Results of rehabilitation of biological families of children from orphanages

The Nitra Society of Friends of Children from Children's Homes - Smile as a Gift - deals with endangered and dysfunctional families in the field of social work. Its goal is to prevent the failure of biological families and the subsequent placement of children in orphanages. In 2005, she prepared and implemented the first pilot project aimed at rehabilitating five families of children from orphanages, in which ten children from orphanages along with their biological parents and siblings participated. The project lasted a year and started with a one-week development stay, during which we strengthened parents in their parenting skills and helped them to find and strengthen their relationship with their children anew. Together we modeled various situations in which they could test each other's reactions to load moments. We provided them with professional consultation and correction of some inappropriate reactions. At the end of the stay, we drew up a cooperation agreement with each parent, in which they undertook to fulfill certain conditions and tasks, so that in time they could get the child back into their care. After the end of the stay, we met once a month for the next eleven months and evaluated the ongoing performance of the tasks by the parents, to whom we provided social counseling in solving their social situation. At the same time, we always had other experiential activities prepared for parents aimed at supporting, developing and strengthening their parenting skills. At the same time, during the meetings, we carried out leisure activities with the children, in which their parents were also involved. The overall result of our work in five families was as follows: Two children returned to their biological family based on a court decision to cancel institutional care. In the third family, parent-child contact intensified. We found adopters for the girl from the fourth family. (The members of the fifth family refused from the beginning to work on changing their situation).

At the end of June 2006, in cooperation with the Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family in Nitra (ÚPSVaR), we started working in eighteen selected families to rehabilitate the family environment of children from orphanages. In another ten families, we cooperated in the implementation of imposed educational measures in order to prevent the placement of children in children's homes. 76 children were included in the rehabilitation process, including siblings of children placed in orphanages, as we worked with the family as a whole.

The causes of the problems of individual families were as follows:

After obtaining basic information from the ÚPSVaR in Nitra, we started to carry out active field social work in families. In the first phase, we established contact with clients through social diagnostics and presented them with the purpose of our visits and forms of assistance. Through another observation, we obtained more information about the family - we watched the mutual interactions of its members and asked them to define their problem and their idea of ​​how they want to solve their situation. Subsequently, together with the families, we developed a social work plan in which we defined the strengths and needs of the families. Representatives of individual city and municipal offices, schools and members of the extended family were also invited to cooperate in solving family problems, with whom we regularly met at joint so-called coordination meetings (about once every 2 months). We provided selected families with social counseling in solving their specific problems and actively participated in changing their situation (not by verbally appealing for a change in the clients' lifestyle, but by practical steps, such as mediating and providing jobs for clients, small financial assistance, contribution to parents for travel expenses for children to the facility, provision of an exception at the Municipal Office in Nitra also for families who had children placed in institutional care before 1. 1. 2006 and the provision of funds to those parents to whom the municipal authorities did not want to provide funds for this purpose).

In cooperation with children's homes, we provided weekend stays for children in their parents' homes, we visited children individually in children's homes and communicated with them a lot about the situation in their families, with the aim of supporting their relationship with their parents.

In our social work with parents, we tried to guide them in managing the family budget, although it was difficult, as most families had very little financial resources. That is why we have made an effort to find jobs for these groups of people who are difficult to place on the labor market (people with low education, no experience). We also worked with families to improve their internal family relationships and thus involved the extended family to help the nuclear family. In the case of children's truancy, we worked closely with primary and secondary schools to eliminate this behavior and we managed to make real big changes: in the case of two children who had 280-400 unexcused hours in the past year, they did not have a single unexcused hour recorded during our work. Out of the total number of twenty-eight families, the situation has improved in all families, of which:

• in eight families, parents began to visit their children in the orphanage (DeD) more often, emotional relationships strengthened with a positive perspective of maintaining and improving relationships in the future. Out of this, in one family, for the first time ever, a child who had been placed in DeD for a long time had contact with his parents, in another family, they contacted the children after five years;
• in three families, relatives established contacts with children in DeD;
• in four families, a proposal was submitted to cancel institutional education (four children);
• in one family, two children were entrusted to substitute personal care by grandparents;
• in four families, four children's truancy was eliminated - the year before, 280-400 families had unexcused absences;
• in six families there was an improvement in the care of children as well as an improvement in hygienic conditions;
• supervision of five children was canceled in one family;
• for all children placed in children's homes, with the exception of one case, the relationship between the children and their parents intensified and strengthened to a significant degree;
• in all families in which the hygiene of the home environment was neglected, the situation has visibly improved;
• changes also occurred in the area of ​​placing children in professional families, as three children could not return to the family environment during the given period due to the parents' lack of interest, they were placed in a professional family;
• one child went to live in a halfway house;
• one juvenile entered drug treatment.

Methods used in working with clients:

• conversation;
• observation;
• confrontation;
• methods oriented to support and encourage clients;
• monitoring behavior in the family;
• family agreement;
• modeling and role playing;
• effective communication methods.

Year 2007

The project from 2006 was very successful, and therefore in 2007 we continued to cooperate with ÚPSVaR in Nitra on the rehabilitation of the family environment of twelve families. We also developed a project aimed at helping the integration of nine juveniles and young adults returning from prison sentences and re-education facilities back into normal life. We implemented an educational-recreational stay for thirty-four children from biological and surrogate families. We also organized such a stay for fifteen children from a low-stimulating environment. We entered into cooperation with ÚPSVaR in Nové Zámky in the rehabilitation of six families. As part of the fieldwork carried out in a natural family environment, we worked directly with thirty-nine children. In two families, institutional care for two children was canceled and in one family, a preliminary measure was canceled for two children. In another family, we accompanied a teenager in returning to normal life.

Year 2008

In 2008, we cooperated with the ÚPSVaR in Nitra to rehabilitate thirteen families and seventeen children from orphanages. The result of our work in families in which all types of sociopathological phenomena were present was the cancellation of institutional care for four children.

Year 2009

In 2009, we managed to achieve further results in rehabilitation projects. We helped 13 children to be placed in substitute personal care by grandparents and close relatives, and one child returned to the biological family.

And now to specific families: 1. The case of two boys - siblings ended successfully. After the death of their father, they were placed in a children's home, their mother lived with their sister in an emergency housing facility. The mother did not have an emotional relationship with the boys mainly because of disagreements with the poor husband who raised the boys. Through field social work, we managed to contact the older brother of these boys with the question of whether he would have the conditions and interest to take the brothers under his care. At first, the brother refused such a situation. We therefore worked simultaneously with the mother to change her attitude towards boys and continued to try to influence the older brother's attitude as well. And positive results came. The brother gave the siblings the most beautiful gift for Christmas - he filed a motion in court to entrust them with substitute personal care. In early February 2010, a court hearing took place and the boys were entrusted to their brother. 2. A positive result in the social work with another family was that we prevented the removal of seven children from the biological family. The parents failed in their parental functions, and despite several months of guidance by social workers, the parents did not make significant changes in their behavior. In order to save the seven siblings, we also cooperated with the city office, as the family was threatened with eviction due to long-term non-payment of rent. We encouraged parents to seek help from their extended family. The mother's sister, the aunt of the seven children, finally decided together with her husband that they could entrust all the children to substitute personal care. Sibling bonds were preserved and the children remained in the family, they did not have to be placed in a children's home. 3. We also rescued children from being placed in an orphanage in another family. After the sudden death of their mother, we called a family group conference, where the extended family agreed to take care of the children, so the other two children could remain in the biological family - they were placed in substitute personal care for their older brother. 4. A boy from a re-education home, whose family we worked with two years ago, was also entrusted with the old mother's substitute personal care. 6. Also, another boy was entrusted to the substitute personal care of his sister. 7. And finally, another 13-year-old girl survived the first Christmas holidays in the family circle together with her parents and siblings - in December 2009, her institutional care was canceled as a result of our social work with her biological family.

Year 2010

In 2010, other, this time additional, results of our work in families, in which we worked actively as early as 2007, and later continued to cooperate with them, were still other accredited entities - children's home and ÚPSVaR. In the cases of three children, institutional care was canceled as a result of long-term work in families in which we started the initial setting for cooperation as well as the first steps towards change.

Year 2011

In 2011, through field social work, we actively accompanied three biological families, from which, with the cooperation of the biological family, we managed to return two children from the orphanage to the care of the biological mother. Until now, we cooperate with families and accompany them in solving their life difficulties.

Author: PhDr. Katarína Minarovičová, PhD.