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Recently, a charity in the United Kingdom urged Christian donors to stop supporting orphanages and to instead focus their giving on family-based care.
Photo by hossein azarbad / Unsplash / Creative Commons
“I think that orphanages globally are a 21st century scandal. It doesn’t need to be something that is happening in this day and age,” Pete Garratt, the director of global programs at Hope and Homes, said.
MinistryWatch reached out to American ministries focused on orphan care to get their response.
Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO), told MinistryWatch that many ministries committed to caring for orphans are trying to navigate the tension between aiming for God’s ideal of a child having a permanent, safe family home and providing good residential care when navigating complex, broken situations.
CAFO was created in 2004 to help bring fiscal and governance integrity to the mission of helping orphans while helping to improve the standards of care.
In the global setting of developing countries, Medefind says CAFO member agencies are engaging with the culture to set the safe family model before them as the “north star,” but also making allowances for a continuum of care.
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“If we articulate a view that cuts off funds to residential care models, we may do more harm than good,” Medefind told MinistryWatch, adding that demanding perfect solutions rather than workable ones may result in not having either.
CAFO has established a Center for Applied Research for Vulnerable Children and Families led by Dr. Nicole Wilke. It aims to “connect the best available knowledge to frontline practice to see Christians caring with excellence for vulnerable children and families.”
The center has done 23 original research studies, which repeatedly confirm that a loving, healthy family is the ideal place for children.
“The question is, ‘How do we get there?’” Wilke told MinistryWatch.
She cautioned against oversimplified “solutions” that suggest closing all orphanages. There are 5.3 million children in residential care worldwide, Wilke said, and closing the orphanages would be devastating to them.
The goal is to bring leaders of orphanages and other residential care programs along on a journey toward the ideal while valuing their knowledge, resources, and relationships, Wilke added.
“We are not denigrating what has been done, but learning and moving toward family solutions,” Wilke told MinistryWatch.
The process of a full transition from residential care to family-based care can be long, anywhere between two and 14 years, Wilke said, but must account for the context and needs of the children in order to be successful.
For a ministry to transition from residential to family-based care, they should start by ensuring the group has good foundations in place, such as a good team and sound child protection policies.
Next, they encourage the group to consider how it can make the residential program as family-like as possible, including adopting smaller group settings and having assigned caregivers for children so they can build relationships.
Groups should create a case plan for each child in order to adequately evaluate the child’s individual needs and explore family options.
Once a child is reintegrated into a family, ministries should provide support with whatever needs they have in order to work toward independence. Examples may include medical care or income generation opportunities.
She said the Center for Applied Research has worked with between 50 and 100 groups as they endeavor to make the transition.
Every Orphan’s Hope is a CAFO member that is working to implement family-based care as much as possible in the context of Zambia.
It was founded in 2004 by current president Gary Schneider. Zambia experienced an orphan and widow crisis as a result of AIDS.
Schneider said they spent two years learning about the situation from local pastors and leaders before determining what model to implement.
They created family group homes where widows, in need of a home and family, could care for orphans. Up to eight children — four girls and four boys — can live in the home. On average, the children live in this setting for 7 ½ years.
They also started a baby rescue mission for children up to age 5. These children are referred by the government for emergency care. They generally stay with Every Orphan’s Hope about 1.7 years. Of the young children, 66% go back to their birth families while about 24% move to the family group home mode. Ten percent are adopted.
Schneider said they emphasize family reintegration, which includes a lot of detective work to find eligible family members and to do a home assessment. After vetting a home setting, the social workers from Every Orphan’s Hope do a lot of follow-up work to check on the child’s safety, health, education, and to ensure they are thriving.
Every Orphan’s Hope is also working with the Zambian government to educate people about the value of foster and adoption.
Donors can have an influence on orphanages and other residential institutions, Medefind pointed out, by asking about its care model and encouraging the group to consider how to provide more family-based care.
Wilke echoed this sentiment. “Don’t just stop giving,” she said, adding that donors can be “wildly hopeful” about the contribution they can make to the good being done for God’s kingdom.
She encouraged donors to talk to the leadership, asking them what their goals are for the children and using their influence to encourage the groups on a “journey to make family-based care possible.”
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