MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

On behalf of ILDC team we want to wish  you all a very, very Merry Christmas and truly Happy New Year : ) 

VALUABLE RESOURCE IS GIVEN OUT TO ADOPTIVE AND FOSTER FAMILIES ILDC

ILDC has distributed 80 copies of “Wounded Children Healing Homes”  books to foster adoptive families through the  Alliance for Ukraine Without Orphans. We hope this resource will be helpful to them and  become a good tool in their work with their adoptive and foster children. As the number of adoptive and foster families in Ukraine grows  the need for this kind of resources that could help them on their challenging journey becomes greater too. We see a great importance in supporting these families whether it is resources like this wonderful book, training or simple consultation. If we take a broad look at the work with children in Ukraine It can look like a puzzle and where it is our goal to place every needed piece into this great  picture of establishment of a strong Child Welfare in Ukraine.

ILDC TRAINS CHILD WELFARE WORKERS IN KYRYZSTAN!

ILDC trainer Lena Anduhovich has just returned from Kyrgyzstan where she has spent 3 weeks training child welfare workers in Case Worker Core Program. It has been totally new experience for us as it was for the first time when our trainers went to another country to train. Lena did a really good job in training a group of child welfare workers though it was very intensive training both for her and for the participants. The participants took these trainings seriously and were very active and eager to learn everything that we offered to them based on what we already have learned in Ukraine from the best practice materials, new approaches, well researched materials and experience from our work in Ukraine. Another remarkable point to be mentioned, there could be different circumstances in different countries, changes of governments, major events etc. But there always will be someone who really cares for their country, for their people and in our case there will be people who will care for children and for their future. We were very happy to meet such people in this training and hope they will carry on what they have learned helping Kyrgyz orphans to find their new families.

Leadership Development in NGO’s, FINISH LINE!

It has been a long and fascinating journey for the participants of this training program just like it was for us. Today  it was the last day of the 5th Module for the group of leaders of different NGOs from Ukraine. We are very proud for this group of leaders and managers as they have showed great commitment to this program and have been eager to learn the skills that we were giving to them. We believe that they will apply everything that they have learned in their organizations as they go on. Some of them have already shared with us how it was helpful to them to deal with situations and challenges that were described while the training. We see  this group as once who are talented, skilled, motivated and driven by the vision. The vision that we all share and work hard in order to help abused and neglected children of Ukraine to have a brighter future full of hope and care.

Every participant of the training has received the certificate of the completion of the training program.

As well, ILDC team wants to thank Ruby and Lynn Johnston for their great commitment, time, professionalism and wonderful training.

TRAUMA SERIES STARTED IN UKRAINE

WE ARE SO EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THE NEW TRAUMA SERIES HAS STARTED IN UKRAINE. 

  

We just completed Step 1 of the series and had 32 participants - ending the day with extremely eager participants to enrol in Step 2.

 

Step 1 - Over view of Trauma - Wounded Children Healing Homes
Step 2 - Trauma Toolkit
Step 3 - Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma
Step 4 - Advanced Trauma Modules

We are so grateful to our partner and team member Jayne Schooler and to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for their contributions to this series. Step 1 - we present the book - Wounded Children Healing Homes by Jayne Schooler and Betsy Smalley and do a foundation training to Child Traumatic Stress In Sept 2 and 3 we have been granted permission from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to translate and train their standardized comprehensive materials for those in the Russian speaking countries.
Step 4 will be materials offered by experts in the area of Trauma - advance and ending our series for certification of participants of the entire Trauma Series.

Next event will be Step 1(2nd time) in January with training for 12 participants at an NGO requesting this training for their team. We are training trainers in this event and will soon have a compliment of national trainers - delivering this across Ukraine.

What a beginning. ILDC (LAMb co-founded and registered this organization in Ukraine) is on the move.

WE ARE SO THANKFUL TO OUR SPONSOR “Adults Helping Children Today” - WHO STARTED THIS - WHO GAVE US THE FUNDS TO TRANSLATE AND PUBLISH THE BOOK - WOUNDED CHILDREN HEALING HOMES.

BUSY OCTOBER!

It has been very busy and intensive month for ILDC team.

ILDC has conducted 9 trainings in regions of Ukraine including Kiev city.

Few words about 3 of 9:

Effective Trauma Therapy and Attachment Disorders

 For the first time we conducted training on subject Effective Trauma Therapy and Attachment Disorders. It was 3 days training and it was conducted by Ronda Weber Ph.D licensed clinical psychologist and licensed clinical social worker. Over 30 people came to the training. The participants had lots of question and sometimes even after the training people stayed longer to talk to the trainer. We received very good feedback from the participants. As well it gave us understanding that there is indeed an urgent and growing need for post adoption training in Ukraine. Adoptive and foster parents are literally hungry for any information that could be useful to them in solving their problems that they are facing these days. We were really glad to partner with Ronda Weber and we hope that this partnership will continue.

Leadership and management in NGOs Training 4th Module “Professional Staff Development”

We continue to train leaders from different NGO’s and government agency. The group is promptly moving to the finish line. We are excited for them and for the their future as go back to their organizations and apply skills and knowledge that they have received that this training. They did a great job during the training and showed great confidence that they could do their best for their organizations to be successful. Next week will do last 5th module for this group. After the training everyone will receive a certificate on completion of the program.

Stress, Anger and Self-control

Our office was literally packed with participants of this training. 5 pm is usual time when the training is over and everyone leaves but not this time. Participants did not live until 6 pm. Everyone enjoyed hearing Lynn Johnston and the way he held the training. A lot of useful information and practical examples were very appreciated by the participants.

WE ARE GOING TO KYRGYSTAN!!!

It has  been over 2 years now since we started to work on the project where Ukrainian national trainers  were fully trained and prepared in Case Worker Core program.  Last April over 30 national trainers were certified and since then many of them went all over Ukraine to train Child Welfare workers, families, NGO workers etc.  This time we were invited to Kyrgyzstan to train workers of the Ministry of Social Security. ILDC trainer Lena Andruhovich will spend 3 weeks in Kyrgystan training folks and preparing them to carry out new skills, knowledge and best practice approach in their own country just like it has happened in Ukraine lately. We hope this scenario deserves to take place in Kyrgystan too. The country that has been going through a number of  significant challenges with national  revolution, change of the government and system. Its looks no different to what we have been experiencing in Ukraine and even to this day.

We are quite excited about this opportunity and we look forward to hear from Lena how everything went.

For those who missed the post where we talked about certification of national trainers click here.

THE BOOK IS OUT!

It has been quite a project for ILDC. We have been waiting for 2 years for the opportunity to publish this amazing recourse. Over the last six month we translated the book then edited and proofread it and now it is published. As well, we have already scheduled the date when the book will be presented. After presentation of the book ILDC president Ruby Johnston will conduct a training on the subject of the book.

After this event we plan to develop a pool of national trainers who will offer this training for adoptive and foster families and social workers in the regions of Ukraine.

We believe this book will become very helpful tool for adoptive and foster families and for the child welfare workers who work with the families.

Currently we are observing the situation where many of adoptive foster families have started to have problems with their adoptive children as they grow up. Most of the parents were totally unprepared for the problems they are facing right now. A lot of things were done to help adoptive and foster parents before they took children. But there is very little to offer them after adoption. That is why it is essential to provide them with a resource and train them to deal with the challenges they are experiencing right now.

Once again, we want to thank Jane Schooler for this excellent book and permission to publish it in Russian. We also want to thank our partners “Adults Helping Children Today” for sponsoring translation and publishing the of this book.

We will post more after presentation : )

TRAINING OF TRAINER BY UKRAINIAN NATIONAL TRAINER!

For the first time, ILDC has conducted a Training of Trainers by a national trainer Olena Adruhovich. Olena is one of the ILDC trainers and has already conducted over 40 days of training in different programs around Ukraine. She is our leading trainer with experience in training others. Before this training, we had a slight concern whether the national trainer can handle such an important topic. Training is not a lecture like most Ukrainians are used to in universities. Training is a more practical implementation of skills and theory that are delivered in a concise form in a short period of time. The trainer must have the ability to deliver information in such a way that is not another lecture for the participants. This was our concern and we could not launch this training for a long time. Finally, we decided to take a chance and go ahead with a Training of Trainers. It was three days of training and the group was formed within a week. Sixteen people came to the training and believe us or not, it was a tremendous experience! Olena has done a very good job delivering the information and connecting with participants. We have received very good feedback from the participants. It is a pleasure to go through feedback forms and to find out that everyone had received what they needed.

We can surely celebrate the success which tells a lot. It is encouraging to see how national trainers are taking over the initiative and doing a really good job.

UKRAINE CELEBRATED ADOPTION DAY!

 It’s the third time Ukraine has celebrated Adoption Day since it was initiated by the former president of Ukraine Viktor Yuschenko.

A press-conference was organized by Ukraine Without Orphans Alliance to draw attention to the subject of adoption and show the adoptive family’s and the adopted children’s perspective of adoption.

Ukrainian child welfare system is in the process of reform from the old institutional care model to family based care. The number of adoptions has grown over the last several years but there are still some challenges in this area.

Over 2000 children are adopted by Ukrainian families per year. Currently, there are about 30000 children available for adoption, most of whom are over 6 years old. Although the mentality of Ukrainian people towards adoption is changing, there is still a need for them to see the adoption of older children as an option. These are the first gleams of the culture of adoption that we see in Ukraine. We believe that 30000 Ukrainian churches can provide a solution to this problem even if we can find only one family from each church. With such an understanding, ILDC regularly conducts adoption presentations in churches with the purpose of finding more families for children.

 

A big challenge in Ukrainian adoption is the lack of post adoption training and resources in the country. It is critical to create a system which provides post adoption training and support to families.  This is often the time when they begin to experience difficulties and need help the most. In order to strengthen foster and adoptive families, ILDC regularly publishes books and other resources which help families to work with adopted and foster children and introduces new post adoption training programs and workshops to develop foster and adoptive families and the social workers who work with them.

HELPING SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN

Post-Soviet Ukraine is a very young and developing country where many crucial reforms are still to be made. One of the current problems in the fairly new Child Welfare System is the problem of child sexual abuse. Under the Soviet Child Welfare System, sexual abuse of children was an unspoken topic and even today many child welfare workers in Ukraine feel uncomfortable talking about this topic. But the problem exists and it is becoming urgent. Many adoptive and foster families who have adopted children in the last five years have been reporting cases where adoptive and foster parents found out that their adoptive and foster children were sexually abused either in the orphanage or by their biological parents or relatives.

Today we have a serious problem in Ukraine where child welfare workers have no knowledge or training on how to deal with this issue. Very often child welfare workers do not know how to do the investigation procedures on sexual abuse, how to interview the child who was abused , how to define evidences of abuse and finally how to help abused children to recover from such trauma.

Our goal in this project is to build skills in adoptive and foster families and social workers so that could effectively help children who experienced sexual abuse.

In order to reach this goal we want to develop a pool of national trainers who would be trained, equipped and ready to carry out this training program throughout Ukraine. National trainers will work with foster and adoptive families, child psychologist, social workers, churches and NGOs providing them with comprehensive materials to address this need.

We want to raise 8000 dollars in order to launch this project. If you have a desire to take part in it you can donate right now on our blog.

Everyone can make a difference no matter whether it is big or small

: )

THE FIELD GUIDE TO CHILD WELFARE IS BEEN REPRINTED!

Four volumes of the Field Guide to Child Welfare have been reprinted and delivered to ILDC office today. It has been long awaited event and we are very glad that the printing is completed now.1500 sets are now available for child welfare workers and adoptive and foster families.

Next step will be to start distribution the Field Guide during of our training programs in regions of Ukraine.

NEW TOWNS NEW CITIES AND NEW FAMILIES!

As ILDC expands its  borders of operations into new regions, towns, and cities, we were able to conduct more training for new adoptive and foster families. Our national trainer conducted this training for adoptive and foster families in Mene in the Chernigov region north of Ukraine. Twelve participants came to the training  and three of them asked for help for a problem with their adoptive and foster children.

As a result of this training, we have developed a very good relationship with the local Social Services. We plan to continue our work in Mene and look forward to a new group of adoptive and foster families this fall.