Community Care

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Beneficiaries: 40 children and 30 families.

Vision: Together with various communities to accommodate children within a family.

Mission: To assist children to move from focus on self, preparing them to belong within a family environment.

Core Business: To identify, screen, educate and support families for the purpose of integrating children into a family system.

Admission Criterion: To have a sense of stability and life direction, with a clear understanding of the role and importance of family life in self-development. A willingness to be part of, and participate in family and community structures.

The Community Care Programme is central to the practical implementation of our services to children removed from their families and communities. While residential care and the community houses focus primarily on healing past wounds, planning and preparing the child for their future life in society, the Community Care Programme is the actual transition of the child into a family and community. This includes preparing the child and family and also assists in this transition by offering consistent support and care during this time of evolution.

St. Philomena's Community Care Programme endeavours to provide a comprehensive, inclusive familyservice that takes account of the child's history and enhances current relationships. The process of meeting these needs is evolving as we integrate this programme from planning, to preparation, to placement, to long-term family permanence.

Since its inception in 2000, the Community Care Programme has gradually grown and its knowledge base and expertise extended. It continues to be nourished by new trends of thinking and new challenges. We need to acknowledge Secure the Future, Orphans of Aids Trust, the National Lottery, Kindermissionswerk and Missio who have financially supported this process and made the pilot project possible.

The manual is a simple and practical implementation procedure put together by the multidisciplinary team of St. Philomena's. It allows each practitioner to take responsibility for task completion in the process of “transplanting” children. It transports theory into practice by using clear outcomes based data gathering for the purpose of successful permanent family placements.