Brazil 🇧🇷

Brazil is the first country SFAC worked with organisations in and we’re still working with Brazilian organisations today – that’s over 20 years of work. That means there’s lots of information here, so you have two options:

1. Grab your beverage of choice and settle in for a long read
2. Use the links below to jump straight to the area you’re interested in.

Organisation: Abba

🟦 Background: There was no formal government approved foster care programme in Sao Paulo, Abba had two children’s homes and no foster care service and at the time, less than 1% of children who could not live with parents or extended family,  were in foster care. Abba wanted to change this after its executive heard about foster care through a discussion with Mick Pease at a conference. 

🟨 Their goal: To deliver foster care services

🟩 Main Services:

• Consultancy and training In person and online on foster care 

• Consultancy on case management system for foster care. 

• Protective behaviours. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC provided several in person workshops over three years and two follow-up workshops five and seven years later and one therapeutic training course. These workshops enabled Abba to create its foster care processes. The workshops gave information, then helped them to put that into action and build their skills and confidence through reflective discussions, case consultations and therapeutic training. This work has included training to around 34 Abba staff and 20 foster care families over the years. 

🟩 Outcome: Abba created a foster care service that is ongoing today and now homes 15 children in 2 government approved foster care programmes in São Paulo City – the first such government approved foster care programmes. 

🗝️ Impact: They were able to create a foster care programme that they have confidence in.  And, Abba is now recognised in Brazil as a leading provider where they train and advise others on implementing foster care programmes. Abba nationally has shown it can and does work and this is promoting greater interest in delivering foster care nationally.

‘SFAC influence has been fundamental to our developing foster care programmes in a careful and professionally sound manner. Foster care is technically complex with large repercussions over children´s lives when done poorly. SFAC helped us avoid pitfalls that could have damaged the children we work with and our ability to carry out our programme, particularly the SFAC journey of a foster carer, is something we use all the time.‘

–Delton – Abba

📅 Years Active: 2005-2023

Organisation: Abba (advocacy services) 

🟦 Background: When this project started, foster care was less than 1% of all children’s placements in alternative care. 

🟨 Their goal: To include the judiciary, psychologists, social workers and NGOs, in work to promote the use of family care services in Brazil and to gain the support of the judiciary so children are placed in family care services rather than children’s homes. 

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy work on family care.  

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC delivered around twenty workshops in seven states of Brazil to invited judges and lawyers since 2005. This has seen SFAC deliver workshops to over 10,000 people over the years, with regular attendance of 1-1500 people per workshop online and in person. 

🟩 Outcome: Workshops delivered by SFAC are estimated to reach around 8-10,000 social workers, psychologists, lawyers, judges and those interested. 

🗝️ Impact: Foster care has now increased in use to 5% and is growing. SFAC is viewed as a significant contributor to how foster care established itself. 

Since then, kinship care is now being discussed as a formal approach (see other SFAC projects in Brazil with Acer), and judges are now promoting the use of family care placements (see other SFAC projects in Brazil with Acer), including the story below of Judge Eduardo Melo; all a result of SFAC advocacy and other projects. 

‘There are many professionals in Brazil who know SFAC and often comment about the importance of the training they have received. They comment that the training is of a very good quality, but also comment that they can see that SFAC´s workers genuinely care. It was most recently demonstrated by the attendance of people at the national foster care conference for both Dan and Mick’s talks, the number of people that watched Dan’s videoed presentation, and attended Mick, Ranjit and Nigel’s workshop on kinship care. People seek and want SFAC advice because they believe it will help them improve and avoid problems.’

–Delton – Abba Brazil

Judge Eduardo Melo attended a conference delivered by Mick Pease about family care. It inspired him to promote this as an option where he could in his legal practice. Twenty years on, Judge Eduardo is head of training in São Paulo. 

In a position of influence, he returned to SFAC for support (see SFAC projects in Brazil with Acer) and is a very significant figure in promoting family care within the Brazilian judicial system. 

‘I was really impacted by SFAC’s presentation on family care and foster care and felt challenged in improving Brazil’s approach. It has been a lifetime work and now I am in a position to influence more. It all started because SFAC’s advocacy resonated – children need families.’

Eduardo – Abba Brazil

 📅 Years Active: 2003- 2023

Organisation: Abba (legal advocacy services) 

🟦 Background: When this project started, foster care was less than 1% of all children’s placements in alternative care. 

🟨 Their goal: To include the judiciary and lawyers working in family law. 

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy in the judicial sector. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC delivered over three conference workshops in two states of Brazil to invited judges and lawyers. This has enabled SFAC to deliver training in person and online to over 5,000 legal professionals during this time. 

🟩 Outcome: Workshops delivered by SFAC are estimated to have reached around 5,000 lawyers and judges, including online in Judge Eduardo Melo’s Sao Paulo City judicial training programme. 

🗝️ Impact: More judges became aware and this led to subsequent visits by representatives of the judiciary in 2024 (see SFAC Brazil work with Acer) and contributed to more engagement and conversation in the judiciary in the family care sector. 

📅 Years Active: 2015-2023

Organisation: Sapeca

🟨 Their goal: To review and reflect on their services. 

🟩 Main Services: Consultancy in foster care

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: Consultancy work on foster care, as Sapeca had created the first foster care programme in Brazil. This was delivered to a workshop of 8 staff. 

🟩 Outcome: Reflection by Sapeca helped them improve their services. 

🗝️ Impact: Sapeca is a leading foster care provider and the founder, Jane Valente, is now the leading advocate in Brazil for foster care. Jane started working with and inviting SFAC to help offer support and advice to organisations and the sector. 

‘We are grateful for SFAC always answering our needs, whether at high-profile symposiums or at a small gathering of foster families, and always with the same enthusiasm. Despite living in different contexts, we always find ourselves caring for human beings. Thank you!’ 

–  Jane Valente (note: Jane is THE leading name in Brazil re: foster care and care reform).

Organisation: São Bento do Sul

🟦 Background: SFAC presented on WHY foster care at a local conference to help in recruitment. Also asked to specifically address HOW foster care works for those in the region who were thinking of developing foster care.

🟨 Their goal: Advocacy and to help further develop a judicial pilot foster care programme.

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy and Foster Care Training & consultations

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC provided conferences on why foster care can be beneficial to children compared to children’s homes and follow-up training and consultations in how to set up and run the foster care programme. 

🟩 Outcome: The judicial technical team were better equipped to continue to develop their foster care programme. 

🗝️ Impact: They managed to set up and continue to run a foster care programme offering children a alternative family where necessary.

Organisation: Institute Fazendo Historia 

🟦 Background: The NGO delivered adoption services but wanted to expand into foster care. Having heard SFAC discuss it at a conference, they wanted to know more

🟨 Their goal: To support their development and implementation of foster care. 

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy and foster care consultancy

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC provided a couple of consultations on how to implement a foster care service. 

🟩 Outcome: NGO set up a foster care service. 

🗝️ Impact: Foster care service remains in operation, providing children an alternative to adoption where it would not be appropriate (for example, they are older children who still spend time with their biological family). 

Organisation: Revive-International

🟦 Background: Revive had two children’s homes but no foster care service, and there was no foster care provider in the north-east region in 2023. Revive wanted to change this after becoming aware via national movements in Brazil led by Abba and others (see other SFAC projects in Brazil). 

🟨 Their goal: To create a foster care service they felt confident was safe and effective. 

🟩 Main Services:

• Consultancy and training online in foster care 

• Consultancy and training online in case management systems for foster care and care planning. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC provided online foster care training and advice to Revive, who were creating the first formal foster care programme in the Olinda region. SFAC’s training covered:

• Why foster care is better than children’s homes for most children who cannot return home to parents or extended family
• How to recruit foster care families
• How to train and assess foster carers
• How to monitor families and provide support. 
• How to ensure appropriate matching of children and foster care families (matching is the process of looking for which child fits which family to ensure the placement will work as best as it can). 
• How to ensure the programme is safe
• How to work effectively with the government and courts. 

The work was delivered to 6 staff. 

🟩 Outcome: Training delivered and Revive gave positive feedback on how useful and informative it was. 

🗝️ Impact:

For children: Revive now has 4 children in foster care. It includes one brother and sister sibling group who can live together rather than be moved into separate boys’ and girls’ children’s homes. They get to experience life together as well as receive the individual care and family experiences that would be lost were they to live in a large children’s home; the common response to those children who cannot live with their parents or extended family. 

For Revive: They are now delivering a foster care programme they feel confident in. They are fulfilling their mission and vision. 

For Brazil: it is another region providing a foster care programme that supports the overall agenda for more family care services in the country. 

 ‘The SFAC training was extremely important for us. It not only strengthened our team but also provided us with tools and guidance to develop our documents, workflows, and procedures for supporting children, and for selecting and assessing foster care families. We learnt so much which stopped us making avoidable mistakes we had not thought about and prevented us causing children and foster carers harm. We go slow,  but we are seeing the children in foster care receive love, care, warmth and protection at a level above our good children’s homes. It is the way we go. Thank you SFAC’. 

📅 Years Active: 2023 onwards.

National Conference on Family Care

🟦 Background: Only 5% of children in 2025 are placed in foster care. 

🟨 Goal: To share experiences globally about foster care and how foster care can be seen as a safe option. 

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy about foster care. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: Presentations and discussions with professionals involved in the care and protection of children on how people can have confidence in foster care from a safety perspective. 

This workshop was delivered to over 1500 professionals, with more watching online, including one video online by judicial agencies watched by over 1250 people with over 5000 views. 

🟩 Outcome: workshops and presentations completed with SFAC’s presentations attended by over 1500 people. 

🗝️ Impact: Wider awareness of how foster care safeguards are important to help ensure it is a safe environment for children and how these safeguards can be implemented. 

‘So so informative. It is very practical (and fun – those socks tell a story!). The way it resonates with parenting and is simple to implement is  so helpful. We waited all conference for this presentation and then we struggled to get in!  It shows how important SFAC is to helping us make sure foster care is safe and effective tool. Thank you.’

📅 Years Active: 2023 (Closed project, but SFAC continues to attend when invited.)

Organisation: Sao Paulo District Judiciary and ACER.

🟦 Background: The judiciary was, until 2015, not included in the discussions around promoting family care, yet judges determine children’s placements and have had low confidence in foster care and kinship care. Kinship care is also not a formal option available to judges in law in 2024, when the conference began. Children are also not represented in the court process, although they should have a voice in proceedings. 

🟨 Goal: To support the judiciary in promoting family care where children cannot live with their parents,  to reflect on the creation of a national safeguarding system that includes a continuum of services judges can advocate for and understand their role within, and learn more about children’s inclusion in placement decisions. 

🟩 Main Services:

• Advocacy Work in Legal and Social Work: Child Protection and Care Systems; 

• UK exchange visits. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work:

There have been four parts to the SFAC work with the São Paulo Judiciary and Acer:

• UK exchange visits as a learning and reflective tool, including
  • Shadowing judges in the UK
  • Workshops with lawyers and judges on practice in England. 
  • Workshops with social workers involved in foster care, kinship care, child protection and how the systems work together and with the judiciary. 
  • Workshops with children’s court representatives. 
• Attendance at Brazil workshops
  • Talks and discussions by UK judges and lawyers on court systems in family courts, including introducing the welfare checklist and SFAC best interest guide to decision making, as well as examples of how children are represented in hearings about their care and welfare. 
  • Talks on why judges in the UK place children in families instead of children’s homes and how they determine if it is safe, appropriate and in the child’s best interest. 
• Promoting kinship care and foster care
  • Talks on why these options should be included in the options for alternative care. 
  • How can the judiciary have confidence that they are safe? 
• Introducing the continuum of services and national safeguarding systems and the role of the judiciary in these systems.
  • Introducing the concepts of support (prevention), protection (monitoring), intervention for safety, and alternative care and the role judges have in ensuring families and children have been, or given, the assistance they need to uphold the right to family life and right to safety from harm. 
  • Introducing the national safeguarding system and judges role within it. 

This was to around 1250 lawyers and judges and more watching online and 5 judges/lawyers visiting the UK. 

🟩 Outcome:

Workshops and visits have been held and completed. There was significant interest by judges and lawyers in understanding more about the welfare checklist, child representation in proceedings, and developing with the government a national safeguarding and continuum of services model to support families and enable more children to live in the community. The interest included a declaration by attendees at the workshops to learn more about these areas of practice and for kinship care to be a legal option in family hearings. 

🗝️ Impact:

• Growing interest in promoting children’s rights in court, including their right to family life. 

• Kinship care is now going through formal processes for inclusion as a legal option in proceedings. 

‘The SFAC team were able to set out in practical ways, the experiences of kinship care in England and Wales and how, through the courts and through specialist social work assessments, kinship care could become a vital additional and integral resource in Brazil. We discussed how initially kinship care had been dismissed as an option, yet it is culturally the norm as is found in all research on family care. 

–Sidney Fiore Júnior, Public prosecutor.

‘The UK visit and kinship care presentations in Brazil have given us real insight and ideas that can help shape and inform practice here in Brazil and gives me tools, knowledge and experiences I can share with Brazilian colleagues in workshops and conferences.‘

– Judge Eduardo. 

📅 Years Active: 2023-24

This project is currently suspended due to UK government aid cuts and is awaiting resumption or alternative funding streams. 

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Colombia 🇨🇴

Organisation: Formando Vidas 

🟦 Background: There was no formal foster care system in Colombia at the time. The organisation involved had numerous large children’s homes and wanted to change this within its organisation and others. 

🟨 Their goal: To bring the concept of why large children’s homes are not appropriate and what alternatives exist. 

🟩 Main Services: Advocacy and Awareness in foster care, and small children’s homes. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work: SFAC provided a number of workshops over two years to over 1000 people. And, advised Formando Vidas over separate meetings to develop its small children’s home service. 

SFAC trained over 1000 professionals with Formando Vidas, going on to train and advocate the message to many more. 

🟩 Outcome: Formando Vidas changed its model to small children’s homes with a long-term goal for foster care, which needed government legislation to be made possible. Formando Vidas started lobbying for such changes. 

🗝️ Impact: Formando Vidas changed their model and began lobbying and advocating for change in Colombia. In addition, Abba (from Brazil) attended and it was from there that the seeds of change in Brazil began and SFAC were invited to them. 

‘SFAC impacted professionals with validated experiences and methodologies, which have strengthened the care benefits to more than 1000 participants. Mick taught us the importance of family care of children that could not be with their family of origin. We in turn opened 6 family based long term small care homes for children. We also taught the principle SFAC  had taught us in many other seminars across Colombia and several other Latin American countries’ 

📅 Years Active: 2005 – 2008

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Paraguay 🇵🇾

Organisation: Little Neighbour 

🟦 Background: One other agency had created a foster care programme previously, but this closed as it was not cost-effective. There had been no foster care programme for three years and the founders of Little Neighbour want to change this after Brian had been translating for SFAC during our awareness and advocacy workshops in the country. He wanted to show it can work and be cost-effective. 

🟨 Their goal: To create the first formal foster care programme in Paraguay. 

🟩 Main Services:

• Foster care training and consultancy;
• Case Management in care planning and foster care.
• Protective Behaviours;
• Case Consultancies. 

🟦 Summary of SFAC work:

SFAC provided online workshops to Little Neighbour to create the framework for a cost-effective and culturally appropriate foster care service alongside a case management system for the care of children and the monitoring/supporting of foster carers. 

Alongside this, SFAC provided therapeutic training (Protective Behaviours) for them to use with foster carers to help understand children’s needs, respond to these needs and for carers to use themselves for self-care alongside LN staff. 

Once created, SFAC provided case consultations for around three years as and when needed to assist them in caring for children and build their experience and confidence in action. 

SFAC trained 3 Little Neighbour staff. 

🟩 Outcome:

At the end of the Protective Behaviours and foster care workshops, Little Neighbour created the foster care programme which remains operational in 2025. They now feel confident in handling the cases they manage. 

🗝️ Impact:

Over 15  children have experienced foster care family life instead of children’s homes and orphanages since they started placing children in foster care families in 2021. 

Little Neighbour is now the foster care training organisation in Paraguay as selected by the Paraguayan government to lead their foster care initiative to see more children in family care. They have demonstrated it can be cost-effective. 

‘Having Dan, Caitlin and Mick on the end of a call is priceless. We have many cases in our early days where we said, ‘we need help!’. We spoke to them, they always responded, they always helped, they gave us ideas and helped us figure it out. It’s more than training, it’s the support that SFAC offers.’

Brian Mccobb – Little Neighbour

📅 Years Active: 2019 – 2024.

Organisation: PPF (Paraguay Protects Families) and Paraguayan Children’s Ministry and Family/Children’s Court. 

🟦 Background: When SFAC began the work, Paraguay’s child protection system was fragmented, with 100s of children’s cases unknown in where they were placed after court orders were made or how they were being looked after. Alternative care facilities were mainly large children’s homes of mixed standards. And, the Paraguayan department responsible was at a junior level. PPF was a group of committed individuals seeking change and was directed to SFAC in 2012. 

🟨 Their goal:

To create sustainable change in Paraguay that includes family care options for children rather than large children’s homes, an effective child protection system integrated with the judiciary, and a preventative community programme to support children to remain safely in the care of their families. 

🟩 Main Services:  

• Advocacy and Awareness Workshops – for the government and NGOs

• Advocacy and Awareness Workshops – for judicial agencies 

• UK exchange visits

• Consultancy on the continuum of services and creating a national safeguarding, child protection and care system. 

SFAC Services Summary:

SFAC began by delivering advocacy and awareness workshops to the precursor to PPF, Red Viva. Following this PPF was formed and workshops were delivered over two years to NGOs and government agencies promoting family care, the continuum of services model and children’s rights. These workshops were delivered to orphanage/children’s home providers, NGOs working to care for children or advocate for children’s rights, and the Paraguayan children’s child protection agencies. 

In 2018, it was agreed these workshops would focus on the judiciary who makes the decisions about children’s placement. A conference workshop for all judges and lawyers involved in the family court was delivered. 

After this, consultancy services were provided to PPF to assist the Paraguayan government in rewriting its legislation. 

From 2014 onwards, SFAC has also hosted various delegations of government and judicial representatives to the UK. They have visited to observe how an integrated system of care, protection and preventive services happens. Visits in 2014 and 2018 were by representatives of the government and NGOs to advocate for change. In 2022, the vice-minister for children visited. And in 2023, vice-heads of departments visited on behalf of the government, followed in 2024 by heads of departments and the children’s minister and head of the Supreme Court for children. 

SFAC workshops would have been to around 725 people in total over 4 years and a further 3 PPF staff have been supported, along with 27 representatives from PPF, the Paraguayan government and the judiciary attending UK exchanges. 

🟩 Outcome:

Paraguay introduced new legislation in 2022 that adopted the continuum of services model, created a ministry for children with a minister at the cabinet level and began a policy of reform. In 2025 this saw Paraguay’s president launch a initiative to build 100 children’s centres, train all Codeni (family support) volunteers, launch a call for foster care to be scaled up and for further reforms, In addition the Supreme Court is reviewing its procedures to improve best interest decision making, child representation in court and promoting family care. 

🗝️ Impact:

Paraguay has a new national safeguarding system in place with a number of policies aimed at ensuring children’s rights are being upheld and implemented through family support programmes, an improved child protection and court system to come, and changes to be made in the alternative care provision.  It has new legislation in place, including the adoption of the continuum of services model and the children’s department is now a cabinet level ministry. 

‘SFAC professionals really have a heart, expertise and the willingness to teach and come alongside us and our roles. SFAC has been one of those primary experts with really top quality professional training – very practical and very professional.‘

-Walter Guiterez, Children’s Minister

📅 Years Active: 2012 onwards. 

You can read more of our work in Paraguay here.