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Description
According to the Statistics Poland and the Supreme Audit Office (2021), about 24,000 children in Poland are staying in orphanages, Youth Centres of Sociotherapy and Youth Educational Centres. An alternative to placing children in such institutions during intensive work with their natural families is foster family. But currently in Poland, family foster care is in crisis. Fewer and fewer people are ready to become foster parents. Many existing foster families are dissolving, and children are being handed over to the above-mentioned institutions. In 2020, there were only 911 foster families in Podlaskie Province, 13 fewer than in the previous year. The reason for this situation is, among other things, the lack of reliable preparation for this function. In many cases, random people are recruited to foster families, and their training agenda includes only information on formal issues. The content conveyed often contains negative stereotypes and prejudice. In addition, there is a lack of such ways of support that would integrate natural families, children and foster families. The aim of our project is to support family foster care in the Podlaskie Province. The direct beneficiaries are 10 families in our province. We provide parenting consultations for them, create a support group, and conduct workshops for foster parents and children. As part of the project, foster families will receive help in solving parenting problems, will better understand the situation of the children and their problems, and will be supported in solving their own emotional problems. Through the exchange of experiences, parents will work together to find solutions to problems. Workshop participants will learn how to better communicate with children with emotional disorders and developmental deficits, how to solve crisis situations and how to cooperate with natural families. Children from foster families will develop their social competence, agency, confidence and self-esteem.
Summary of project results
The main goal of the project was to support family foster care, which is currently going through a crisis. In Poland 24 thousand children are brought up in orphanages, in MOS and MOW (data from the Central Statistical Office and the Supreme Audit Office from 2021). Some of them end up in institutions because of serious problems, addictions, violence and helplessness of their parents, many of them because of the consequences of poverty, "overzealousness and incompetence" of services or school failures, which are in fact the result of the failure of the education system. An alternative to placing children in institutions for the period of intensive work with the natural family are foster families. Families that will provide for the child''s basic needs without cutting him off from contact with his parents and his environment. Unfortunately, family foster care is going through a crisis in Poland. It is becoming more and more difficult to find willing foster parents, and many existing families are dissolved and their children are placed in orphanages or institutions. The very difficult situation of foster families is the result of the lack of reliable, often symbolic preparation to perform this function. Foster families rarely receive professional help in educational crises.
The following products were achieved during the program implementation:
-10 foster families (10F, 4M, 17 children) received help through:
• 240 hours of educational consultations for ROZ (average 16 hours per month)
• 96 hours of support group meetings for ROZ (12 meetings of 8 hours each)
• 64 hours of workshops for ROZ (8 workshops of 8 hours each, with the participation of two trainers)
• 112 hours of psychocorrection workshops for children with ROZ (14 workshops, 8 hours each, with the participation of one trainer and volunteers)
As part of the communication plan, the following were implemented:
- in October 2022, a subpage about the project was created on the organization''s website
- in November, e-mails were sent to aid organizations and services supporting foster families informing about the project
- posters and leaflets were distributed in the buildings of aid organizations and services supporting foster families
- individual meetings and telephone contacts were held with families supported by the Society
- two lectures were held for students of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Bialystok, attended by a total of 54 people
- information about completed activities was posted on Facebook and the website
- there was a broadcast on Polish Radio Białystok informing about the project and the forms of support proposed in it
As part of institutional development:
- 12 6-hour substantive consultations were held for the staff employed in the project (4 ROZ trainers and 2 volunteers)
- a new, improved website of our organization has been created
- Office software and Norton antivirus program were purchased for two laptops of the organization
The main results of the project are:
- training 10 foster families from the city of Białystok and neighboring communes on how to better understand children with emotional disorders and developmental deficits,
- increase in the parenting competences of ROZ - parents began to notice and boldly name their mistakes, look at their behavior and action patterns, their knowledge about the functioning of children in care and understanding of their problems and needs resulting from their history and experiences in the natural family increased,
- increased competences in running family foster care - thanks to participation in a support group and workshops, exchange of experiences and joint search for solutions to problems, foster parents'' knowledge on how to work with a difficult ward, how to build contacts with the wards'' natural families, what rights and obligations the families have has increased foster care, how to prepare children for independence, etc.,
- increase in social, task and self-service skills in ROZ children - thanks to participation in psychocorrective workshops, it was noticed that children began to establish constructive peer contacts much more easily, solve conflicts independently or with the support of an adult, try to cooperate with each other, their sense of agency and faith in themselves and their abilities, children do not get discouraged so quickly and are willing to take up new activities.
For the local community, the effect of the project is:
- increasing knowledge about the specificity of ROZ among students of Białystok universities (54 people) who will work in this area in the future.
The activities undertaken as part of the project had a direct impact on the results achieved. Knowledge of the specificity, problems and needs of the project recipients and a way of working that emphasizes partnership and empowerment allowed us to shorten the period needed to establish relationships and create an atmosphere of trust, and also significantly influenced the achievement of all results.