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”Tag: #FamilyBasedSolutions
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”India Trip
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.
Continue reading “India Trip”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”World TB Day
Yesterday was World TB Day. Tuberculosis is a healthcare issue, of course, but it is also one relevant with regards to institutional care. First of all, as long as TB still goes around, it spreads like wildfire in places where children live close together, for example in so-called orphanages.
Continue reading “World TB Day”World Down’s Syndrome Day
Today is World Down’s Syndrome Day, a day to raise awareness about Down’s Syndrome and to help dispel some of the myths around it. Myths that in many places lead to children being abandoned and sometimes institutionalised.
Until recently even in so-called Western countries, and today still in many places do people have the impression that every child with Down’s syndrome is a worst-case scenario, with even doctors advising parents not to keep the child, because it is no use. This is a major misconception.
Continue reading “World Down’s Syndrome Day”DI: Preparing the Children
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.
Continue reading “DI: Preparing the Children”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”Podcast Deinstitutionalisation Obstacles
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)
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