Transformation of institutions into Family Support Services – South Kazakhstan experience

1. Transformation of institutions into Family SupportServices – South Kazakhstan experience Bishkek 2008

2. Analysis of the situation in the South-Kazakhstan Oblast/Region 6542 children

3. Comparative analysis of placement of children left without parental care

4. Dysfunctional families/disadvantaged families High risk of child abandonment Teenage mothers Single mothers Families in the critical life situation Special schools Large families (with many children) Families with the income below the poverty line Boarding schools for children with offending behavior Dysfunctional families Analysis of the child placement system into institutions Children’s homes Child Homes TCVIARNS Shelters Maternity homes - abandoned newborns Abandoned children “foundlings"

5. Family Support Services The purpose of Family Support Center is to protectthe rights of children, to timelyhelp children in need of the state protectionincluding children deprived of parental care, children in a difficult life situation, as well as to their parents and foster families; realisation of the right of the child to be brought up in a family environment

6. Stages of transformation Assessment Informing and motivation Training of the personnel Family Support Center Creation of mobile field teams Mechanisms of work with the child’ own family (by consanguinity) Mechanisms of work with the adopting family Technologies of work with the risk group families Children’s Home Forming of the child-friendly environment

7. Assessment of personnel’s readiness to changes in the functions of the institution What was assessed? • Level of motivation of the personnel and their readiness to the functional changes in the facility • Level of developed and formed skills to work with families and children • Psychological-pedagogical competency of the personnel • Need in materials and programs to work with children and their families

8. Assessment of personnel’s readiness to changes in the functions of the institution What are the results of the assessment? Three areas/directions are identified for training of the personnel: • Informational and methodological • Teaching-practical • Motivating-preventive

9. Informing and motivation of the personnel of the Children’s Homes • Motivation • «Participatory system» • Minimization of resistance • Informing • Why is de-institutionalization necessary (prospects for children) • International experience

10. Training of the personnel in Children’s Homes • Trainings-seminars for the staff of the state care institutions • Transformation of functions of the institution • Work on reunion of the child with his or her biological family • Mapping and individual planning • School for foster parents. Work with the foster family • Forming of the child-friendly environment in the institution • Training of the field mobile teams • Psychological basis for the work with the family and child

11. Field mobile teams Objectives: • To study the social situation and environment of the family • To assess the causes of the child and his or her family vulnerability • To assess risks for the safety of the child Structure: social pedagogue, psychologist,lawyer Methods: observation, questioning, interviews, tests and talks Results: • Prevention of placement of 8children from disadvantaged families to Child Homes • 14children were returned to their families

12. Visit of the field mobile teams to the child’s family Picture

13. Work with the child’s family (by consanguinity) and families at risk • Identification of the family • Entry of information in the electronic files • Conclusion of an agreement with the family • Visit of the field mobile teams. Diagnostics • Filling-in of the aggregate map on the family and child • Development of an individual plan on the family and child protection • Its approval at the Concilium

14. Work with the child’s family (by consanguinity) and families at risk • Intervention (interference). Family assistance • Interaction with other bodies and services • Helping the family to come out of the critical situation, to help the family to solve problems and eliminate causes of such problems • Support to reunion of the child with his or her biological family or to prevent separation of the child from his or her family • Monitoring

15. Work with the foster family School for foster parents • 45foster parents were trained • 28children were transferred to the foster families Picture

16. Family festive occasions and events Picture

17. Foster family Picture

18. Foster family Picture

19. Family consultancy Picture

20. Information campaign Picture

21. Forming of the child-friendly environment

22. Family Support Center Unit «Support» Unit «Social Patronage» Unit «Foster Family» • Development of family forms of bringing up children • Support to the foster/ foster family Unit for children – family type facility For children-orphans and children without parental care • Preventive and rehabilitation work with the child and his or her family by blood for reunion of the child with his or her biological family • Assistance to the families and children in a difficult life situation to preserve the family for the child Day Centers For children who are in a difficult life situation Family Support Center in SKOStructure

23. Cost implications on implementation of the stage-by-stage transformation of the Child’s Home № 3 in Shimkent into the Family Support Center

24. Dynamics of costs on maintenance of the Child’ Home №3 based on the existing model (in th.USD)

25. Dynamics of costs in case of transformation of the Child’ Home №3 into the Family Support Center (in th.USD)

26. Comparative analysis of the financial costs on the existing and proposed model (in th.USD)

27. Lessons learnt The following conditions must be ensured to solve the child protection issues in the effective way: • The state program must be in place to prevent child abandonment with orientation on rendering of support to the disadvantaged/dysfunctional families • The structure of the child protection management must belong to one coordinator of all efforts and work • It is necessary to develop and introduce standards and mechanisms for an early identification of a family’s vulnerability

28. Lessons learnt • Development of preventive services to the families at the earliest stages of social risks. Child and family vulnerability must be eradicated long before the social risk situation happens. The placement in a family must be ensured first and primarily for the children of the younger age groups • Organization of works on prevention of child abandonment shall make it possible to considerably reduce the number of children in the institutional facilities through reduction of flows of new inmates to such facilities

29. Lessons learnt • Development of the institute of the Family Support Services will allow not only to create an effective system for the family and child support but it is economically beneficial for the state. Direct payments to the families are more effective than to finance the maintenance of the state institutional facilities • Cutting down of the number of the inmates of the boarding institutional facilities shall lead to reduction of the number of such institutional facilities and will make it possible to redirect the released funds to rendering of social support to the families under consideration.

30. Lessons learnt • Reprofiling of the boarding schools and homes to the Family Support Services, Day Care Centers, social hostels, family and youth resource centers will allow to solve the issue of employment of the staff of the ex-institutional facilities as well as to use the buildings in which big sums of money were invested in the past • It is necessary to think of economic alternatives for the use of the released buildings of the institutional facilities of the boarding type that were assigned for a large number of inmates and are not fit for the child homes of a family type. The alternatives could include selling of the institutional buildings or leasing them out.

31. Lessons learnt • In the course of conducting of the named above reforms there might be certain challenges faced like resistance of the personnel and administration of the boarding facilities. Such a resistance will be caused by fear to loose jobs hence it is necessary to think of undertaking the earliest measures to retrain and employ the dismissed staff of the institutional facilities • It is necessary to reform the system of the boarding facilities and orient them to create the living and educational conditions that are very close to the family environment (small groups of children of different ages so that children can live in the environment built on the family principles and etc.)

32. Thank you for your attention!