The day after tomorrow, I will be on my way to India again. A short visit this time, I’m only able to be there for just over three weeks. And in that time I am going to try to cram a busy schedule of trainings, meetings and presentations for two projects in different parts of the country. I am looking forward to it.
Continue reading “Heading to India, Again”Author: Florence
I am the founder of and consultant at Family-Based Solutions. I have started this website and this community, and I am the moderator. I have been involved in alternative care since 2007, having been involved up close in China, Brazil, India, Kenya and Myanmar.
Initially I ran another NGO dedicated to improving the chance of survival and the quality of life of children in institutions, over time getting more and more involved with family-based alternatives and community services. In 2018 I folded the previous NGO and founded Family-Based Solutions. You can find more information on what I do now on the other pages of this website.
The Push and the Gap in India
This year marks ten years since I first travelled to India and got involved in alternative care there. As I am about to travel to India again next week, it seems like a fitting moment to contemplate the changes in attitude and approach to alternative care that I have witnessed over that time.
Continue reading “The Push and the Gap in India”Developing a Model
Over the past 50 years, the awareness of the harm caused by institutionalising children has gradually sunken in and started spreading globally. Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand were the first to start moving away from institutional care and towards family-based alternative care. Since they were at the forefront of this movement, they had on the one hand the challenge of discovering alternatives and figuring out how to implement them properly with little precedence to go on, while on the other hand they had the advantage of being able to do so without outside pressure to get it done quickly. In the past decade or two that pressure has been rising on all countries.
Continue reading “Developing a Model”Do Not Rush Deinstitutionalisation
Even though we are all in a hurry to put an end to the institutionalisation of children, we cannot afford to rush the process of deinstitutionalisation. In a previous blog (HERE), I mentioned the dangers of time pressure on the deinstitutionalisation process at the national and international level. In today’s blog, I want to address the dangers of rushing the process at the level of the individual institution, and how hard it is to resist the temptation to give in to the push to go faster.
Continue reading “Do Not Rush Deinstitutionalisation”Childonomics
During the IFCO seminar in London, last December, I was first introduced to the concept of Childonomics, when Jana Hainsworth, Secretary General of Eurochild, mentioned it in her presentation. The little I learned about it that day immediately caught my imagination. And as soon as I was able to find the time to dive deeper into it, I did and became even more interested.
Continue reading “Childonomics”Teenagers Will Rebel
At the IFCO seminar in London, early December, Jackie Sanders of the Fostering Network made an interesting remark. She mentioned speaking to a young adult who had been in foster care, who told her that at 16 years old, she had told her social worker that she wanted a different foster family, because she could not stand her foster parents, and the social worker had said ‘okay’, and the girl had been moved. Looking back as a young adult, she realised that this was crazy, that teenagers will all at some point feel that they do not want to live with their parents (regardless of whether they are her foster or birth parents) anymore and that this should never be allowed to lead to a placement breakdown. Yet, it did.
Continue reading “Teenagers Will Rebel”Careleaver's Perspective
At the IFCO seminar in London, early last month, Billie-Jo McDowell, who is a social worker, an IFCO Youth Member, and someone who has personally experienced being in alternative care, gave a presentation to provide insights from a different perspective. Although everyone involved in setting up and running social and child protection systems does their best to ensure that children’s needs are being met and that their best interest is kept at the centre of their care, in the end they do not have the same understanding of what it is to be in alternative care as someone who has actually experienced it.
Continue reading “Careleaver's Perspective”Kinship Care Cannot Be 'Dump and Run'
Lucy Peake of Grandparent Plus gave a presentation on kinship care in the UK at the IFCO seminar in London early last month. It was striking how heartwarming and heartbreaking the situation she described was, at the same time. Heartwarming because of the large numbers of people willing to take the child of a relative or good friend into their home. And heartbreaking because of how little support they are given and the terrible situations that this can lead to.
Continue reading “Kinship Care Cannot Be 'Dump and Run'”Just Add Another One
At the IFCO seminar in London last month, Jackie Sanders, from the Fostering Network gave a presentation looking at how foster care had developed in the UK from the 1970s to now. The contrast was striking and the lessons learned are particularly important for people, like me, working on setting up foster care systems, helping them avoid the same pitfalls.
Continue reading “Just Add Another One”Deinstitutionalisation Is Still Relevant in All of Europe
When people talk about the need for deinstitutionalisation, it is usually discussed as something that needs to happen ‘over there’, in ‘less developed’ countries. This creates the impression that in Western Europe, North America, and Australia and New Zealand institutionalisation is a thing of the distant past, but that is not actually true. In some places what is happening is less easily recognisable as institutionalisation because of different terminology or other cosmetic changes, while in other places institutionalisation still continues quite blatantly.
Continue reading “Deinstitutionalisation Is Still Relevant in All of Europe”