The demand for training in Belarus continues and the training team increases. Seven years ago the overcrowding in the institutions was causing grave concern.
The training has helped to reduce the number of children living in the large institutions to a level that 5 institutions in Belarus have closed, the number of children being supported in their own families is on the increase and the number of foster carers continues to increase, giving children their right to be brought up as part of a family.

Within 10 minutes of their arrival, the children were responding to the games and activities introduced by Denise and Keith. The carers took a little longer but they soon became involved and by the end of the week were asking for a written programme they could use with the children. The carers are going to need an ongoing supply of paint, paper, games, construction toys and craft materials in order to carry on Keith and Denise’s good work. Their impact was obvious when I visited on the last day and saw the children’s work on the walls and the smiles on the faces of both children and staff. It is hoped to bring 2 of their most responsive staff over to the UK on an educational visit, which will give them further ideas and help them understand that play can be part of the children’s treatment.

David Loveday-Syms, Clinical Psychologist from the Harrogate Child and Adolescent Mental Health Team also visited Gomel in October, visiting the Children’s Unit at the Psychiatric Hospital and The Psychology Faculty of the Gomel State University. The Dean of the Psychology Faculty hopes to strengthen links with us. Several of their lecturers have been on the training we provide and the content is now part of the curriculum. We are hoping to forge links between the faculty and Leeds University’s Psychology Department who David has ongoing contact with.

Socio Pedagogical Centres were on the list of visits and families who were having problems with their children were lined up for David on several of his visits. He also visited the Abandonded Baby Home, where he was impressed with the efforts made by staff to care for the children. David also spoke to groups of psychology students and to practising psychologists at various venues.

Families in Rogachev were generous in their hospitality as usual as Rodni Kut and the Rogachev Association were on the list of our visits. The Association have been working hard together to decorate their centre and demonstrated strong signs that some of the problems they were experiencing earlier this year are behind them. They expressed concerns about the difficulties of reaching the families who live in the villages around Rogachev, who are unable to use the centre.  We agreed that before my visit next year, they would find out the number of families who needed support and the villages where they live and we would look at ways of taking the service to the villages, rather than the other way round.

David and I also met with Victor, the Director of the Gomel Regional Psychiatric Hospital, who is keen to learn new ways of working. He was very interested in looking at ways of reducing the number of children needing in-patient care at the hospital and in how to treat children with problems in the community. We hope to invite Victor to the UK to meet professionals and discuss how he and his staff can improve the service to children and families.

Together we met with Valentina Kravchenok  and other officials in the Social Protection Department to discuss training. Their training needs are varied, from child abuse, drugs and alcohol abuse to dealing with challenging behaviour. Valentina is very keen for her staff to be heavily involved in preparing young people leaving the large institutions for adult life. We have a Leaving Care Project in mind which involves teaching life skills to young people starting 2 years before they leave their institution. The Italian charity Forum is keen to join us in the project and this is to be discussed when we meet early next year. It may be as a joint project we can get some European funding.

David was extremely impressed with his visit to the Mayflower Respite Care Centre and the work of Natasha and her staff. He rightly pointed out that Belarusian professionals have examples of good practice on their doorstep and we could be pointing this out to Belarusian professionals. To this end Liena, at our office in Gomel is arranging for Tatsiana and some of her staff from the Children’s unit to visit Mayflower and Abandoned Baby Home. He also visited Klimovka and Rodni Kut saying these are all good models for the Belarusians to aim for.

We all managed to fit in a short visit to the Gomel district Receiving   ( foster) Families Conference, where several receiving parents were presented with awards. This was a time for praising the work of the families and I was invited to speak. These parents are caring for some very difficult children and need all the support they can get. A substantial part of our training programme is aimed at helping professionals support these families.

After Denise, Keith and David returned home I went to Minsk to meet with Natalia, Head of The National Adoption Centre, who told me about a national campaign to find adoptive families. She was very keen to have training for her psychologists in all issues to do with adoption. In Belarus adoption is a secret affair and Natalia explained that their work at the moment is about dispelling myths such as children being born to criminals will become criminals and that children with bad early experiences will be damaged for life and also that for money a couple will be “given a good child“.

The preparation for prospective adoptive parents is to be done by professionals in the socio pedagogical centres and rather than being prepared in groups like receiving families are, potential adopters are to be prepared individually, maintaining the secrecy of the process. This state of affairs does not take into account the lifelong needs of adopted children and adults and is a service for adults rather than for children.

It is important at this stage in the development of the adoption programme that professionals in positions of authority gain from our experiences and the development of adoption in the western world. We therefore agreed with Natalia that her deputy and the chief inspector of adoption in Gomel should visit the UK at the end of November this year to look at adoption in this country.

As Natalia indicated in our discussions, a massive cultural change is required in order to develop adoption as a service for children, but the message that has been given constantly throughout the last 7 years in all our training is that we should be finding families for children, not children for families. We should also be aware that it is unrealistic to expect the Belarusians to take the gigantic leap from where they are now to where we in the western world are. It took us over 50 years!

This was a very busy and productive visit and as usual we came away with a list of things we need to do to move things on. The team is set to expand again as we continue to respond to the developments in the Republic. We are fortunate to have specialists in many fields who are willing to give up their time and share their skills and knowledge with their professional counterparts in Belarus.

Jean Holt

Director of Foster Care Training

Chernobyl Children’s Project U.K.

October 2006