the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Policy Development and Planning Bureau (PDPB) initiated this assessment study as a response to the lack of information on the status of implementation of devolved social welfare programs and services at the LGU level. This information is crucial in mapping out the department’s technical support and assistance to the LGUs.

The overall objectives of the study are to assess the Department’s assistance to the LGUs as well as to determine the status of the social welfare services implementation after devolution. Specifically, this assessment hopes to determine the following:

1. the status of implementation of programs and services that have been devolved to the LGUs;
2. the effectiveness of these programs and services to address social welfare and development (SWD) concerns in the locality as well as the goals of devolution;
3. the extent of influence and relevance of the department’s assistance to the LGUs for
them to achieve objectives and goals of these programs and services.

The assessment covered two areas: the assessment of the devolved SWD community programs and services to the LGUs and the assessment of the DSWD run residential and non-residential care centers as compared to the LGU run and NGO run residential and non-residential centers.

In both assessments, participatory workshops were conducted at the regional level to gather information from provincial/city and municipal social welfare and development officers (P/C/MSWDOs) and the center administrators of DSWD run, LGU run and NGO run residential and non-residential centers. In these participatory workshops, focused group interviews and surveys were conducted.

This report presents the results of the focused group discussions and the surveys conducted by the project team to the P/C/MSWDO of the LGUs and the DSWD run, LGU run and NGO run residential and non-residential centers in the six regions. This study however does not offer a comprehensive and in-depth assessment and/or evaluation of the performance of each
P/C/MSWDOs and/or centers in regions.

This study hopes to contribute to the DSWD’s initiative to know and understand the status of the delivery of devolved social welfare and development services and determine possible interventions to improve performance of both local and national agencies.