COMMENT⟩ The road to a future without orphanages: a sprint, a marathon or a hike in the mountains?

A realistic view and thoughtful positioning of children is required

Specialized foster families mostly take in children with severe functional disabilities, but there are two other groups of children with whom the situation is much more complicated.

First, they are large groups of brothers and sisters, because a family cannot accommodate, for example, six children.

As an ideal solution, I see the reception of these children in the reception facilities in the SOS Children’s Village format, where they are cared for by a permanent caregiver, equipped with an extensive support system.

Secondly, these are teenagers who have been in the system for a long time and, sad as it is, are so disillusioned with adults that they can no longer trust them. Foster families often fail to cope with such children.

Unfortunately, most children are placed in foster care without a thorough assessment of the family’s abilities and resources, simply by choosing the first family on the list.

I would like to expect a more realistic view of things from the Orphan’s Court, rather than an unreasonably naive belief that the family will get away with it.

Foster families and adoptive parents also need a realistic view.

The first and most important thing to think about is motivation. The second factor is expectations.

We try to destroy them as soon as possible in training.

Prospective adoptive or foster parents should not expect a child to give them this or that, help heal a traumatic experience, or fill some other void.

We need to help understand that parents need emotional health and emotional intelligence.

This is critical to successful adoption, because 99% of the time, a child who enters a family will carry unhealed scars from the adult’s past. Trauma breeds trauma and new parents need to be aware of it.