Community Services to Vulnerable Groups

The project targets "social orphans," children whose parents are living but unable to provide proper care, or children of parents who have been denied parental rights. The project's activities focus on working with families and social service professionals to maintain and reintegrate children within their original family units. The project has three main objectives: improve access to and further develop an integrated system of community-based prevention and services for families with institutionalized and at-risk children; improve the quality of training and education available to social service providers; and provide technical assistance to social service providers through policy development, methodology consultations, and advocacy efforts. The project has made significant progress in achieving these objectives, particularly in the development of the Family-Centered Approach, which aims to foster a cultural environment conducive to family-based care. The Family-Centered Approach has been implemented in 68 communities across Belarus, with 42 communities continuing child protection system reforms and having multidisciplinary teams trained by alumni of ChildFund's training program. The project has also facilitated the development of informal child protection mechanisms, including the Family Group Conference (FGC) methodology, which helps to mobilize family and community resources to protect children from abuse and neglect. In addition, the project has made significant progress in improving the quality of training and education available for social service providers. The group of university faculty trained by ChildFund in the previous quarter has started teaching courses on family-centered approach to their students, and ChildFund provided regular follow-up support on course implementation. The project has also trained a new generation of national team of master trainers, who will train new cohorts of trainers in their respective communities to ensure sustainability of project interventions. The project has achieved several key outputs, including 1,232 parents and 226 children accessing community-based prevention and rehabilitation services, 637 child protection specialists and local authorities participating in capacity building events, and 235 geographic locations being covered by project interventions. The project has also incorporated child protection programs into the regular curriculum of five out of seven country Re-training Institutes. Staff turnover continues to be a challenge for the project, with 70% of staff turnover reported in Minsk oblast. To overcome this challenge, the emphasis of ChildFund's interventions is placed on the capacity building of Re-training Institutes, Universities, and Resource Centers. The project has also made significant progress in improving the quality of training and education available for social service providers, and has developed a new generation of national team of master trainers to ensure sustainability of project interventions.