Social integration of institutionalized children
"Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Belarus" (Sept. 2005 - Sept. 2009)
According to a recent report of UNICEF, there are 32,878 orphans and children without parental care in Belarus. Over 15,000 children reside in state public institutions. About eighty percent of these children are not those whose parents have died, but children who are ‘social orphans' - children who have parents, but whose parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. Many social orphans have been placed in institutions because parental rights have been terminated due to abuse, neglect, or other family problems that put them at risk.
The Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Belarus project is aimed at reducing the number of children in state administered orphanages and boarding schools and increasing the number of children brought up with their natural families or in a family-like environment.
The project operates in five communities (Volozhin, Chausy, Kobrin, Orsha, and Zhodino).
The three main project objectives are:
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To improve access to an integrated system of community-based prevention and rehabilitation services for families as well as for institutionalized and at-risk children.
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To improve the quality of professional training available to social service providers.
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To provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education of Belarus to strengthen the national regulatory and methodological base promoting deinstitutionalization.
Main activities focus on working with families and social service professionals to maintain children in families and to place children from institutions into less restrictive environments, primarily to natural family.
Accomplishments (as of June 2008):
- 375 social service providers from 155 organizations trained. Over 65% of the trainees practice the new knowledge and skills.
- The service providers established 185 new prevention and rehabilitation services in the five target communities, such as day care and respite services for disabled children, self-support groups for their parents, integrated play groups, parenting skills enhancement programs, and support services to disabled children.
- Over 3,200 children and 1,400 families benefited from the established services.
- 43 micro-grants awarded to state services and NGOs to implement projects aimed at solving key local problems that lead to the institutionalization of orphaned and abandoned children.
- 21 state childcare intuitions supplied with furniture, equipment, and supplies to improve the quality of prevention and rehabilitation services.
- Community Advisory Boards (CABs) were created, which included representatives of local government, NGOs, parents, community members, and mass media. CABs serve as dialog platforms and coordinating bodies for the local service providers, and are effective tools for developing community needs-based solutions to most urgent problems of child and family well-being.
- A Technical Assistance Task Force was created in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. Among the task force's accomplishments was the development of procedures for addressing the situation of children living in abusive situations. This important piece of child welfare legislation can be promulgated throughout Belarus to safeguard the rights of a child and family in cases of possible abuse or neglect.
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Public awareness campaigns on alternative care development and child abuse and neglect prevention have reached over 50% of the population in the five target communities, and the number of inquires about family type care and reports about child abuse and neglect has increased four times.
