Education Cambodia Project #36612

Helping Children Grow Up In Loving Families

by Children In Families Organization

Helping Children Grow Up In Loving Families

Project Report | May 26, 2020
Helping Children in a Time of Covid-19

By Chris Ellinger | Social Work Technical Adviser

Hi, and welcome to the May Report for Children in Families' Helping Chidlren Grow Up In Loving Families' project.

Since our last report, of course, Covid-19 has spread around the world, and turned life upside-down for many of us. It's all over the news, it's the topic of conversation across dinner tables, and it's affected us as well.

As with everything, our main question is, how can we best keep children safe during this time? It's a complicated one. For most people, the simplest answer, where possible, is to remain in physical isolation, and try to reduce the chances of spreading infections. For vulnerable children though, greater isolation means greater risks relating to child protection, as neighbours stop dropping around, and local services shut their doors. So we can't stop services completely, but at the same time, we don't want to risk exposing our children and their families to a potentially deadly virus if we can avoid it.

For CIF, we've spent some time in the past month or so really working out details for our online case management process, from risk assessment to follow up. We've asked questions like:

How do we decide which children need to be followed up in person, and which can be checked up on using video calling?
How do we make sure that our social workers can speak effectively to their clients using digital technologies?
How can we keep our children and our staff safe, in cases where a family needs in-person follow up?

For now, we're prioritising children with higher levels of vulnerability, and children with any risk in terms of child abuse or neglect, for in person follow up. Our staff absolutely need to see these children in person, to ensure that they don't fall through the cracks as the world reacts to this pandemic.

For children who are being met via video conference, staff have drawn up guidelines ensuring that they speak to the children themselves, not just their families; or in the case of infants, that they can see the child on screen. While we all have Zoom-fatigue, this technology is allowing us to follow up to a higher standard than we could otherwise, so we're thankful for it.

Of course, the other thing we're trying to do right now is provide emergency relief to some our families. Like everyone, they have felt the economic impact of Covid-19, so we're providing them with extra stipend support, as well as key supplies of hand sanitiser, soap, and face-masks. Your ongoing support is really important to us in this, as this has natually created extra expenses for our organisation as well.

Thanks again for your care for our work, the children we support, and the families caring for them. We deeply appreciate it.

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Jan 28, 2020
Our First Report for 2020

By Chris Ellinger | Social Work Technical Adviser

Cambodia's provinces.

Hi, and a slightly belated Happy New Year to you from the CIF Team!

Our sincere thanks to you once more for your support of CIF. You'll find below a summary of what you've helped contribute to since our last report, 3 months back.

Referrals and Enrollments

Since November 2019, CIF has received 56 referrals for children needing support to stay in, or find, a loving family. Of these, 44 have already been accepted to receive services, and are in placements, or undergoing an assessment process. So far, every child this quarter has been able to stay with their family of origin, or be cared for by relatives. As long as it's safe, this is always the best outcome, so we're really happy about that!

11 of the clients accepted have been found to need specific support with access to food, and/or with adequate growth and nutrition. CIF funds will contribute to helping them have the nutrients they need, and we expect to see improvements in their growth in future follow-ups.

Disability Support

This quarter, five children were referred to our ABLE team, for support with a disability or chronic illness. We also got featured in a USAID video for the work of ABLE - have a look over here!

https://www.facebook.com/USAIDCambodia/videos/2480738708832616/

Ongoing Care for Clients

Of course, it's not just new clients that your support helps. CIF Social Workers have a total caseload of 431 clients right now across all our programs, and in the past three months, our workers conducted visits to clients 1045 times! They visited families in six different provinces across Cambodia - Phnom Penh, Kandal, Takeo, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, and Kampong Chhnang.

Check out the attached map of Cambodia - as you can see, we're pretty well clustered in the country's south-east, so our workers can support one another.

So that's it from us for another quarter. Thanks again for all your support of our work, and please don't forget to mention us to others you know who may be interested!

Links:

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Nov 1, 2019
A Semi-Annually Update

By Monykanchna Kunvuth | Communications Officer

Hello,

We appreciate your ongoing support to Children in Families.

With genuine compassion, two of our staff worked hard to support children to find a family that they belong with. Their commitment has meant that the organization they founded, Children in Families, has become a trusted place for children who need help.

For the last six months, 81 children have been referred to Children in Families, 50 of which are successfully enrolled into our new program for Kinship Care project, FOR-1 (Family of Origin is the 1st Priority). Out of the 50 children who entered our care, seven are children with special needs.

Since May, Children in Families has submitted 17 Domestic Adoption cases to the court, and seven of them have been approved, while the rest are in progress. Providing permanent care for children from our Foster Care project is one of CIF’s greatest achievements!

In July, we conducted a child safeguarding policy training, attended by staff members from all provincial offices - Phnom Penh, Kandal, Kampong Chhnang, Svay Rieng, Prey Veng, Siem Reap and Battambong. The training improved staff awareness of child abuse and to will help prevent any acts of child abuse from occuring, as well as improving reporting and appropriate responses through our Child Response Team.

In the month of August, Children in Families arranged two meetings, one of which provided training to case workers and community rehabilitation workers on case management, basic counselling, and autism identification. All CIF staff members participated in an annual reflection event on the same month, updating on main achievements, areas for improvement, best practices and the orientation on Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (Mexico City Policy).

Success Story

In 2017, a child was referred to Children in Families due to the deteriorating health of her mother, who was diagnosed with HIV, and her aging grandmother’s inability to care for her. After assessing the case, CIF identified that the child was at risk of being separated from her family. This frequently leads to dropping out of school, and creates increased risk of labor exploitation. Children in Families then entered the child into our Family Preservation project. With regular ongoing care through food provision, education support, training and follow-up visits, the family’s well-being has improved gradually. The child now attends school regularly, while her mother has worked with our case managers to develop skills in home gardening. This produces crops for both daily food, and for selling in her local community to support her family.

Thanks once again for making a better difference through Children In Families.

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