Integrated Social Services for Vulnerable Families in Ukraine

A consortium led by EveryChild has been managing an EU Project in Ukraine ‘Development of Integrated Social Services for Exposed Families and Children’ since April 2005. The most recent progress report has highlighted the success of their approach in tackling the issue of children living in institutional care. 

Volodya (10) and Andriy (12) had stopped going to school. Their mother, Tanya, was unaware of the problem, struggling as she was to maintain the household and care for their little sister Inna (3) who had a developmental disability. Tanya had been widowed not long after Inna was born and was finding it difficult to manage. When the school reported the boys’ truancy the local authority Service for Minors stepped in and visited Tanya to assess the family’s living conditions. They decided that since Tanya wasn’t coping the best thing for the boys was to place them in an internat, where they would be looked after and educated. Fortunately Tanya and her family lived in a city where Integrated Social Services were being established. Social workers from the Centres for Social Services for Family Children and Youth were being trained to undertake comprehensive assessments and plan for interventions to keep families together.

With support from the EU Project, the Centre for Social Services were piloting a new assessment system based on the Comprehensive Assessment Framework (CAF), part of a set of materials covering inter-linked elements of the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme. This is a new approach to the well-being of children and young people from birth to age 19 developed and implemented by the UK government.  The Service for Minors and Centres for Social Services were beginning to work together to develop a ‘one-window’ approach and a recent order of the local city council had decreed that no child could be admitted to an institution unless this comprehensive assessment had been completed.  

Tanya was referred on to the Centre for Social Services and assigned a social worker. Using the new assessment mechanism the social worker considered not only the individual needs of the children but of the family as a whole, within the context of the extended family and wider community.  The social worker then worked with Tanya to develop an intervention plan. The children’s grandparents became more involved in the care of the boys, Tanya was helped to maximise her income by applying for social benefits, and a day care placement was found for Inna. The social worker also liaised with the school, family and extended family to ensure both Volodya and Andriy returned to school on a regular basis.

Six months on and the case was closed. The family is intact. The system is simple. Developing it in the context of former soviet bureaucracy and old fashioned ideas has required perseverance and the establishment of relationships of trust and partnership with both the Kyiv oblast State Administration and the local rayon administrations as well as with State Social Services at national level.  

There are now 34 Family Support Services and Early Intervention Services for Families in Crisis operational in Kyiv oblast and 19 Services for Alternative Family Care that recruit, train and support foster carers. Over all there has been an almost 150% increase in the numbers of social workers in Kyiv oblast providing new social services.  In 2006 these social workers have successfully worked with vulnerable families to prevent 1102 children being admitted to institutional care. They have worked with young vulnerable mothers, successfully preventing 47 infants from being abandoned, and facilitated the placement of 23 children in foster care.

Through a combination of support for service development, legislative and policy change and capacity building the EU Project is successfully demonstrating how to reduce the numbers of children in institutional care. 

For photographs of this project see http://www.bearr.org/en/image/tid/113

EveryChild is an international development charity, fighting to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable children.

We work with children who are separated from their family or community, and with those who are at risk of separation. We believe all children have the right to grow up in a safe and loving family environment, with a secure future.  

Elayn Sammon

Team Leader

15 December 2006

 es@eueverychild.kiev.ua 

www.everychild.org.ua 

www.everychild.org.uk