Education Slovakia Project #16287

Navrat: Lets find every child in Slovakia a family

by Nadacia Pontis/Pontis Foundation

Project Report | Mar 5, 2019
Sibel wants to be like me

By Lubica Vyhnankova | PR Manager

All over the 2019 we were very focused on support of foster care because it has a great potential for hundreds of abbandoned children raised in institutional care instead of families. We have very strong belief for the foster care and parental abilities of many foster parents.

Let’s read a few lines from the notes of one foster mom, she wrote for herself, but let us publish it.

Sibel wants to be like me

Notes of foster mommy

Kids have fallen asleep finally and I put on my soft headphones and switch on my favourite music. Time for candle and silence in our home. Today we’ve said good-bye to the Christmas tree. The very first Christmas with our Sibel. She’s been with us for 8 months.

Just a few weeks ago she stopped using isolation strategy every time she got emotional. Every time I saw her running away to hide somewhere I stopped her, embrace her gently and I didn’t let her be alone.

From time to time she use this strategy again, but she doesn’t hide anymore, she comes to me instead. She lays her overloaded little arms and body full of sorrow, anger or fear on me. And my task is to be there, with all my possible empathy, just for her.

It’s not always that easy. Kids overstimulate my senses so that I’m really irritated sometimes. Once, in such a moment, I was so angry, I didn’t let kids come to me. My boys respected it, but Sibel… She started to cry and ran to me nevertheless. In that moment I melted down. I recognized she’s over the worst period, but I can’t make it worse. In that very moment she gave me back everything I’d been giving her patiently the previous months. Being with me in my tough time. Oh, what a marvelous mirror can kids hold.

But my highlight is, that Sibel wants to be like me. She wants my dress. She’s smiling and dreaming. I love her dreaming eyes. I use to tell her, that when she’ll grow up, I give her that dress. One day, I tell her, she’s got nice skirt. She replies me softly, “mommy, when you grow up, I’ll give it to you”.

Sibel is three. But she’s with us for less than a year. So in something, she’s just one. The “something”is vulnerability. And inner insecureness. She loves cuddling with me. But I cuddle to her too. She has something I need too. We have our mutual saturation.

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Nov 27, 2018
Slovakia currently has a shortage of foster families

By Lenka Hujdicova | Project Leader

Aug 30, 2018
The guidebook of safety - We release a guide for schools

By Dana Zilincikova | Coordinator of Center of Navrat in Banska Bystrica

Teachers are extraordinary people. We do our best to support them in seeing a child beyond an odd behavior and in being a back up for their students.

Simon is a first grader. He entered his adoptive family one year old. He needs a longer time for everything. For example for recognizing that next class started, that the break is over, that the class will move, that he has to open a workbook. Many teachers use adjectives for him: slow, misbehaving,... He is very observant – he notices what‘s happening beyond the window and that the mate behind his back has moved slightly. The teacher often says, he is not paying attention but in fact he observes everything what‘s going on in the classroom. Some kids around him make friends very quickly. He doesn’t know them and needs them to speak to him repeatedly and call him to join their games. Some classmates tell him he’s odd, he doesn’t understand a joke and that he’s gazing. In fact, he just stands aside, looks at others and waits till they invite him to join them. Lately somebody told he came from orphanage and everybody was laughing. But, however, he comes from the family. He’s started to think about it all and his head was blowing out of it. There was no room for tasks from the teacher anymore in his brain. He doesn’t feel good with his classmates. Every day he’s afraid of what would they say again. He can’t know when will it come, but they’ve done it so many times before… He’s on pins and needles. He can’t say it to parents. He feels different. He’s heard teacher saying he didn’t cooperate that he balked and nobody could make him do what’s needed. But he just wants to go to school and have friends. And he really likes the teacher and love parents.

The schools in several Slovak towns will receive a support tools for better inclusion of the children who experienced severe and unfavourable events in the early childhood (who were abbandoned by biological parent, neglected, abused, maltreated, tortured, moved from one raising environment to the other, had no opportunity to attach to one adult person and so on). This can be a case of children raised in adoptive, foster, professional families or living with relatives. But according to our experience similar indicators in behavior are seen in many other cases and can touch wider population of children (living in orphanage, crisis center, with less capable parents, etc.).

The teachers can be „significant others“ in the life of these children. Seeing the child in his life history context enhances the understanding between the child and the world around him. If the teacher understands the toxicity of early trauma which touches childs development in various areas and if he chooses the right strategy, he can:

stabilize child‘s psychological wellbeing
create a bridge of psychological safety the child can cross and move to outer world (and relationships in the class)
reduce tention in teacher–student relationship
reduce a degree of social isolation / judgment
make child be satisfied, happy and cooperating
raise the feeling of capability of a teacher
contribute to classmates’ understanding that everyone needs to feel safe and we can make it possible for others
includes child with trauma to the class and to the society

This year we’ve prepared workshops for teachers and other helping professionals engaged in the schools (psychologists, teachers for children with special needs, social workers). After finishing the workshop the school will recieve The Guidebook of Safety – compound guide to the child with early trauma. For teachers of children in need we offer an individual external support – counselling, supervision, couching.

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