After 20 blogs laying out the explanation with the Theory of Change model for deinstitutionalisation or setting up a comprehensive child protection system, it feels like coming back after having been away for a while. For ten weeks, I have not been able to comment on current events and the work that I have been doing – except on the forum (which you can find HERE). That has not always been easy because a lot has been going on. Still, I do not regret ‘taking this time away’. I think it was important to provide the information given over the previous 20 blogs and to have posted other blogs in between would have created confusion. In any case, now the time has come to catch up again.
Despite not addressing things here as I took them on in life, all of the issues that I have been thinking, writing and advocating about, and discussing with people are still very relevant today. So in this blog, I will give an overview of what I have been working on and in the coming blogs, I will discuss different topics in some more depth.
I have continued to provide an institution in India guidance on how to keep the children safe during the pandemic, and on what their family-based care team can focus on under lockdown to be most effective. I have developed, on request, an overview of how to safely start interaction between children in institutions and the outside world, in phases, for the government of Karnataka, India. And I have been working on the two books that are in development (and come to the conclusion that one of those books needs to be turned into two). Aside from this, I have been putting my weight behind raising awareness and advocating for the need to start preparing for the post-pandemic recovery period now.
Over the past 3-4 months, most people and organisations have been in crisis mode. They have been trying to figure out how to keep their work going despite travel restrictions and lockdowns, they have been learning how to conduct meetings, training and monitoring remotely, and essentially everyone just wants to make it alive from day to day. This is completely understandable, and it is a huge challenge to make these enormous changes with no notice at all.
However, I foresee (and I am not the only one, thankfully) that if we keep going through this with our head down, focussed only on THIS moment, then the recovery period, whenever it arrives, is likely to turn into a new crisis when it comes to child protection. So I have been sending emails to various people and organisations about what I predict will be problems and how we can prepare for it. And I have had a number of conversations about this, through email or online meetings, with various peoples to put our heads together on effective approaches.
In the next blog, I will post one of the emails that has been sent to a large number for major organisations that are involved in child protection and alternative care at the national or international level. I received various positive reactions as a result.
As part of my effort to ensure preparation for post-pandemic circumstances, I have brought up the potential of bringing Childonomics to the foreground again (you can read my blog about Childonomics HERE) with some people at Eurochild. This was well received and for the past couple of months, we have been discussing how to do this most effectively. This included my co-facilitating a webinar on Childonomics together with the people who developed the methodology for Eurochild members in June (I’ll tell you more about that in a later blog).
Something else I have really appreciated were the online meetings that Eurochild organised bringing together members from countries all over Europe to share their experiences, challenges and solutions found. This has been a very valuable source of information on what has been going on on the ground in different countries, and which issues create the most risk for children’s well-being and safety.
I hope you are safe and well, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and ideas with you again over the coming weeks.
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