Part 15 of the explanation with the ToC: Once a decision has been made about where a child is going to go, that is just the start of a lengthy road to move the child out. You cannot simply tell the child that this is what has been decided and then have him or her pack his or her things and be dropped off at a new home. Even if the child is to return to his or her own family, a period of preparation is necessary.
When a child is moved from a place that is familiar to a new place, with new people (or in the case of family, people whom the child has not been in close contact with for several years) this is a very big and difficult step. A step that, if it is not handled properly, can even become traumatic for the child.
A well-organised and executed preparation stage is needed to make sure that the move to a new home does not become traumatic for the child. Getting this right, requires insight and skill, something that may need to be worked on through capacity building.
Preparation of the children needs to involve allowing them to get used to the idea that they are going to go somewhere else, and allowing them to get familiar with where they will be going and whom they are going to be living with. This is done by allowing a child to meet with the family members with whom he or she will go and stay, or the foster parents or whatever type of caregivers will take care of him or her once he or she is moved out of the institution on several occasions. This should be done in situations that allow the child and the adults to get to know each other and to enjoy themselves together in a relatively relaxed way. If the child will be placed together with other children from the institution, it is also useful to encourage those children to spend time together and to get to know each other before they move.
Aside from getting to know the people that the child will go to live with, it is also helpful if he or she can visit the place where he or she will go to live so that an image is formed of a specific place where he or she will be staying. It can be very reassuring to have seen a room with a bed waiting for his or her arrival. Also getting an idea of how the neighbourhood looks, and if there is to be a change of schools, to see the school where he or she will be going all makes the prospect less frightening to the child.
More about the preparation and placement of children will be discussed in Monday’s blog.
If you would like to read the explanation with the model from the very start, you can go HERE.
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