Our Unicef Project in Gomel

Work is well under way now on the Unicef funded project In Gomel being undertaken by our partners ‘Supporting Children Together’. The aim is to prevent healthy babies and young children being sent to the Baby Home in Gomel and within the next year or so to turn the Baby Home into a Palliative Care Centre, with all but the most disabled children living in families.

282 families with more than 400 children under 4 years old have been interviewed by the Project staff. These are all families where the children have been judged to be living in a ‘socially dangerous ‘ situation.

They were asked about the problems they face, the history of the family, the support they would like to have and the support they are currently receiving.

Svetlana Ryzhikova , the UNICEF consultant, delivered training on Skype about the complex assessment of a child’s needs for staff at the Baby Home and the Project staff working with the Baby Home. She delivered a separate training programme about the complex assessment of a family to enable a child to be reintegrated, for the specialists of social pedagogical centres.

Very good links have been developed between the Baby Home team and Elena Voloshinenko who is responsible for moving children from the Baby Home to the families.

Galina Femenok and Natallia Suzdaleva delivered the training on case management in the work with families as it is on this basis that a new model of work with families in socially dangerous situations is going to be developed. Work will start from the first signal about the problem and continue until the time when the situation in the family is fully improved.

The project is being led by Natasha Samoilik, the Director of ‘Supporting Children Together’ (who is also responsible for all CCP projects in Gomel Region).