Briefly about the Results of Our Work in June 2022

Dear friends!
“World Without Borders” has decided to launch a series of publications about our current activities.
We work quite hard, but at a certain moment we thought: do you, our partners, sponsors, concerned readers and members of the organization understand what we are doing, why we are doing this or that, where we are now and what we are striving for. Routine preparation and implementation of activities to achieve the goals of promoting deinstitutionalization of children; creating a language environment for children with communication problems living in institutions; rehabilitation and resocialization of adolescents in situations of contact with the law, the introduction of models of mentoring and support is often relevant and difficult only for those who are directly involved in this. Just like the consumers of the services of our partner institutions often do not know what their specialist are doing during the time when he/she is not with them personally.
So what have we done, why and what has happened?
The first experience of placing children with severe disabilities in foster families is accompanied by crisis situations that require attention and professionalism from specialists of guardianship authorities, social and pedagogical centers, territorial centers and local executive authorities.
Therefore, the attention of the project activities on deinstitutionalization was focused on the analysis of the difficulties in the way of realizing the right of children to a family and increasing professional competencies and improving interdepartmental interaction. Specialists of the Minsk region discussed at the round table on June 10 "Barriers and risks to the implementation of the strategy for the life of children with disabilities in families and ways to overcome them (Minsk region)" problematic issues, risks, mistakes, barriers and ways to overcome them in the process of implementing the strategy for the life of children with disabilities with disabilities, pupils of boarding schools in families, both relatives and substitutes.
The speedy release of children with disabilities from boarding schools to families will accelerate deinstitutionalization. Successful cases of raising children with disabilities in families will help this. And the well-coordinated work of all specialists in this matter will help the foster family and relatives to cope with all the goals and objectives of raising special children.
As a result of the discussion, the participants came to the following conclusions on problem areas:
1. The process of deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities and children especially children with severe and multifunctional disorders , for a number of reasons is much more complicated than the process of deinstitutionalization of orphans brought up in general education boarding schools and orphanages.
2. The fact that a child with a disability has the status of an orphan and child left without parental care gives him/her and his/her foster family the right to guarantees and benefits both as a disabled person and as an orphan. The number of benefits for children with disabilities is much wider, but there is no practice of their application. In addition, they are declarative in nature. The very process of obtaining and using them requires a certain “dexterity” of legal representatives (to solve the issue of transportation, fees for the child, etc.)
3. The main conditions to ensure long-term placement of children in families are:
a) preparing society for the reception of a child;
b) careful selection, evaluation and preparation of candidates for foster parents;
c) systematic and purposeful work in society to accompany foster families;
d) careful preliminary study and planning of the issue of the life of a child with a disability brought up in a substitute family, using case management technologies and structured assessment forms, incl. after they reached the adulthood .
Family readiness to successfully raise children with disabilities is the key to deinstitutionalization (wwb.by)
25 specialists from Minsk region, participating in a practical seminar were motivated to work to prevent the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of children with disabilities.
An important result of the seminar "Aspects of the implementation of the strategy for the life of children with disabilities, residents of boarding schools into the family" (June 15-17) were interdepartmental and interregional contacts formed during the acquaintance and joint work of the participants of the event. Their ideas about the relevance and timeliness of solving the problems of deprived children with disabilities, about possible forms of interdepartmental interaction are not only important, but also decisive in promoting the deinstitutionalization strategy. Such seminars are the foundation for the professionalism of performers at the district level and a tool for overcoming emerging problems. Today, the resistance to the deinstitutionalization strategy is based on the lack of knowledge about this process, disbelief in the possibility of such changes and the lack of practical skills and abilities in the work on the family placement of children in this category and, oddly enough, the desire to first create ideal and universal conditions for the reception of such children. One of the possible outcomes of the seminar should be changes in the organization and content of the training of foster families planning to raise children with special needs.
Aspects of the implementation of the strategy for the life of children with disabilities in families (wwb.by)
“World Without Borders” at the end of May joined the search for a substitute family for Nastya K. from Ivenets house-boarding institution in Minsk region. Phone numbers of the Main Department of Education of the Minsk Region: Tatyana Anatolyevna: +375 17 500 42 66, Elena Mikhailovna: +375 17 500 42 38 or to the project specialist Tatyana Nikolaevna +375 (17) 398-05-40
With joy and great hope we are launching the 14th Republican Children's Creativity Festival. Until July 21, the stage for collecting applications for participation has been announced, we continue to search for partners. The festival aims to encourage self-development, the development of creative abilities and social skills through various types of art, the formation of a sense of belonging to the cultural life of society of that part of children and young people with disabilities who have 1 and 2 degrees of loss of health, live in residential institutions or are served in day-time departments of territorial centers of social services for the population. In the competition program of the Festival, creative groups of children present their performances in three genres (choreography, vocal/song and arts). Festival “Dreams Come True” will be held from August 01 to December 15 and includes preparation of performances and their recording on video, selection of performances and works, presentation of selected performances, participation in master classes conducted by professionals included in the jury and organizing committee of the festival and the final gala concert. We look forward to the long-awaited face-to-face format and warm meetings!
We will be glad to see you in the team of organizers and sponsors of the Festival. Please spread the word about the upcoming event step by step. Now is the time to apply. To participate in the Festival, you must fill out the online application form by July 21, 2022, located at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1eNuG13EGrTE7gL5gcqUPurMLZV6ZSHRvXybpO8vFxgk/edit
You can get advice by email address: wwb @tut.by
WWB continues to work with children in contact with the law and the professional community that provides assistance to such children. In recent months, specialists who have completed training activities of the CPA "WWB" conducted 10 regional seminars for their colleagues, in which 293 people took part. Employees and management of the office of the organization also made expert speeches at these events. The team of the project "Teenagers in Conflict with the Law" held 7 consultations, supervisions for specialists from 7 educational institutions. The use of SMART planning technologies in carrying out individual preventive work with minors was discussed on June 2, 2022 at Grodno regional webinar for social teachers, psychologists of district social and pedagogical centers, institutions of vocational and secondary specialized education (organizer - State Educational Institution "Grodno Regional Social and pedagogical center).
On June 8, 2022 specialists from the project initiative groups, social and pedagogical centers and closed educational institutions discussed the implementation of child protection policies in their institutions, the creation of a safe and supportive environment. During the event, specialists worked on predicting the likely risks of violating the rights of their pupils and students and developing effective preventive measures to prevent their occurrence. In addition, the participants discussed the structure of these documents and the applied technologies for the development and implementation of policies in each of the institutions.
CPA "World without Borders" continues to work with a group of teenage bloggers "TIK-TOK DOM". On June 13-14, 2022, a meeting of members of this group was held near Minsk. The guys discussed the most relevant topics of future videos and publications. The following questions seemed to be the most interesting and promising:
How to ask a question to an adult?
How to ask for help (from a specialist, parent, adult)?
How to ask for forgiveness?
How to respond to persuasion (especially when you feel a catch)?
How to deal with group pressure?
How to respond to accusations?
The guys wrote concepts, scripts for future videos on these topics, evaluated the best ways of visualization and examples of text series in demonstrating ways to solve these problems. Information and video content was created for making videos and posting them on Internet and social networks. It is proposed to launch a challenge for members of initiative groups and other adolescents involved in vidleblogging or creating content for social networks on this issue through the pages of the CPA"WWB".
Once again, we visited the children placed in the reception center before being sent to special educational and medical educational closed-type institutions. This is a very difficult moment when some awareness of what happened and a real desire to change your life comes. Unfortunately, it turns out that it is at such a moment of enlightenment that it is already impossible to change this decision. It seems to us that it is very important to be close to the guys, to lend a helping hand, to support. And this is the least we can do and are doing. Including the support of this first spark and recreate from it a real desire to make his/her life productive and positive. The “Contact Person” model of work promoted by the organization can help in this difficult path of overcoming and moving towards personal happiness.
In activities with children in contact with the law this year we are entering the finish line. This year is the finalization of a three-year cycle, summing up and defining prospects. From June 21 to June 23, 2022, representatives of the initiative groups of the project partner institutions discussed the issues of “Conceptualization of the children's case of individual preventive work (IPW): identifying risks - setting a goal - implementing the plan - evaluating the result".
In April - May CPA "World without Borders" started a new type of support for its partners and colleagues - periodic distribution of useful, somewhat exclusive materials and articles. Currently, 69 respondents use this type of assistance. A survey of participants showed that 61.3% of respondents are ready to become members of the CPA "WWB" in order to receive these materials, 66.1% of respondents are ready to consider organizing our branch in their region and take part in this, 79% of respondents would like to personally cooperate with our organization in the future.
And then there is accounting and paperwork… Yes, yes, we are very sensitive to the accounting and efficient use of the resources received, we respond to citizens’ requests, we attend various meetings and protocol events…
We wanted to keep the information short. But wanted to say so much... write to us what you are interested in, what is not clear, what else you would like to know (wwb@tut.by, on instagram, VK, facebook and instant messengers).
Always together, always glad to cooperate and communicate in the movement to create a world without borders for children with problems!

Татьяна. Я сравнила содержание. В данном письме я дала перевод пред и последнего абзаца статьи.

We continue to work with children in contact with the law and the professional community that provides assistance to such children. In recent months, specialists who have completed training activities of the CPA «WWB» conducted 10 regional seminars for their colleagues, in which 293 people took part. Employees and management of the office of the organization also made expert speeches at these events.
Since April 2022, CPA "World without Borders" has begun to implement the project "Protection of the rights of adolescents in residential institutions of Belarus". We want to raise the level of awareness of the staff and the pupils themselves of 12 institutions of the country (social and pedagogical shelters, boarding schools for children with disabilities, special educational and educational (treatment) educational institutions of a closed type) on the protection of the rights of children and young people. A separate block of measures will be devoted to the creation in institutions of a system for monitoring the situation on the protection of children, the introduction of mechanisms for receiving and considering reports of violations of their rights. Representatives of government bodies of the republican and regional levels, educational and social service institutions, as well as national and international experts take part in the project. The main result for us and for the children in these institutions should be the implementation of Child Protection Policies in institutions that will make children's lives safe and positive. On June 8, 2022, specialists from the project initiative groups, social and pedagogical centers and educational closed-type residential institutions discussed the implementation of child protection policies in their institutions, the creation of a safe and supportive environment.

You can find the full version of the news in the attached file.
We will be glad if the information was useful!

Thank you for your cooperation!



Team of CPA "World without Borders"