About a year ago, the plan to start Why Family-Based Solutions was starting to unfold in my head. Though the website and the first blogs did not appear until later on in September, several weeks of thinking, planning and organising had already taken place by then.
As I was coming up to the point of living with Why Family-Based Solutions for a year, I have spent some time thinking again, this time about just what I want to accomplish with the organisation, what direction I want to take with it.
Over the past year, the most visible part of my work has been the production of blogs and podcasts, the honing of the website and the maintaining of a social media presence (you can follow me on Twitter @KoenderinkF). However, that was not what most of my time was spent on. I have attended several online courses, to increase my knowledge and awareness. And some of my time, every week, goes to consulting for a large-scale institution in the process of moving towards family-based care. In the past year, a lot of time has been spent on finishing the research for and completing the report ‘Alternative Care for Children Around the World’ (which you can find HERE). As well as taking care of the various things that came up in the aftermath of its launch in April.
So, after having thought out the basic principles of the organisation a year ago, I have mostly gone from one thing to the next, looking after the things that needed to be done or that presented themselves. With most of the work connected to the report having been taken care of at the start of summer, I found myself with the luxury of a bit more time on my hands to stop to consider exactly what I want Why Family-Based Solutions to stand for and what I want to achieve with it.
A number of possibilities have come to me and over the summer I have been trying to sort through them, and to figure out whether they interest me enough to pursue them, as well as whether it is possible in a practical sense.
Gradually things have started to become clearer to me and opportunities have presented themselves or been offered over the past couple of months. And now that the one-year mark is really approaching, I am starting to get a pretty clear idea of the direction I want to take and the things I want to develop in the coming year and hopefully beyond that. In the next blog, I will give you an overview of my decisions and plans. In the meantime, if you have suggestions as to what you feel would be a good use of my time and efforts, I would love to see your comments.
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