Who is acting collectively? | How it works | Find out more
Children thrive when they grow up with the love and care of a family. The Child Reintegration programme seeks to reduce the number of children growing up in institutional care and to change the attitudes and policies of children’s homes and local and national actors and policy-makers. Families are also supported to be able to provide for their reintegrated child’s health, education and nutritional needs. One key resource we have developed to support this work is Better Homes for Children.
One of our most effective programmes for this has been developed by CRANE, our partner network in Uganda. You can read about the progress of this programme here (include link to blog on report when written).
The Child Reintegration programme partners with children’s homes which are set up for caring for children in a permanent residential care setting to see children placed back into families. It builds the capacity of the partnering children’s homes to operate their own reintegration projects, which should become self-sustaining.
Network staff work with Board members, senior staff, social workers and caregivers from the member organisations to help them restructure the way they provide care for children. They commit to a mutual process of learning where they are helped to design a reintegration programme for children and to establish gatekeeping policies where children are not taken into the residential home in the first place if they could instead be supported to remain within their families and with their communities.
At the same time, the network works with the governmental duty bearers to ensure that the direction in policy and implementation is to deinstitutionalise children in the country and promote family care instead.
As a Collective Action programme, the range of actors can help to create a multi-pronged holistic approach. The key response areas are:
1. Equipping Children’s Homes to develop Reintegration Programmes
Initially, the network must identify children’s homes in the network to partner with in this programme. Programme leaders will then work with the orphanages to:
- Train staff, and assist in the identification of children who are candidates for reintegration.
- Develop a gatekeeping programme, which includes criteria for the intake of children into the home.
- Initiate policies regarding exit strategies and reintegration procedures, documenting rescues, the rehabilitation and reintegration process.
- Develop follow-up programmes to ensure that children who are reintegrated have the support required to succeed in their families and communities.
2. Reintegrating Children
The networks work with the children’s homes to identify children to be reintegrated. These children are 0-14 years in age and have some family (aunt, uncle, parent, sibling, grandparent) willing for them to return home.
In order for children to return home, assessment of needs and capacity and support for the families are vital. The network activities to facilitate this include:
- Tracing families through home visits.
- Assembling child documentation.
- Child and family assessments to address the child’s needs and the family’s capacity to care for the child.
- Developing individual care plans for each child.
- Savings and loans groups amongst caregivers and carrying out livelihoods training projects such as goat or rabbit keeping and chicken rearing. Once guardians have been trained in these livelihoods, they are given animals to help them move forward with their economic plan.
- Facilitating school placements and developing support structures in schools.
- Further support for children and their families based on need. This could include food, school supplies, bedding, clothes, toiletries, and repair or construction of houses.
- Developing community support structures by making contact with key actors in the community
- Follow-up mechanisms for children and families including: parent/caregivers forums, an annual workshop, and parent support group meetings. At least 3 home visits are conducted before disengagement with the family by children’s home staff.
3. Alternative family-based care
When Families cannot be located or have passed away, we believe that where possible, alternative family based care is best for a child, rather than in institutions. In cases of widespread disaster Viva’s partner networks have actively been involved in training and equipping people to foster and adopt children who have been orphaned such as following the hurricane in the Philippines.
Casa Viva is a programme run in Costa Rica to find homes for children. A similar programme is being carried out in Guatemala and Paraguay. Viva networks in Nicaragua and Honduras are working with government homes to help safely relocate children out of homes into their families or to new families to foster or adopt.
Whilst we advocate for family-based care for children, it is vital that this process is not rushed. With hundreds of thousands of children currently living in institutions, a mass exodus towards family-based care could mean that children are re-housed without due process, potentially putting them at risk. Being Family (link) is a resource developed to explain the changing trends in global discourse and safe and sustainable process to rehouse children to ensure that they are holistically cared for in transition and beyond.
4. Advocacy on the national and local level to ensure children are living in family-based environments to the fullest extent possible
Networks facilitate monthly meetings for participating children’s homes, as well as childcare forums to provide support and feedback regarding reintegration.
The network is encouraged to form and strengthen relationships with relevant government and NGO actors. We offer advocacy workshops for children’s homes to share experiences and be more inspired to work on reintegration projects. Through national and city advocacy, other faith-based organisations are given an increased level of awareness of the importance of community-based care and child reintegration.
If you would like to find out more about our child reintegration work or to read our latest programme reports, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us on (+44) 1865 811 660 or info@viva.org
If you would like to give to this work, click here and choose the option ‘Resettling Children into Families’.
Other Useful Resources:
Guidelines On Childrens Reintegration
Faith To Action Transition Guidance
The Risk of Harm of Young Children in Institutional Care
Continuum of Care for OVC by Faith2Action
Implementing Guidelines for Alternative Care for Children
Right To Live In A Family UN Child friendly guide
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