#Deinstitutionalization

Foster Care: A Foreign Concept?

Posted on April 29, 2019October 1, 2019 by Florence

When you discuss family-based care and talk about the option of foster care in a country where formal foster care is not present, the reaction you often get is: ‘Oh, but foster care is a foreign idea, it is not part of our culture and it would never work here.’ Interestingly enough this argument is used as a reason to stick to institutionalisation of children.

This is pretty ironic, because institutionalisation of children is definitely a foreign idea that was brought over by colonialists and missionaries, while when you take a closer look, foster care does not turn out to be all that foreign at all.

Filling the Gap with Emergency Foster Care

Posted on April 25, 2019October 1, 2019 by Florence

More and more people agree that institutional care is not good for children. However, there is still a belief that in some situations putting children in institutions is inevitable. A belief that while it is not good, it is still better than the alternative. This belief exists, because there is a lack of awareness of alternative options. The thought is that the only options are leaving the child in a dangerous situation or putting her in an institution.

The good news is that this is not true. There is a family-based alternative, also in emergency situations. In this blog we will look at what that is.

NGOs ‘Helping’ Where There Are No State-Run Institutions

Posted on April 22, 2019January 4, 2020 by Florence

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.

How the Report Changed My Life

Posted on April 18, 2019January 4, 2020 by Florence

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.

India Trip

Posted on April 1, 2019September 30, 2019 by Florence

As I am about to get on an airplane again, to go home tomorrow, it seems like a good moment to look back on the weeks I have spent in India and the work I have done here.

As many of you know, before I founded Why Family-Based Solutions, I ran Orphanage Projects. This trip has been an interesting juxtaposition of the work of those two. Having spent half of it on strategising for deinstitutionalisation and the other half on still improving conditions in several institutions.

DI: Resources

Posted on March 28, 2019March 12, 2019 by Florence

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.

DI: Preparing the Children

Posted on March 18, 2019September 30, 2019 by Florence

A child who is moved from an institution into a family situation without any preparation, is likely to be traumatised and this may cause a lot of very challenging behaviour. It has been shown that if children with severe intellectual disabilities, who have lived in an institution for a long time, are moved to a family without preparation, the shock can actually kill them.

So, it is essential to provide proper preparation for the children, when you are planning to move them out of an institution. This blog will look at what that entails.

DI: The Institution’s Job

Posted on March 14, 2019September 30, 2019 by Florence

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.

Podcast Deinstitutionalisation Obstacles

Posted on March 11, 2019March 30, 2024 by Florence

In today’s podcast you will hear some real-life examples of hurdles that can come up, in the early stages of the attempt to move children from institutions to family-based care. And an insight into just how high the stakes are and how important it is to make sure it is done right.

The next podcast will be posted in four weeks.

Please share this, to help spread awareness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:33 — 14.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

DI: The Government’s Role

Posted on March 4, 2019March 2, 2019 by Florence

It is possible for individual institutions to decide to start deinstitutionalisation by themselves, at the grassroots level. They can look for ways to support the families of the children in their care, so that the children can go home. They can provide training to the staff working at the institution to give them the skills to become foster parents or small group home caregivers instead, for the children who do not have a home they can go back to.

I am currently involved with an organisation in India that is working not just towards making sure all the children in their care can be moved to family situations, but to create a replicable model that can be followed by others in the country. However, to be able to put together a sustainable system of family-based alternative care, some government involvement is always necessary.