SFAC in Kenya
In our previous News in Brief, (Jan Volume) we spoke about how the SFAC Africa team (Sam, Isabel and Joseph) met with Dan in Kenya and promised to get back to you with the details…Here we go!
Dan, our CEO, was invited by Weza Care Solutions, a charity organisation that supports Charitable Children’s Institutions (CCIs) by providing innovative solutions to care for and protect vulnerable children.
He spent 4 days in Kisumu with Weza Care Solutions working with a team that is developing a Case Management app to maximise their impact on serving vulnerable children and families.
SFAC was invited to:
🔵 assist in reviewing,
🟡 provide advice and input
🟢 and, work through what they have designed so far.
As SFAC, we’re thrilled to be part of this innovation as effective Case Management is critical in enabling good practice to take place.
📣 Shout out to 1MillionHome for funding SFAC’s work with WEZA Care Solutions.
“Dan’s the best!” 👍🏾
The quote above from a workshop participant is another reason for value for money! 😃
Whilst in Nairobi, Kenya, Dan provided training to the Ekisa Ministries team from Uganda. 🇺🇬
The training was on:
🔵 Reviewing their reunification work with children leaving children’s homes to families
🟡 Reviewing their work supporting other organisations
🟢 How to provide support services for children aged 16 and above who have left or been forced to leave children’s homes
And you know what? The feedback from the Ekisa team was amazing! 🙌
📣 Again, shoutout to 1MillionHome for funding this work.
SFAC in Brazil
Know the child 👶🏽 know the family 👪 know the context 🌎
This was the key message when three members of the SFAC team:
District Judge Ranjit Uppal (Pro bono legal trainer),
Mick (Founder and social work trainer), and
Nigel (Chair of Trustees and pro bono legal trainer),
had the opportunity to speak at Brazil’s first National Conference on Kinship Care in Brazil late last year 🇧🇷
⭐ The SFAC team’s presentations were the only input that included a social worker, lawyer, and a judge perspective and the only judge-led discussion.
They spoke about:
🔵 The child
It is important for the court to hear the child’s voice so the judge can analyse what is in the child’s best interests from the child’s perspective.
🟢 The family
Professionals involved in child care and protection need to understand the family and the potential carers to have confidence in their suitability, sustainability, and capability to care for the child.
🟡 The context
Safe kinship care needs to be seen within the context of cultural norms.
🔑 The more professionals understand the child, the family, and the context, the better equipped we are to make the best decisions for each child!
SFAC hosts a delegation from Paraguay with a little* help from our friends!
(*we’d make that a lot but it’d ruin the song reference!)
🤔 Picture this: It’s 2012 and our founder, Mick, is speaking with a small group of people interested in changing the way Paraguay protects and cares for children.
⏩️ Fast forward 12 years and Mick and the SFAC team are hosting a delegation of the most senior of Paraguay’s family court judges to help them consider how to put new child care and protection legislation into action in Paraguay. ⚖️🧑🏽⚖️
Safe, sustainable, change takes time.
And, when it happens, it’s amazing to be a part of it! 🎉
🇵🇾 The Paraguayan delegation was led by Dr Carolina Llanes, the first vice president of the Supreme Court of Justice and minister in charge of the jurisdiction of children and adolescents.
You can read more about this in our blog post here.
Planes, trains and automobiles! ✈️🚆🚗
Dan (SFAC’s CEO) and Caitlin (our therapeutic trainer) recently headed south to Hereford on Protective Behaviours business.
📍 They met with an organisation there to find out about their work and plan some training sessions (more details on this once the training gets underway!).
📍 On the way home they managed to fit in an in-person catch-up – the first in several years! – with Maria Huffer, the director of the Protective Behaviours Consortium (PBC).
In both meetings, they were so busy talking about all things Protective Behaviours, that they forgot to snap any photos! 😫
To make up for it, they shared a little of their journey so you can enjoy the views. And the dirty windscreen courtesy of the salt truck!
( ⚠️ Salt spreading might be a new one for our hot climate friends – it’s to stop cars slipping on the ice. A very real hazard when the top temperatures don’t get above 0!)
Dan and Mick have been busy preparing to travel to Bandung, Indonesia.
Getting there was quite an adventure!
🚕 A taxi to York for Dan
🚆 Mick joining Dan on a train to Manchester airport
🛫 A 7hr flight from Manchester to Dubai, UAE
🛫 An 8hr flight from Dubai to Jakarta and
🚗 a two to three-hour car ride from Jarkata to Bandung, Indonesia. 😅
They leave tomorrow (Friday) to run sessions at a conference and attend some meetings.
We’ll be back with more details of the work they’re going to do soon!
An English birthday celebration!
Does having a Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake count as an English cultural experience?! 🐛🎂
🇵🇾 If you’ve seen our last two posts about the delegation from Paraguay that visited us here in the UK in January, you’ll know that we keep our visitors very busy!
(Missed those posts? Catch up by reading the full run down on our blog:
🔗 https://sfac.org.uk/paraguay-delegation-visit2024)
Sadly, that often means there isn’t much time for exploring England or many cultural experiences. 😢
🇬🇧 But, on this occasion, we did manage to squeeze in one very English experience!
Carlos from Paraguay Protects Families did an incredible job co-ordinating the visit from the Paraguay end and translating during this visit.
As well as all that hard work, he also celebrated a birthday!
🐛 So a Colin the Caterpillar cake was quickly obtained and Happy Birthday was sung after the traditional Paraguayan birthday song.
A 1000% Increase In Impact for SFAC
A 1000% increase in impact for SFAC! 🥳
Not the usual 100% but a 1000% growth in reach since SFAC was founded! 👏
For a small charity, here’s what this monumental leap looks like ⬇️
In 2002, SFAC worked with only three organisations across three countries. 🫣
Fast forward to the year 2012, SFAC worked with eight organisations across eight countries. 🚀
Just last year in 2023, SFAC worked with 33 organisations across 16 countries!
That’s a footprint in 51 countries in total since we started! 🌎
So what does it mean for children around the world?! 🤔
It means:
☑️ More children reunited with their families and fewer children living in large institutions (aka “orphanages”)
✅ More children living in foster care or with extended family members instead of in large institutions
☑️ More children are having their unique needs identified and met rather than whole groups of children being given exactly the same care.
✅ The children protected and cared for by each organisation receive a higher standard of care wherever they live.
☑️ New legislation, policies, and procedures are being implemented in many countries & organisations so prevention becomes the focus and fewer children end up in care.
🔑 You can also help us continue this vital work. Donate on our website today! https://sfac.org.uk/donate