yoeman’s service as our treasurer par excellence, and Catriona Williams of Children in Wales has provided a critical link to Europe and ongoing support as our Secretary.

Of great significance over the past year is the contribution that Mauri Upanne and Maarit Kikkuko from the Central Union of Child Welfare out of Finland have made in stepping forward to take the lead responsibility for surveying our membership on key issues and challenges and seeking their advices. That information, which was collected and analyzed by staff in Finland has been invaluable in informing our current situation and future strategic directions.

85 members were surveyed through a combination of email and hard mail and in the end we received a response from 37% of those questioned which is not an overwhelming but decent response rate. So what did you tell us?

In response to the questions for organizations as to why they became members of IFCW in the first place…. The fact that members work with and represent all children factored most prominently…. This was followed by IFCW’s promotion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, IFCW’s sponsorship of the annual WorldForum and its consultative status with the United Nations were major reasons for belonging.

When asked to evaluate the IFCW membership benefits, the most important were determined to be: the networking and professional relationship building; exchange of best practice and access to CEO’s and organizations worldwide; liaison with the UN and an opportunity to participate in global advocacy were most valued.

We asked our members what their three top priorities were going into the future and you identified networking and professional relationship building and exchange of information and best practice as the most important factors. Our annual WorldForum was seen as the most valuable membership product, followed by some of our communications and our website in particular.

With the aforementioned information in hand, your executive committee carefully considered the current environment and following extensive discussion and debate arrived at 2 key strategic directions that we would like to bring to the General Assembly.

Member Partnerships. The 1st relates to a new membership initiative that would see the IFCW facilitating membership matches between those who practice and provide service in developing countries with those who do the same or similar things in developed countries. We believe that such arrangements would constitute a tangible and unique benefit to belonging to IFCW. We foresee that these member partnerships would provide the direct catalyst for a more immediate and practical exchange of information, research, knowledge, policy and best practice through relationship building, employee exchange and other creative opportunities like joint fundraising and numerous and limited only by the creativity of its participants.

Web Development: Turning to our second strategic priority, website revitalization and development are critical. Communicating at a global level has changed dramatically since IFCW began in 1989. The executive committee proposed to invest in upgrading and expanding our website to create more links and a chat room capacity for members through which requests, information, knowledge and resources can be shared on an immediate basis – IFCW would provide the engine.

So in addition to our annual WorldForum, our presence at the United Nations in both Geneva and New York, we would see the new member partnership and expanding our global web presence as the membership strategy that will best serve and support our members through the next decade. Marketing and promoting those 4 key membership benefits would become the primary focus for the IFCW, and in doing so as we have done since the beginning, we would rely upon the talent, skill and commitment of our members.