Orphans into loving foster families in China

We have just completed a three year evaluation of our projects in China and Thailand and want to share a few highlights and reflections with you…

The creation of a new set of core training materials that are tailor made for Thailand, and adhere to international standards, is one of Care for Children’s most accomplished achievements over the last three years!  We were able to draw from our wealth of experience working cross-culturally between the UK and China and to adapt this experience to the Thai context.  No other organisation in the past in Thailand has achieved this outcome in the field of foster care, so it really is a pioneering achievement.

In China, we have we have trained 1,629 staff from 406 care institutions.  This has equipped them to recruit, assess and train foster carers in the local community, as well as place, support and monitor children as they move into families.

“I saw a real change in the staff after they attended the training on foster care with Care for Children.  They were much more aware of the importance of placing children in families and they had a deeper understanding of how important it is for children to grow up as part of a family rather than living in an institution.” Care Institution Director, Thailand

“When I started my job, the process of foster care was not clear. We now use the knowledge we have learnt from Care for Children to adapt our jobs, for example, screening families, establishing emergency foster families, collecting more detailed information, as well as observing children’s behaviour.  We now have a clear standard.” Care Staff, Thailand

“I had no idea about fostering before the workshop, and I even thought that fostering is not suitable for middle and small cities.  However, the training completely changed my thoughts. In my future work I will do my best to promote fostering.” Care Staff, China

“I didn’t realise that the child needs to know his identity before the workshop.  Now I understand why we should tell him who he is, why he is here, and where he belongs, in ways that are acceptable and appropriate for him.” Care Staff, China

“We wanted foster children because we love children, and now we are retired we are available.  The children have bought new warmth into our family. We love them very much because we are with them all the time.  We have experienced a lot of positive things by fostering.  For us personally, we are not lonely anymore.  We see that the children need someone to rely on and we can help them.” Foster parent, Thailand

“Bringing him into our family has made us like a mother and son.  It’s not hard.  I love him like my own child.  I want him to grow up to be a good person.  I want him to have a good job, a good future.  My husband loves him very much.  Everybody accepts him.” Foster parent, Thailand

We are now at an exciting juncture in our goal of transforming child welfare systems across Asia, with our projects in China and Thailand entering new phases.  In Thailand, the next stage will see us roll-out our pioneering work nationwide with a strategic programme to introduce foster care to all state-run care institutions.  In China, the challenge now is to ensure sustainability. Therefore, some of the care institutions we’ve been working with will become local or regional training hubs.  Once fully trained, they will be able to provide training in best practice family placement to other care institutions across the country as we gradually reduce our involvement.

Any small donation you can give towards this work will be hugely beneficial and will make a big impact to the lives of the children.

Thank you again for staying connected with our work. 

This year has seen growth, change and momentum build in all our project sites.

After hosting a successful Family Placement Conference in Beijing, China we look to move into a new season. China is entering a new project phase (Preparation for independence), which will focus on establishing five strategically located cities as pillars of best practice/training hubs for their respective regions. This is the third stage of our project methodology and it will allow us to offer a more deeper and advanced level of training which is a more innovative and strategic approach to advancing our family placement across China. 

In Thailand, we are developing a strategic programme to introduce foster care to all government run orphanages (National rollout stage), which will further facilitate and influence a national shift towards family-based care. We currently partner with 15 which will increase to 20 by the end of the year!  We will also publish our Thai training materials later this year making them accessible to organisations across Thailand.  

Our team have just completed a research project to Vietnam, which, although official reports have not been written up, has been fed back as a huge success! We are now in a better place to understand the need  in Vietnam and how we can meet that with the launch of a Pilot Project (stage one) in the near future! 

In Thailand, we are financially supporting up to 330 children in families with $24,250 still to raise this month. Alongside our family allowances our in-country teams have very busy training schedules with a goal of training 600 people this year! The average cost of a training workshop for 60 people is $25,700

The end of the year sees us host an international study visit to the UK which will cost up to $42,800. 

With the amazing start to the year we hope to continue this momentum as we head into our final six months. We appreciate these are big costs but any small donation you can give towards our project will be hugely beneficial and have impact on the many children we have the privaledge to serve. 

Thank you again for staying connected with our work.