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There are countless children in Colombia who have lost parents due to civil conflict and HIV/AIDS, while others are abandoned due to extreme poverty, parental drug abuse or arrest. Others are abandoned after serving time as child combatants. Most of these children have little hope for adoption because they are “older” (more than 6 years old). Exacerbating the problem is the stigma that Colombian society assigns to these children.
Encuentros Milagrosos – Helping older orphans find permanent families
 In 2007, Kidsave launched the Encuentros Milagrosos (Miraculous Encounters) program with Instituto Colombiano Bienestar Familiar (ICBF), Colombia’s national child welfare system. Using Kidsave’s Family Visit model, Encuentros Milagrosos is a child advocacy and family recruiting program that helps abandoned children ages 7 to 18 find permanent families and long-term mentors. Children and interested adults have opportunities to get acquainted at monthly Kidsave-sponsored events and as relationships develop, families and children enter into hosting relationships where the host family welcomes the child into their home for weekends, holidays and school vacations.
To date, 74 orphaned children have participated in Encuentros Milagrosos, and 34 have found long-term mentors or adoptive families.
Project of Life – Preparing orphaned children for independent living
Colombian orphans are emancipated from the child welfare system at age 18. Most leave the orphanage without a high school education, unable to support themselves and with no caring adult to guide them.
Kidsave’s Project of Life program helps prepare older youth for young adulthood and independent living. Host families work children to teach basic life and social skills according to an individualized plan that is developed based on the child’s needs. Progress is assessed both by the family and by the child welfare workers in the protection home (orphanage) where the child resides. The program has just begun in Bogota, but we have already seen a marked improvement in social skills, scholastic performance and outlook on life among participants. All children who participate in Encuentros Milagrosos are part of the Project of Life program, and ICBF hopes to work with Kidsave in 2009 to expand this to other regions of Colombia.
Training the Trainers (TOT) – Expanding our Reach
In addition to our programs, Kidsave has developed educational materials and seminars to train child welfare professionals (social workers, psychologists, etc.) who work with orphans in permanency and family-based care models so that our successes can be replicated in other places. Once trained, these professionals can properly engage and train orphaned children, families and mentors to participate in family visit programs, and provide selection, pre-placement evaluation and family matching and post-placement support and monitoring. In just two years, Kidsave has trained more than 125 child welfare professionals in Colombia who have the potential to change the lives of hundred of Colombian orphans in the next five years.
Our close and positive working relationship with the Colombian government, in particular ICBF, has resulted in a shift in how Colombia approaches finding families and connections for older children in care. For all programs, Kidsave and our government partners work together on technical committees to establish and refine protocols that benefit not only children in Colombia, but serve as a model of public/private sector cooperation worldwide.
For more information about Kidsave’s programs in Colombia, please contact Randi Thompson at Randi@kidsave.org
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