The training manual is now available! It is the twin to Understanding the Trauma of Institutionalised Children. To support the child you adopt, which I published in September last year. That was a book written for adoptive parents caring or planning to care for a child coming from an institution. The book gave information about how institutionalisation affects brain development and the stress response system, what the effects of that are and how parents can support the child to overcome challenging behaviour and developmental delays as much as possible. This information is not only applicable to children who are adopted from institutions. It applies to all children who are moved from institutions to families. That is why, even before the ‘adoption version’ came out, I had started work on adapting the same basic content to a different audience.
Continue reading “Training Manual for Case Workers”Tag: #familybasedcare
Looking Back on 2022
The end of 2022 has already arrived. It seems like this year passed particularly fast, somehow. There was certainly no chance of boredom this year. However, unlike the two previous years, it felt more like things were starting to move forward, rather than being held back and stuck in uncertainty.
Continue reading “Looking Back on 2022”Breaking Stigma Through Exposure
Stigma is an important roadblock in the way of moving children from institutions to families. As well as to ensure that children are not separated from their families unnecessarily in the first place. There are a lot of children who are affected by stigma, including but not limited to children with disabilities, children affected by HIV, children of unwed mothers, children belonging to marginalised minorities, children on the move, children living in the street, former child soldiers, survivors of child trafficking, survivors of sexual abuse, and children who have lived in ‘orphanages’. In discussions around moving children who are stigmatised in some way from institutions to families, there is often a perception that this cannot be done, it is just not safe for the children to be moved into a community that does not accept them.
Continue reading “Breaking Stigma Through Exposure”The Fourth Year of Family-Based Solutions
And so another year has passed. It is hard to believe it is already four years since I started Family-Based Solutions (Why Family-Based Solutions then). So much has happened and so much keeps changing. While I have never found myself bored before, the past year has been a particularly busy one.
Continue reading “The Fourth Year of Family-Based Solutions”Don’t Let Boarding Schools Replace ‘Orphanages’
As more and more governments start to transition care from institutional to family-based alternative care, and donors increasingly become aware of the harm that institutionalisation causes children, the orphanage industry (running ‘orphanages’ for profit) is falling apart. Removing children from their families, putting them in institutions and calling them orphans was once so profitable, foreign donors and volunteers would be queuing to bring in money. Now, it is becoming harder and harder to convince donors to hand over their money for institutional care. So, people running residential childcare institutions are looking around for other options.
Continue reading “Don’t Let Boarding Schools Replace ‘Orphanages’”Ensuring Help Does Not Harm Ukrainian Children
It has taken me a while to feel able to write a blog about the situation of children from Ukraine during the current war. Even though from the start I felt that I wanted to. The main problem, I think, was that there are just so many aspects to the problems that the children are facing, that it is hard to know where to start. A lot of organisations and individuals have jumped into action and are doing absolutely everything they can to keep Ukrainian children as safe as possible. Unfortunately, under the current circumstances, it feels a lot like trying to carry water in a sieve. However, with many of the basics being addressed, things are starting to crystalise a bit more for me.
Continue reading “Ensuring Help Does Not Harm Ukrainian Children”The Results of the DataCare Project
The moment has finally come. Just before Christmas, the technical report and the policy brief of the DataCare Project were ready to be made public. The crown on more than a year and a half of work (not including the preparations, which I was not involved in) on a very ambitious project. It has been a real joy to have been a part of the research team that made it happen.
Continue reading “The Results of the DataCare Project”Child Marriage: Theory and Practice
Internationally there is a wide consensus that child marriage is a harmful practice for girls and that it needs to be eliminated. When you are aware of the risks and consequences to girls, this is not a hard thing to agree with. And a lot of work is being done to put an end to child marriages. In many countries where it has long been a tradition, it is no longer allowed and may even have been made a criminal offence. This all seems very sensible and a sign of progress, from a distance. Until reality comes knocking and everything becomes infinitely more complicated.
Continue reading “Child Marriage: Theory and Practice”UN Day of General Discussion: Children in Alternative Care
Last month, the UN Day of General Discussion took place. Usually, this happens every two years and it was due last year. However, with the pandemic, it got postponed to this year and was held virtually for the very first time. It had been organised by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and it had been long anticipated by people working in my field. It was considered the next step after the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.
Continue reading “UN Day of General Discussion: Children in Alternative Care”Lived Experience of Family Preservation
The impression often exists that it is easy for the experts to talk about things like the need for deinstitutionalisation, for family strengthening, for community services, for helping families take care of their children with disabilities. It is easy to talk about all of these things in theory, but what do they know about the difficulties of the daily reality of these situations. I cannot answer this question for other experts, but in my case, the answer is: quite a lot.
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