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Improved psycho-social recovery and successful reintegration of rescued children into their families and communities
To facilitate the process of healing, availability and accessibility of a variety of services, both center-based, family and community-based should be ensured from time of admission until discharge. Program efforts should be geared toward achieving early recovery and eventual return of children to the network of family and community relationships.
Tasks
- Develop specialized healing, recovery programs for the children and their families including a court-ordered multidisciplinary treatment program.
- Evaluate current approaches and look at our indigenous ways of solving conflicts of healing and recovery. There is a need to be sensitive to the socio-cultural and spiritual milieu of adopting these to local situations.
- Provide support services for children and their families to include educational, medical, and legal and livelihood services.
- Organize and train support groups for the children and families both at the center and community based level.
- Develop child sensitive interview rooms to respond to the immediate needs of the child in crisis.
- Conduct consultations/dialogue with service providers on improving management of cases.
- Develop a program for the rehabilitation of the perpetrators in order to prevent further the commission of abuse against children and break the cycle of abuse.
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Family and Community Empowerment to Facilitate Recovery and Reintegration
Empowerment of families and communities is crucial to the early recovery and reintegration process.
Recovery does not only take place in centers and institutions. In fact, recover and reintegration are facilitated at the community level with the support system for the child and family in place. So far, our responses focused more heavily on creating community-based intervention to provide after care services to the victims and their families to ensure smooth reintegration to the families/community.
The child's stay in an institution should be the shortest time possible in accordance with his/her best interests. Preparation of the child and the family/community should be done simultaneously to enable the family continue the child's recovery, understand the child's behavior and facilitate reintegration. If the family is unable to take care of the child, the extended family members must be considered before other alternative family and like foster care or legal guardianship is arranged.
Tasks
- Strengthen existing community structures such as the Local Council for the Protection of Children/Barangay Human Rights Action Center in order to identify cases of children/families at risk and extend assistance to settle family disputes/conflicts.
- Conduct of fora, seminars, consultation on effective parenting, responsible parenthood, foster care etc. in the community.
- Develop family-enriching programs geared towards improving parent-child relationships and providing sustainable programs for the family.
- Capability-building of community volunteers/ community networks on conflict resolution, coping skills and parenting technique.
- Organize foster/adoption families to provide alternative forms of parental care.
- Organize support systems within the family and community.
- Organize a multi-disciplinary team comprised of lawyers, doctors, social workers, psychologists, police and psychiatrists to facilitate process of healing and recovery of child victims.
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Enhance the technical capacity of program managers, supervisors, social workers and other service providers in helping rescued children
Staff involved in implementing the program must be trained and supervised. Regular training courses will be conducted to periodically update their knowledge and skills. Upgrading staff competencies will focus on non-punitive approach to child victims, psychosocial orientation skills, understanding trauma and supervision.
Tasks
- Review existing training modules/manual on psychosocial intervention in order to develop program materials for the use of the service providers, children and community volunteers.
- Develop a program Manual on Psychosocial Care/ Intervention.
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Conduct/replicate demonstration of innovative psychosocial interventions on center-based and community-based programs/activities.
Tasks
- Document best practices of center-based and community- based psychosocial interventions at the regional level.
- Package best practices and other projects for replication at the local level.
