Today is International Women’s Day, something that is celebrated more exuberantly in some countries than in others. Whether or not Women’s Day is celebrated where you are, it is important to give some thought to the position of women and to their achievements.
This is not only useful and important in general, it is also relevant with regards to the efforts to move towards family-based solutions in alternative care.
Continue reading “International Women’s Day”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.
Continue reading “DI: The Government’s Role”When you suggest deinstitutionalisation to the management of a residential childcare institution, you usually have an uphill battle. This is not surprising, because why would they want to put themselves out of existence?
Still, despite it starting out as an uphill battle, it is not a fight lost before it was started. There are actually a lot of good reasons for people running an ‘orphanage’ to choose DI, even if you disregard the ‘it is less harmful to the children’-one.
Continue reading “Why Would An Institution Choose DI?”A very long word, often shortened to DI to save ourselves the trouble, that is thrown around more and more, in various different places. A word of some importance, and therefore important to understand. What exactly do people mean when they talk about deinstitutionalisation and what is involved in the process.
In this blog I will give a brief overview and in the following blogs I will pick out some elements that are mentioned today and look at them more closely, to allow a more thorough understanding to develop.
Continue reading “What Does Deinstitutionalisation Mean?”Often children who cannot stay with their parents need an alternative for a limited time. It might be days, weeks, months or sometimes even a few years. However, after that time they may be able to go back to their own parents. That, of course, is the ideal for any child.
Unfortunately, in some cases it is clear from pretty early on, that the child will never be able to return to the care of her parents or extended family. In these cases, it is possible to organise long-term foster care for the child, something that happens in many places. However, foster care usually does not give the same feeling of permanence and security as the other option: adoption.
Continue reading “Forever Families: Adoption”Prevention of children getting separated from their parents – as discussed in the previous few blogs – drastically reduces the number of children who need alternative care solutions. However, the number of children in need of alternative care will never be zero.
So if they should not go into an institution, where should they go? That is what this blog will look at.
Continue reading “Family-Based Solutions Starts with Extended Family”As the trauma of the expensive December-month is starting to fade, this might be a good time to have a look at what causes you would like to donate to this year. People who really want to help vulnerable children, may feel thrown off kilter after hearing that donating to so-called orphanages actually does a lot of harm, despite the best intentions. This is very understandable. I really hope that this will not shake their determination to make a difference and donate to causes that would be of great help.
So in this blog I want to give an overview of the kind of things that ARE beneficial to vulnerable children and that can use backing and financial support.
Continue reading “So How DOES One Help?”As long as I have been involved in institutional childcare – whether trying to improve conditions or trying to eradicate it -, meaning twelve years now, I have been asked the question ‘How do you do it?’ It seems fitting to start the new year with an attempt at answering this.
The question can refer to different things. However, more often than not it refers to how I deal with seeing children deprived of so much, and how I deal with seeing children sick, or even with witnessing their death. I quite understand why people would think that these are the hardest things to deal with, but for me, they aren’t really.
Continue reading “‘How Do I Do It?’”As the year draws to a close, it seems almost inevitable to look back and to look forward. Because my work and life are completely entangled with children in institutions and the quest to get them out of there, this features heavily in these ponderings, even on a personal level, for me.
I invite you along with me, as I look back and look ahead. I feel the past year has been a good one, for moving children towards family-based solutions.
Continue reading “Increasing Momentum of Deinstitutionalisation”Last summer, I was having dinner with some people and one of them told me that a friend of his was running a children’s home, somewhere in Africa. He said that there was a real need for that kind of thing, to keep the children safe and well. I told him that I understood his admiration and his friend’s good intentions, but that unfortunately this was not in the best interest of the children. In about five minutes, I outlined the consequences of institutionalisation and the orphanage industry that is blooming around it and the alternatives that give children far better chances in life and are more cost-effective.
The man sat there pretty gobsmacked, as he was processing the information. Later he told me that that conversation had turned his life upside down. If you have been reading the blogs of the past four months without any prior knowledge about the effects of institutionalisation, it is likely that you are feeling much the same.
Continue reading “Becoming Aware and Becoming Involved”