10.03.2011

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.

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