Dear Colleagues
I would like to share news of The International Centre for Therapeutic Residential & Foster Care with you: as you will see below, the International Centre is extending its mission to create a global network for all those working therapeutically with children and young people. The aim is to build a low cost but highly influential and informative alliance.
The International Centre’s mission
To share knowledge about therapeutic residential and foster care for children and young people, and to support the use of reflective practice and research, in order to improve service quality, and ensure excellent outcomes.
We want to extend the international use of the TCJ https://thetcj.org
We want to share your stories, examples of best practice, training and research. The possibilities of global interaction are unlimited, so I ask that you send me articles for publication and that you promote the journal across your own national networks. As you know, the journal is published bi-monthly, the next edition will be 1st April.
Our International Centre Research Group is Chaired by Dr Yvon Guest. You can read Yvon’s biography here. Yvon and I have been developing a research network across the UK, but we would like to hear from you and publish international research papers on the TCJ.
Please feel free to contact Yvon and me to make use of the growing network.
New Identity
This month we will be creating a new identity for the International Centre, with the name shortened to ‘The International Centre for Therapeutic Care’. You will start to see it in the next edition of the TCJ news and on the website.
New Members
A warm welcome to the newest members of the International Centre, and those who are in discussion with colleagues about joining us:
Africa
Felix Mwale, from the Zambia Association of Child and Youth care Workers in Lusaka, is the newest member of our African network.
Australia
Tracey Rowe and Lorraine Murphy from ‘Stretch a family’ which has become a member of our Australian network.
http://www.stretchafamily.com.au
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Nedzad Hadzin who works for the organisation ‘Podos’ which is an Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) in Bihac, working with fostered children and children with psychological and physical disabilities:
http://www.podos.org.ba
FICE International
Olgica Cekic is International Co-operation Co-ordinator of Therapeutic Communities Austria, 2nd Vice President FICE Austria, and 2nd Vice President FICE Europe
http://www.fice.at
Hermann Radler is President of FICE International and President of the Federal Association of Therapeutic Communities.
FICE International (International Federation of Educative Communities) was founded in 1948 under the patronage of UNESCO to create a global network with an aim to support all those working with children and young people in out-of-home care, children at risk and children with special needs. Based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all the activities of FICE International respect the personality, interests and needs of the child or the young person. FICE maintains contacts with UNESCO, UNICEF, Council of Europe and ECOSOC. FICE national sections are present in more than 30 countries around the globe.
http://www.ficeinter.net
The Federal Association of Therapeutic Communities is a non-profit/non-governmental-organisation founded in 1999. It provides care services for children and youth with social and psychological difficulties as well as traumatized children. It currently operates in 4 Austrian provinces with 180 staff members providing services for the total number 150 children. The range of services includes socio-therapeutic small group homes, a group home for unaccompanied minors, assisted living as well as in-house tuition service, a support centre for parents, a therapeutic centre and community based care in a Micro TC:
http://www.t-gemeinschaften.org
Hungary
Szilvia Szalontai is International Manager of ‘Nenesz’. Their mission:
The organization supports the creation of equality for disadvantaged children and young adults living in Hungary and over its borders, based on the Hungarian Constitution and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
http://www.nenesz.hu/ and Facebook page: http://facebook.com/neneszegyesulet
Moldova
Tatiana Cocias and her colleagues in Kishinev are currently in discussion about ‘Partnership for Every Child’ joining the International Centre. Partnership for Every Child ran a major international conference in Kishinev in April 2016, at which I was invited to present a key note talk and run a workshop on the work of the Mulberry Bush School.
http://www.p4ec.md
Portugal
Vania Fernandes who previously worked at the Mulberry Bush School is our first Portuguese member, we are also in contact with Santa Casa Misericórdia de Lisboa
http://www.scml.pt
As well as Diogo Antonio from the organisation ‘Novofuturo’:
http://www.novofuturo.org/
Russia
Lizaveta Zeldina and Elena Zagoska are our first Russian members from St Petersburg, and both members of the East-European Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Spain
David Astiz, of FICE Spain writes: ‘On behalf of FICE Spain, we are promoting the transition from institutional care to community based services:
http://portal.fice-es.org/index.php/2-uncategorised/6-english.html
FICE Spain is also working in order to improve the quality of residential care under a community approach. So we might be able to cooperate and to spread out among our members and contacts in organizations and universities in Spain, the possibility of sharing research or good practices with the International Centre. I will put this idea in place during the next FICE Spain Assembly on 14th of February’.
UK
Robyn Kemp, is the new Director of the Centre for Social Work Practice. Robyn has been a long time member of the original ‘National Centre’ and spoke on Social Pedagogy at our 2014 best practice event at the University of the West of England. Since taking up her new role as Director of CSWP we have been discussing shared training events over 2017.
Biography: Dr Yvon Guest
Yvon worked for three decades with some of society’s most vulnerable individuals as a project manager in the voluntary sector. She has worked on a national research project evaluating foster care treatment programmes and another project evaluating the social and emotional cognitive development of looked after children. Yvon grew up in care and combined her reflections on that with a desire to understand the resilience and vulnerabilities of traumatised and socially marginalised groups in her doctoral thesis – A Psycho-social Exploration of the Lifelong Impact of Being in Care as a Child and Resilience over a Life Span. She currently works as a psycho dynamic counsellor and research consultant.
E-mail: [email protected]