Study Tour to Lithuania for Belarusian Specialists of State Child Care Institutions
September 26-29, 2007 CCF-Belarus organized a study tour to Lithuania for a group of Belarusian specialists of child care institutions from Kobrin, Orsha, Volozhin, Chausy and Zhodino and a representative of the Ministry of Education. The tour was organized within the Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children project with the purpose to acquaint Belarusian specialists with the experience of successful reformation of institutions for orphaned children into family type units and alternative care development.
The program of the study tour was designed to present best practices of 3 Lithuanian institutions which have successfully passed the process of reformation into family type units during the post soviet period - "Pastoge" temporary care institution, and two children's homes in Antazavė and Kaunas.
During the tour the participants had a series of meetings with the specialists of the Ministry of Social and Labor Affairs of Lithuania (Department of Child, Youth and Family), the Kaunas municipality agency for children's rights protection, and the NGO "Confederation for the Children". The participants had a chance to talk to managers of the reformed institutions and to learn about some lessons learned during the transformation process.
Evaluating the results of the visit, Belarusian specialists noted that most of the practices and methods presented will be used in their work. In particular, they pointed out that the visit inspired them
- to create day care centers for at-risk children to support relations with the biological family;
- to reorganize the boarding schools through introduction of the siblings reunification scheme and creation of family-based groups;
- to make amendments in the national legislation to stimulate projects oriented allocation of state funds.
