I originally came to Child’s i Foundation just over a year ago, after I completed the “Get Involved” form on the website – I got a call asking if I’d like to use my skills and, within eight weeks, I was at Malaika. I was originally due to stay for six months and, in that time, I was given the opportunity to set up the Social Work Department. This was a hugely exciting prospect, because the charity relies on good social workers to place all the children in their care within 3-6 months of admission to avoid potential long-term damage.
The Social Work Department officially came into being in October 2010, when I took on a volunteer social worker to assist with the work to promote the de-institution of children. Since those humble beginnings, we have grown – I now manage five full-time social workers, a family support worker, plus two student social workers – and our department is constantly expanding.
Each social worker has a varied caseload of up to 15 children, including babies currently resident in the care home, children who have been resettled to their birth family and assessments of prospective Ugandan adoptive parents. I train the social workers and think my proudest moment was when I was told I was not needed – in fact, I was not wanted – when assessing families because my team couldn’t get a truthful answer with me. They are all more than equipped to handle whatever comes to them. This means I am now pretty much office-based, while the team travel up to 3500km a month ensuring all the children we resettle are safe.
Our new Family Support Worker, Lydia, has a caseload of 10 children who have been resettled and require support in the home. Together we have developed a programme that addresses parenting issues that are culturally sensitive, such as protecting children from malaria and keeping babies ‘wet and warm’. The child mortality rate in Uganda is very high, with nearly 1 in 5 children not making it to their fifth birthday, so providing practical support and advice to parents is essential.
The student social workers work cases alongside our social workers. I believe it essential that we have a good student programme and relationship with the top Ugandan Universities such as Makerere, as these are the future social workers who will promote change towards the de-institution of children in Uganda.
Our Mary doing supervision
We constantly have desperate family members trying to abandon their children with us. Most of the time, all they need is support and some time to enable them to make the right decision to prevent abandonment in the first place. We always have a social worker on duty to work with families at risk and our prevention work would not be possible without developing good links with the community and other charities working with at-risk children. We have developed a very good reputation for preventative work and, as a result, we receive daily phone calls from other NGO’s, hospitals and the police requesting that one of our team assist them on an assessment of a family.
As well as the daily management of the social work department, I arrange a bi-monthly adoption panel, which is the first of its kind in Uganda, and is supported by the Ministry of Gender (the Government department in charge of children). Following a successful adoption media campaign, the department is now working with 50 Ugandan families who have expressed an interest in adoption. I am also in the process of organising Open Days at Malaika Babies home for prospective Ugandan adoptive parents, which is essential in order to promote that children are best placed in family based care.
I am also part of the senior management here at CiF, which means that I ensure that the objectives of the social work department work in conjunction with the organisation’s strategy and future development.
Since the department began, I can proudly say that we have resettled 30 children to their birth family with an average stay of only four months, six children have been placed in Ugandan adoptive families and we have been able to prevent 51 children being brought into care, instead remaining at home with their family. This is growing every day and makes my job more than worthwhile.
We Make Families, Not Orphans
If you are an Social Worker experienced in Fostering and Adoption and would like to donate 6 months of your life to set up an “Emergency Foster Care Pilot” please email your CV to Lucy Buck.
