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”Tag: #Deinstitutionalization
Agreement on the Need to Get Rid of 'Orphanages'
18 December 2019 was a momentous day for anyone involved in ending institutional care. It was the day that all 193 member states of the UN General Assembly adopted a unique Resolution on the Rights of the Child. This is the first such resolution that addresses the subject of children without parental care, including those in alternative care. And it uses unusually strong language when discussing the risks that this group of children are exposed to.
Continue reading “Agreement on the Need to Get Rid of 'Orphanages'”Involving Parents
At the DI conference in Sofia, last month, Professor Andy Bilson warned people who are involved in social work and alternative care that we need to stop seeing parents as ‘the problem’ and start making them part of the solution. And he made a very strong case for this.
Continue reading “Involving Parents”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”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”The New Online Alternative Childcare Community
The moment has arrived. As I mentioned already before the summer and at the start of the month, part of Why Family-Based Solutions’ plan is to provide a platform where people who are involved in alternative care, in transformation of care and in child protection, from all over the world, can come together and exchange knowledge, experiences and ideas. That platform is now available on this website: www.familybasedsolutions.org/community/
Continue reading “The New Online Alternative Childcare Community”Busting Stigmas with Awareness
When you suggest that it might be possible to move towards family-based care by reuniting children with their families or by finding foster families for them, it is not uncommon to be told that this is not possible with ‘those’ children. Or sometimes, people will tell you that they have tried to convince families to take back their children or have tried to recruit foster families, and no one was willing. In a way, these nay-sayers are right, because it is not that easy, but it is possible.
Continue reading “Busting Stigmas with Awareness”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”What’s in a Word?
A few weeks ago, an interesting discussion took place on a forum I took part in. I think it is worth sharing some of what was discussed in this blog. The discussion was about the influence of the language used when talking about moving towards family-based care. This influence turned out to be greater than one might expect.
Continue reading “What’s in a Word?”