During the Immersive Simulation Lab: Family-Based Care Conference in February, one of the participants made an interesting remark, one that I feel is worth looking into more closely. He was a representative of a major NGO and said that when families were offered support in order to make family reintegration possible, there should be a time limit on the support offered.
I find this a very interesting remark, for a number of reasons. First of all, I want to make it clear that I do know where this thought comes from. Family strengthening and support offered to families, whether it is to make family reintegration possible, or to prevent separation of children from their families, should be done in a way that empowers the family. If the support given makes families feel powerless and dependent, then it can be more destructive than constructive. And so, in many cases, it does make sense to have programmes in place that help families find their feet over the course of a limit number of years and then enables them to take care of themselves.
However, my problem with a remark like this arises when we compare the support people are willing to give to a child in a family to that which they are willing to give to a child in an institution. When a poor family arrives, in desperation, at the gates of a childcare institution to hand over their four-year-old child, because they do not know of to find the food needed to raise the child, the reaction of those admitting the child is never going to be: alright, we will take the child, but you will have to come back to get her in two years and take care of things yourself from thereon. Generally speaking, the child is admitted to the institution and everyone feels it goes without saying that the child will be there until her 18th birthday. No questions asked, no consideration given. And all this at enormous expense, both to the child’s development and well-being and to the institution’s finances.
If people are completely willing to pay for the child’s upbringing – at a very high cost – up to her 18th birthday in an institution, why is there such a strong resistance against providing support allowing the child to live in her family until her 18th birthday? Particularly when this will cost far less money and have far better outcomes.
It seems to me that this is at least in part because there seems to be a general willingness to give money ‘to’ children and a general abhorrence of giving money to adults. Few people are willing to support parents, even though doing so will provide the children in their care with a far better life.
At a recent conference, someone said: parental rights = child rights. It is not possible to guarantee the child rights of vulnerable children if there isn’t a willingness to support parents to enable them to care for their children. This is a message that really needs to sink in deeper.
And yes, having said all that, support still needs to be given in a way that empowers families and does not make them more vulnerable.
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