Together with the Ukrainian organisation Labour and Health Social Initiatives (LHSI; www.lhsi.org.ua) and the Ukrainian State Social Services for Family, Children and Youth (SSSFCY), we implemented this 30 month project from from April 2010 to September 2012.
Major problems in Ukraine are the lack of proper preparation for independent life of children in institutions (boarding schools) and lack of (coordinated) support for young people that have left institutions, putting them at high risk for psychosocial problems, unemployment and getting caught in the poverty trap and subsequent problems of drug use, alcohol abuse, prostitution, trafficking, crime and teenage pregnancy.
Description
Activities
that have taken place in this project include:
-Training of Trainers for people working in the social protection system (to be able to provide better support to young people);
-Training in Life Skills for young people them selves;
-Development, implementation and dissemination of Individual Action Plan methodology for children growing up without parental care;
-Support to young people in finding and maintaining work;
-Formation of new cross sector professional networks;
-The project was succesfully concluded during a two day conference for over a 100 professionals from all over Ukraine in September 2012.
Results
Over a 1000 young people benefited directly from the project, through improved support from social welfare services. The training, policies and best practices developed in this project were disseminated widely and should benefit thousands of other children and young people still growing up in institutions.
A very nice movie was made of the work done in this project, please see below.
