Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the effects of the pandemic and the restrictions put in place to control the spread of COVID-19 on children. A lot of concerns are raised about the impact of increasing child poverty, lack of access to education, and reduced opportunities for socialising. Fears are expressed for the long-term effects on children’s health, development, educational achievements, mental health and lifelong potential. As one policymaker recently put it: this generation will forever be known as the COVID-generation.
Continue reading “It Is Not Just the ‘COVID-generation’”Tag: #outcomes
Diverse Outcomes After Trauma
Last month, I attended the online conference: Trauma Informed Practice Using Biopsychosocial Models to Promote Recovery organised by ICTC and IRCT. It was, once again, a very interesting and useful event, that provided much food for thought. In this blog, I want to address some of the points brought up by Matt Woolgar, one of the speakers, and next week I will write about Jane Herd’s contribution.
Continue reading “Diverse Outcomes After Trauma”Childonomics
During the IFCO seminar in London, last December, I was first introduced to the concept of Childonomics, when Jana Hainsworth, Secretary General of Eurochild, mentioned it in her presentation. The little I learned about it that day immediately caught my imagination. And as soon as I was able to find the time to dive deeper into it, I did and became even more interested.
Continue reading “Childonomics”Life Expectancy of Institutionalised Children
During one of the reflective sessions at the DI conference, in Sofia last month, one of the participants mentioned that we need to give more thought to preparing young people who are leaving care. Because, he said, it is all well and good that we take care of them for up to 18 years, but then they still have 50-60 years left to live. While I agree completely with him that more needs to be done in the area of after care for young adults who have grown up in institutions or in other forms of care, I was much more struck by another element of what he said.
Continue reading “Life Expectancy of Institutionalised Children”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”Podcast Child Trafficking
In this podcast, a look at the reality and outcome of the vulnerability to trafficking of children who grow up in institutions. Seeing the statistics is unpleasant, but finding out what happened to someone you know is a whole different story.
Please share this to help raise awareness.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:26 — 14.1MB)
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Rethinking Group Homes
For a long time, it was thought that if it was difficult to place a child with a foster family, placing him in a small group home was a suitable alternative. Group homes were seen as imitating families and where therefore expected to have a similar beneficial effect.
Over the past couple of years, experts have come back from this position, because there is too much evidence pointing in the opposite direction.
Continue reading “Rethinking Group Homes”