New Project Supporting Babies in Gomel

Our partners ‘Supporting Children Together’ will be starting a new project with UNICEF this autumn, supporting babies and young children.

Dr. Olga Avila who we worked with and brought on an educational visit to the UK in 2017 when she was working in early intervention atPolyclinic No 19 in Minsk. Olga now works at UNICEF and she will be supervising this project.

The goal will be to prevent children being sent to the Baby Home, and for those who are already there, to find families and make sure they do not go on to an orphanage. We have done a lot of this work in the past and have several people working with us who have great expertise and experience in working with professionals across health, education and social protection and in preparing and supporting foster families.  Many of the babies and young children will have disabilities and extra support will be given to them and their foster parents. Guidance will be produced and shared with the Advanced Learning Institute in Gomel to be incorporated into future education and training.

Part of the project will also involve trying to set up respite care in the Baby Home for families with children needing palliative care. This would be wonderful!

We have worked with the Baby Home Director, Elena, for many years, and we would love to see her enabled to set up this respite care which would make a huge difference to the lives of struggling families.