organizations. The aim of these partnerships is to mitigate the one-off approach to welfare support and to encourage more permanent and professional services that provide on-going, holistic services to families and children (Child Welfare policy). 75. In addition, the success of many of the child rights-based laws and programmes, especially those which introduce practices which are different to, or which outlaw traditional, customary, social, cultural or religious practices, depend on advocacy and leadership by credible and authoritative role players at a community level. Traditional and religious leaders as well as local women and youth leaders and community-based organizations enjoy strong grassroots support and are key role players which often act in partnership with the GoSL to advocate for, and mobilise communities and families to fulfil their legislated responsibilities to children. 76. Similarly, NGOs, community members and parents play a key role in supplementing incomplete monitoring and information collection and management systems. They support the GoSL to monitor implementation and quality of services at a decentralised level through observation and reporting to national government when problems of implementation occur. For example, NGOs will alert the MoHS of health service gaps, shortages and stock outs. The GoSL appreciates this support and has sought to formally harness it in the development of responsive outreach programmes aimed filling service delivery gaps, especially in hard-to-reach communities. For example, the MoHS’s Maternal and Child Health Weeks are preceded by intensive engagement with local NGOs and community structures to identify areas with high levels of need and poor access to facility-based services and areas are then appropriately targeted to improve coverage of essential health services such as immunization and Vitamin A supplementation. The new Child Welfare Policy expressly recognizes the importance of children’s views on matters will be encouraged to participate in a range of processes and monitoring activities linked to implementation of the policy (Government of Sierra Leone, 2013 (Draft)). 77. The Government has, through the MSWGCA and its CPCom partners, actively engaged children at all levels in promoting and protecting their rights and welfare. As described in more detail later in the report under the heading of the rights to freedom of expression and to be heard and participate in matters affecting children, the MSWGCA launched a Children’s Forum Network (CFN) on the Day of the African Child (16 June) in 2001. The Network has an administrative wing and a “Children’s parliament” at every regional office designed to manage, coordinate, debate, organize and advance, through sensitization and advocacy, the rights and welfare of children. 78. With the support from the MSWGCA and its CPCom partners, the CFN has facilitated children’s involvement in the implementation and monitoring of rights protected by the ACRWC. For example, it has submitted children’s reports to the United Nations on steps taken towards fulfilment of the State’s obligations under the CRC; it has monitored child rights violations in schools and neighborhoods and submitted findings to the MSWGCA; it participated in celebrating the International Day of Peace on several occasions and on 16 June 2003, made submissions to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemning violence against children during the civil conflict and recommending preventive and rehabilitative measures. Children also served as witnesses and statement-takers during certain sessions of the TRC hearings. The CFN also sent a delegation to the ECOWAS Peer Review meeting in 28  Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone Initial Report on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 2002-2014