Last month my (last surviving) grandmother passed away, if she had still been alive, she would have turned 99 the day after tomorrow, a Christmas baby. I have been thinking lately that, although during my lifetime I have only known her as a potter – always working with clay, making pots and sculptures on commission, and teaching classes – in a way, I am walking in her footsteps, with the work that I am doing. It’s just that they are the footsteps she took earlier in life.
Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts”Tag: #communityservices
Plans for Why Family-Based Solutions
In the previous blog, I described how, coming up to the 1-year-aniversary of the start of Why Family-Based Solutions, I have been putting a lot of thought into what I would like the organisation to be about and what I can and want to aim to achieve. In today’s blog, I would like to share some of the conclusions that I have drawn.
Continue reading “Plans for Why Family-Based Solutions”Podcast Healthcare
In today’s podcast the wider meaning of ‘access to healthcare’ is explored. Having a doctor within travelable distance is important, but if that doctor is unable to provide the care needed, can it really be called access to healthcare? This is important because lack of access to healthcare is one of the reasons behind children being institutionalised.
The next podcast will be posted in five weeks.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:30 — 17.3MB)
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International Day of Families
Today is the International Day of Families, an important day to celebrate. Families are at the centre of everything Why Family-Based Solutions stands for. It is in families that children are almost always provided with the various conditions they need for proper brain development, proper psychological development, proper growth and proper health, conditions that are missing in institutions. In families this happens as a matter of course, without any conscious thought put into it.
Continue reading “International Day of Families”NGOs ‘Helping’ Where There Are No State-Run Institutions
In 2018 Rwanda announced that they are planning to be the first country in Africa without orphanages by 2022. A nice sentiment, and I hope they will be able to get rid of all institutions by then, but they will not get the prize. Because Comoros is way ahead of them, it does not have, and never had, any residential childcare institutions.
However, with regards to countries without childcare institutions, during my work on the report ‘Alternative Care for Children Around the Globe’ (which you can download HERE), I was struck by a troubling issue: NGOs or faith-based organisations jumping in in places where there were no residential childcare institutions run by the government, to open orphanages.
Continue reading “NGOs ‘Helping’ Where There Are No State-Run Institutions”How the Report Changed My Life
In the past two blogs I have written about what I did for the report ‘Alternative Care for Children Around the Globe’ (which you can download HERE), in this blog I want to tell you something about what the report – or rather the working on the research project that led to the report – has done for me. It is not that often that working on a project makes you change the direction of your life and work, but in this case, it really did.
Continue reading “How the Report Changed My Life”Ending Poverty Is Too Much to Ask
Poverty is a major reason for children ending up in care and especially for them ending up in institutions, as we have seen in various blogs (HERE and HERE). So combating poverty is an important part of ending institutionalisation. However, this does not mean that we have to put an end to poverty world-wide in order to prevent children from ending up in institutions.
Continue reading “Ending Poverty Is Too Much to Ask”World Autism Day
Today is World Autism Awareness Day. I consider it very important that awareness is raised about autism, both as an advocate for children with autism who are often more likely to end up in an institution, and as someone who is on the spectrum herself.
Continue reading “World Autism Day”DI: Resources
When the idea of deinstitutionalisation is first mentioned at an institution, there is usually a lot of push-back. Among the first arguments to be brought up are usually: ‘but we have all these buildings here’, and ‘what about our staff, they will all be out of work’. These are understandable concerns, but – as we shall see in this blog – not things that need to be obstacles.
Continue reading “DI: Resources”DI: The Institution’s Job
An institution deciding to move their children to family-based care – or being ordered to by their government – has a big job ahead of it. Just showing the children the door is not going to be enough and would lead to a lot of suffering and trauma among the children. It would be likely to lead to children ending up living on the street and/or being targeted for trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Making the move to family-based care needs to be responsibly handled and carefully planned. So, in this blog I will put forward some of the things that are very important to make sure of.
Continue reading “DI: The Institution’s Job”