Continuum of Care

The Challenge: The number of children around the world who are parentless or have been abandoned now exceeds 143 million, and the number of foster families and community care options available to meet that need is simply far too small. Often entire families have been affected by HIV/AIDS and remaining extended family networks are already overburdened with orphaned children. Due to the scale of the problem there is often little opportunity to recognise and assess the specific needs of an individual child, and they are often simply sent to any project that can take them in, regardless of its suitability.

The Idea: To assess a child’s needs, consider all potential solutions, and then seek out and provide the appropriate care. Each child’s needs are different, and even one child can have multiple and varying needs which a single project can find difficult to meet. A tool should be developed that allows carers to assess each child independently, to identify any gaps in the care they are already receiving, and to prepare targets for meeting the newly realised requirements: a tool that offers holistic and individualised care.

The Solution: World Orphans began to develop the idea of a Continuum of Care: a system that might not only provide for the actual needs of the individual, but could possess all the potential solutions available. The continuum will engage with parentless children at all stages of potential risk: it looks at preventing orphaning, offering appropriate care if and when orphaning occurs, and ensuring a child’s self-sustainability to secure a future for them. However, in order to effectively offer this spectrum of care, the potential for support must be expanded. A network such as CRANE in Uganda, containing over 60 diverse organisations, presents a real opportunity to combat the limitations of a single project. Ten church-based initiatives within the CRANE network have been jointly identified as a launch pad for this new system. These projects will firstly go through Viva’s training programme (QIS) to increase and build their capacity to care for the children they currently house. Secondly, the children they are caring for will undergo a specific Needs Assessment based on the Continuum of Care, helping to ensure that they can be relevantly helped and supported. This tool will be grown and developed, potentially becoming the primary procedure for all of the projects within the network.

The Result: We are still in the early stages of this collaboration, and specific results are not yet available. However, the 10 launch churches are all currently undergoing Viva’s Quality Improvement System, and the development of resources for a continuum of holistic care has been set in motion. The potential for revolutionising the quality and scope of child care is enormous, and we look forward to reporting further on this partnership as it progresses.

The Partnership: Here the network really comes into its own, with the wide range of contacts and the focus on mutual effort and communication providing a head start for this collaborative programme. Over the coming years Viva and World Orphans will together create a list of relevant referral projects, mobilise and equip 50 pastors to work effectively with children at risk, and train them in the Continuum of Care. Together we can make a significant impact in the lives of children for whom effective care has been lacking in the past.