Having spent some time, recently, looking at the need for individual assessment and how to go about it, it seems useful to address another step in the process of deinstitutionalisation, namely that of mapping and setting up services. In order for children to move from an institution into the community – whether this is to go live with their parents again, to be placed in a foster family or small group home, or to enter supported living – they are going to require the support of a range of services. This means that these services have to be present before the child is moved.
The kind of services that are required will vary from child to child. Information gathered during the stock and flow data gathering and during the individual assessments will give you a basis for determining what services are required, and where they need to be present to be able to support the child. Doing this analysis and making an inventory of what is needed where, is a vital part of the preparation process for deinstitutionalisation.
So, generally speaking, what kind of services are we talking about? It can be things as basic as access to education and healthcare, or more specialised like community-based rehabilitation programmes – providing things like physiotherapy or counselling services – or even highly specialised services such as services to support people who are HIV positive or micro-credit schemes to help families earn the money to take care of their own children. As I said, the range of possibly needed services is wide and varies from situation to situation. This is why an inventory needs to be made.
Once you know what services are needed to support the child, it is not necessarily the best idea to set up and run all of the needed services yourself. It is often necessary to set up and run some of the services needed, because they simply are not present at all and there is no one else willing or able to do it. However, most communities do have a range of services on offer. These may be provided by the government, by NGOs, or by community members.
So, once you have an idea of the services that you need to have in place, the sensible next step is to do another inventory, this time of the services that already exist and that ‘your’ children could make use of, or that would only need some adjustments to meet the needs of ‘your’ children. When you have an overview of what is there and where it is, it can be useful to approach the people or organisations that run these services to see whether they might be interested in forming a partnership to allow ‘your’ children to make use of their services.
At the more universal side of the services provided, generally the public simply has access to them. For example, when there is a school, generally children are allowed to attend it, without needing to come to a special arrangement. However, when the services needed are more specialised, it often is necessary to make arrangements for children to access them. As mentioned, sometimes the services as provided do not quite cover the needs that you have identified, but by making some adjustments, or building on what is already there, these needs might be met. It is far more efficient if you can accomplish this through establishing a partnership and building on what is already there, rather than having to start from scratch and to set up and run everything yourself.
There will almost always still be certain services that are lacking and that you will have to find a way to provide – or to convince someone else to provide. When this is the case, make sure you get experts involved to help you make sure that the services you provide are of adequate quality.
Moving children into the community without making sure first that the services they require are present and accessible, is going to lead to a lot of problems, and possibly harm to the children. Identification and design of services is an essential part of the deinstitutionalisation process.
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Great post.