What would you do if someone gave you £101,000?!

Go on the holiday of a lifetime? Pay off your mortgage?

At SFAC, we can answer that question very specifically because it turns out, £101,000 is exactly (well, not exactly, but rounded to the nearest £1000!) what we spent last year*. 

Yep, we really are a small charity (even though we have a growing team, it adds up to the equivalent of just 2.5 full-time staff). Our total income for the year was only £108,000. But, boy, did we put those pounds and pennies to work…

So here’s how we spent £101,000 in 2023:

We worked with 33 child care and protection organisations across 16 countries to ensure more children are given the best chance to thrive. 

(Here’s a fun tangent: In 2023 we reached an exciting milestone: we’ve now worked with organisations in 50 different countries – that’s more than a quarter of the world’s countries!)  

We’d love to tell you about all the work we did with each of those 33 organisations… 

But you’d be here all day. 

So here’s a little taste instead – strap in for a speedy world tour!

1. Reviewing Foster Care Procedures in Iraq-Kurdistan 🇮🇶

We worked with an organisation called Step Iraq to conduct an online review of their foster care programme and procedures, making recommendations for improving future practice. SFAC’s founder, Mick Pease and volunteer, Walter Young, first ran training with them when they were looking to set up a foster care project more than ten years ago. Our team has continued to provide advice and consultation on and off ever since as they’ve worked to set up the programme.

The Kurdish government are using this programme as a pilot project for foster care across the region as there’s never been formalised foster care before.  

2. Protective Behaviours (PBs) Foundation Courses 🇮🇳

Social work contractor, Leah Denes, and therapeutic trainer, Caitlin Lance Hope successfully ran two PBs Foundation courses online with over 20 participants from Vision Rescue in India. (Thanks to ACCI Australia for funding this work!). Vision Rescue works with children and families in slum communities in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. They have reached over 250,000 people so far and will be incorporating PBs into their work.

3. Speaking at Conferences for care and legal practitioners in Brazil 🇧🇷 

Dan and Mick were invited to speak at a Foster Care conference in Brazil by organisations, ABBA and ACER. They shared about the pros and cons of paying foster carers and how lawyers and judges could have confidence in foster care as a safe option.

Some judges at the conference wanted other members of the judiciary to hear what had been said at the conference and organised a last minute training event with an expected attendance of 50 people in person and online. In the end, 34 people attended in person and 224 online!

The events were such a success that Mick and our legal trainers, District Judge Ranjit Uppal and Nigel Priestly (who also happens to be the Chair of our trustee board), were invited to speak at a legal conference on kinship care later in the year. They were particularly interested in hearing about how judges in the UK incorporate kinship care as an option for children who can’t live with their immediate family as it’s not yet part of formal practice in Brazil.

As a result, a delegation of judges visited the UK earlier this year to observe practice. Along with further online training and consultation it is likely that all of this work will result in changes to judicial practice in Brazil (population: 217 mil) which will directly impact all children involved in the Brazilian child care and protection system.

4. Online Training on Case Management Processes in Indonesia 🇮🇩

SFAC held multiple online training sessions with The Salvation Army Indonesia on the co-production of their case management processes (including forms and procedures) to safely return children to families and making plans for those children who can’t safely return. This training has been directly affecting the care of over 230 children and their families.

5. Consultation and Training on transitioning from an Orphanage Care model to Foster Care in Sierra Leone 🇸🇱 

In Sierra Leone, SFAC worked with CRC along with HCW and 1 Million Home in exploring the services they could provide to the community now that they’ve transitioned away from an orphanage model of care. Dan also ran a joint training workshop with CRC, Princess Promise, and CFPS on what a foster programme needs to consider and include. You can read more about our work in Sierra Leone here.

6. Advocating for Family Care at a Government Policy Conference in Botswana 🇧🇼

Dan accepted a last minute invitation from ROLE UK to speak at a conference in Botswana. He was asked to give an international perspective on increasing family care options and reducing the reliance on children’s homes as the “go to” solution.

So what do these projects (and all the others we didn’t mention) 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 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 are receiving 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.

If we could achieve all this with just £101,000 and a small team, imagine what we could do with twice that?! 

YOU can be part of this success story by supporting SFAC’s mission to challenge and change child care and protection practices around the world.

Help us continue this work so children everywhere can be and feel safe, have somewhere to belong, and the best chance to thrive by making a donation today!

Or click here for other ways to fundraise and get involved – whether you are an organisation, business, or individual, we have options for everyone!