Training should be provided to all carers on the rights of children without parental care and on the specific vulnerability of children, in particularly difficult situations, such as emergency placements or placements outside their area of habitual residence. (Art. 15, UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children)
Answering this call, SOS Children’s Villages International together with the Council of Europe and Eurochild, as well as, eight European Countries, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia and Romania set out to implement the two year EU co-funded project “Training Professionals Working with Children in Care”
The project met two objectives
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Build the capacity of alternative care professionals to adopt a child rights approach to practice.
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Engage with key national and European stakeholder and raise awareness on the need to sustain such trainings in the long run.
The training handbook developed during the project, entitled “Realising Children’s Rights” builds on the four principles of the UNCRC while embedding them in the daily reality of alternative care professionals.
A total of 881 alternative care professionals were trained on how to apply a child rights based approach to their daily work. Project countries are committed to the sustainability of the project outputs and are planning further training during 2017.
Evaluations undertaken on the impact of the training highlighted that developing the capacity of alternative care professionals to implement a child rights based approach to their work is not only rewarding for the child in their care, but also the professional.
At the workshop, we will invite participants to participate and to experience first-hand the new training with a practical demonstration. This will give participants a better understanding of how the trainings where delivered, their approach and the impact they had on the professional.
