Family Preservation

 The program of family preservation comes to support families at risk of abandoning their children in order to prevent institutionalization, as well as to reintegrate the children abandoned in placement centers and medical units (maternities, dystrophic sections, premature sections). 
Program Purpose:The program proposes to keep the child in his birth family, avoiding his abuse/neglect/institutionalization/abandonment, or his reintegration whenever it is in the child’s best interest.
Program Objectives:

Prevent institutionalization/abandonment of the children at risk in community (aged between 0 and 10);

Reintegrate the institutionalized children in their birth families;

Strengthen families’ capacity to face the risk factors of abandonment and support them to assure the living conditions adequate to raising children in their birth families.
Expected Results of the Program:

Reduce the number of neglected/abused children or at risk of being institutionalized and/or abandoned;

Reduce the number of institutionalized children by offering alternatives;

Strengthening families by developing parent skills.

Program services

• Counseling;
• Information (legislation, family planning, education for health, child raise and care);
• Moral support;
• Financial support;
• Alternative solutions to overcome the crisis;
• Alternative solutions regarding the child’s future;
• Identification and referral to the community resources.

Program History

The program started in 1993 because of the big number of institutionalized children who were offered services for reintegration. Afterwards the program adjusted to the needs. At present the services are focused in community, serving families and children where there is a great risk of neglect/institutionalization/abandonment, as well as in hospitals for the children’s reintegration in their birth families.

 

 

Domestic Adoption

 Domestic adoption program encourages and supports adoption as an alternative solution to institutionalization.  
Program Objective:

• Promote and support domestic adoption as an alternative solution to institutionalization, by offering a permanent solution.

Expected Results of the Program:

• Reduce the number of children institutionalized in maternities, pediatric sections, placement centers;
• Raise and fully develop the children in the adoptive families of Romania;
• Support a unitary system of domestic adoption.

 Program Services:

• Identify, evaluate and train the families who want to adopt a child;
• Identify, evaluate and train the children eligible for adoption;
• Assist the family to achieve the adoption and offer post-placement follow-up services.

Program History:
The domestic adoption program has developed in Romania since 1993. Numerous families have asked for the specialized services of Holt organization, which constantly improved their methods and intervention techniques in this program.
 Program Achievements: Over 800 children have been adopted by families in Romania.

 

Parent Education

Parent education program proposes to offer solutions to one of the important problems the community faces at present: the low level of parent education and weak development of parent skills to face the changing conditions of the actual society successfully, this leading many times to crisis.

Program objective

Promote the parent education program and strengthen families by developing parent skills. 

Program Components

I. Direct Services Addressed to Parents

• Pregnancy counseling (before the moment of birth) is a program of support for pregnant women, by offering informational-educational materials and forming groups in order to build a permanency planning for them and the child who will be born, training the mothers for the child’s birth and develop a network of social support for the pregnant women.
• Welcome Baby (at the moment of birth) is a program to support the families who experience the birth of a child, and which, by offering information and connecting to the community resources, should contribute to increasing the parents’ skills to assure their children the best development conditions and reduce the factors leading to abuse/neglect/institutionalization/abandonment. The main support consists of a positive contact by visiting the mothers in maternity, immediately after delivery, and offering materials and information regarding the community resources.
• “How To Become Better Parents” Courses addressed to parents (after the moment of birth) is the component in which are organized courses for different categories of parents (biological in crisis, adoptive, foster care, underage, having HIV+ children etc.). The courses are structured in 11 sessions for about 2 hours and their contents is sequential, beginning with the way parents take care of themselves, deal with stress and anger, community skills, positive discipline and treating the requiring behaviors.

II. Theoretical and Practical Training

Parent Education Program has developed in Romania since 2001 after a model taken over from Birth To Three Organization, Eugene, Oregon, USA, having a experience of more than 30 years of activity and adjusted to the Romanian reality. After offering direct services on all three components in Bucharest, Medgidia, Constanta, Iasi and Mures, it followed replication of the models in 10 counties in our country on two projects sponsored by UNICEF.  

Program Achievements:

• Guide of Young Mothers (2002),
• Guide of Future Mothers (2002),
• How To Become Better Parents. Parent Educator’s Manual (2002),
• How To Become Better Parents. Parent’s Guide (2002)
• 12 videotapes of short movies exemplifying the subjects approached along the course;
• Welcome Baby bag distributed in maternities in Medgidia, Bucharest, Iasi and Mures.
• More than 2500 parents have benefited of the specific services of the three components of the program.