When the first World AIDS Day took place, in 1988, having HIV meant getting AIDS and dying of it, quite rapidly. It was essential to raise awareness, both to try to prevent the spread of the disease and to push the medical community into coming up with effective treatments. Today, with the rapid improvement of medication to control the HIV that leads to AIDS, and with the number of AIDS deaths on the decline in many parts of the world it may seem to some people that it is no longer very necessary to shine such a light on the issue. People who have access to Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) can live normal lives, aside from taking medication and medical check ups, of normal length. But that is not all there is to it.
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Time Pressure Is a Risk Factor
At the DI conference in Sofia at the start of the month, Jana Hainsworth of Eurochild gave a ‘lessons learned’ presentation in which she gave the EU some pointers on where they need to improve their approach to encouraging the move from institutional to family-based alternative care. In the previous blog (HERE), I discussed her point that there is a need for a shared terminology surrounding alternative care. Another one of her points – and more indirectly several of them – revolved around the power that is associated with being a distributor of money.
Continue reading “Time Pressure Is a Risk Factor”Need for Common Definitions
Jana Hainsworth, the Secretary General of Eurochild (to which I have been recently accepted as a member too), gave a presentation on the way EU involvement in promoting family-based alternative care falls short, at the Deinstitutionalisation Conference in Sofia, at the start of the month. One of the things she brought up in that presentation, was the need for common definitions for different types of alternative care. This is a very important point.
Continue reading “Need for Common Definitions”30 Years Convention on the Rights of the Child
I remember seeing the announcement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the news, shortly after my 12th birthday. I am not sure why I remember that, because at that time it did not have much of an impact on me. It was something abstract and far away. And it was wedged in between all of the big stories: Tiananmen Square had happened that summer, the Berlin wall had just come down, the Iron Curtain appeared to be vanishing and the Communist Block was breathing its final breaths. Plus, I had only just turned 12 and I lived in the Netherlands, a country where children did not have all that much to worry about or be afraid of. Yet, still, I remember.
Continue reading “30 Years Convention on the Rights of the Child”Helping Children Seek Help
One of the speakers at the DI conference, in Sofia at the start of the month, was Dr Peter Fuggle, director of clinical and service improvement at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in the UK. He talked about the Anna Freud Centre’s approach to helping children who have been institutionalised.
Continue reading “Helping Children Seek Help”Deinstitutionalisation of Childcare Conference
Last week, I attended the conference Deinstitutionalisation of Childcare: Investing in Change, in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was a very interesting exchange about how the deinstitutionalisation process in Bulgaria is going and what should be done differently, within a wider international context of deinstitutionalisation approaches.
Continue reading “Deinstitutionalisation of Childcare Conference”A Push Against Volunteering in ‘Orphanages’
On 24 October, Lumos launched a big campaign against volunteering in ‘orphanages’. They held a big event where JK Rowling explained why volunteering in institutions is not a good idea, however well-intentioned it is. The campaign aims to raise awareness, to get businesses and universities to commit to stop encouraging young people to volunteer in ‘orphanages’, and to spread knowledge about more responsible ways of volunteering. This is a wonderful and necessary undertaking. You can find more information about it on their website HERE.
Continue reading “A Push Against Volunteering in ‘Orphanages’”Knowing Your Birthday
A year ago, I wrote about why it is important for children in institutions to be allowed to celebrate their birthday (HERE). That it impacts their sense of self-worth and of identity if this is not allowed. Today, on another birthday of mine, I want to look at children who do not even have a birthday. They may not be aware of the date of their birth, or no one may be aware of it, because their birth was never registered.
Continue reading “Knowing Your Birthday”Establishing Security for the Child
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog about Sylvia Duncan’s presentation at the Trauma Informed Practice Conference in Birmingham in September, which you can find HERE. I mentioned how she pointed out the importance of not making false promises, in order to gain a child’s trust. I have realised that there is something else she mentioned that is important to share.
She spoke about how children who have not been able to form attachments when they were very young, and those whose trust has been broken to the point where they have lost any willingness to form new attachments, may be 7 or 8 years old, but in a lot of ways, emotionally, they function like babies. Because they have not had the opportunity to go through those early development stages yet, or they have regressed to before the stage where they went through that development.
Continue reading “Establishing Security for the Child”Understanding ACEs
Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the documentary ‘Resilience: the biology of stress and the science of hope.’, made in 2016. It was a very powerful experience. And it had a message that needs to be spread, so I will share some of it in this blog.
Continue reading “Understanding ACEs”