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Common questions

Answers to the questions we are asked most often by donors, partners and people who want to understand our work.

If your question is not answered here, email info@samatapheapkhnom.org.

Questions and answers

Does SKO run an orphanage or residential care centre?
No. SKO does the opposite: our work is to prevent children being separated from their families in the first place. We provide counselling, case management and practical support so that families under pressure can stay together. Children do better in families than in institutions, and every part of the Family Development Program is built on that principle.
Is SKO a religious organisation?
No. SKO is a local, neutral, non-sectarian, non-political, non-racial and non-profit organisation, registered with the Cambodian Ministry of Interior. Support is offered to families on the basis of need alone, with no religious or political condition attached.
What does SKO do?
SKO works with the most vulnerable families in Phnom Penh’s urban poor communities. Social workers visit families at home, help them identify their own needs and objectives, and connect them to health, education, administrative and economic services. The aim is for families to sustain the progress themselves after SKO withdraws.
Who does SKO help?
Families living in poverty in Phnom Penh’s urban poor communities, and the children and young people in them, including children at risk of separation from their families, children without birth certificates, children affected by domestic violence, children with disabilities, children affected by HIV/AIDS, and children whose parents have migrated for work.
What is the Family Development Approach?
A structured method for working with families in poverty, built on the premise that families are not short of capability but of support, information and access. Social workers visit families at home, assess the situation together, agree objectives the family sets for itself, and work through them over a series of visits.
How long does SKO work with a family?
There is no fixed length. Work begins with an initial visit and a full family assessment, followed by home visits every week or twice a month. When the family’s objectives are met the case moves to phase-out. SKO returns six months later to re-assess.
What happens after SKO stops working with a family?
SKO re-assesses every family six months after phase-out. That follow-up is the point: it is the difference between a case that was closed and a family whose situation actually held.
Why does SKO work in people’s homes rather than at a centre?
Because the obstacles are in the home. Visiting families where they live means seeing the actual conditions, and it removes the cost and time of travelling to an office, which for a family already stretched is often the reason support never starts.
How does SKO measure its results?
Cases are managed in OSCaR, the sector-standard monitoring and evaluation system used across Cambodia’s social work sector, so programme outcomes are measured rather than asserted.
How can my organisation partner with SKO?
SKO works in partnership with government ministries, NGOs and private-sector partners, and holds quarterly meetings with partners to work through shared challenges. Email info@samatapheapkhnom.org to start a conversation.