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.