Loewenstern Fellowship Envelope #10

Open one week prior to the conclusion of your service


(Ok, I realize I'm late [REALLY late at this point.. had most of this written out before I left Bolivia... oh well]... my bad! Blaming it on the impromptu travelling that I took almost directly after my work last Friday, the 13th [my technical week before the end of my service], and then the sicknesses I got from aforementioned travelling that have left me rather exhausted, and then internet problems)

How does the local approach to addressing this social issue differ from the approach used in your home country?  What, if any, distinct advantages or disadvantages do you see to either approach?


The first thing that strikes me is something that I realized after talking with the volunteer, Rose, who also lives with my host family and is working at an orphanage.  While I'm working at two orphanages down here, Rose informed me that there are no orphanages in the United States (a quick Google search leads me to childwelfare.gov's page on orphanages, which says that "While there are still some orphanages in the United States today, child welfare systems are less likely to use orphanages as placements for children and youth in foster care. Preferred placements include family settings and, when necessary, residential facilities that include services to help the children and youth reunify with their families or find other permanent families.").  So we basically we just use foster care homes.  Helpfully, the website also links to papers, which interestingly mostly critique this approach.  One abstract states, "The private and public orphanages that dotted the child welfare landscape three or more decades ago have been widely condemned, often without qualification, by child welfare researchers and practitioners for harming children in multiple ways, emotionally, behaviorally, and intellectually. This paper reports the findings of a second extensive survey of over 800 alumni from five private and state orphanages in the South and Midwest who left their orphanages in the late 1960s and before. According to their own reports, the orphanage alumni have outpaced their age counterparts in the general population on a substantial majority of the social and economic outcome measures covered in the study. Also, the alumni overwhelmingly report favorable assessments of their orphanage experiences. Nine out of ten respondents indicate that they would prefer to have grown up in their orphanages than in foster care. The findings of this survey are compared with the even more favorable findings of a survey of nearly 1,600 alumni of nine orphanages undertaken in 1995."


Another states, "The authors explore the experiences of 94 residents at the Florida United Methodist Children's Home (FUMCH), a traditional orphanage . . . . Their responses suggest that for many of the residents, the experience was a positive one. Generally, they report average or above average social and economic success. These results call for a more positive reappraisal of the value of orphanage care for dependent youth who cannot remain with their biological families, and who are not appropriate for more traditional family-based foster care."


Absolutely fascinating.  This goes along with the preferences of some of the kids I talked to at Ciudadela.  A few of them had told me that they would not want to be adopted, which surprised me (their reasoning was just that your adopted parents wouldn't be your real parents... which I felt like wasn't that strong of a reason and may be due to their age and not realizing how much better their lives could be, but then again, I'm not in their situation and do not understand where they are coming from), but I suppose it does make sense. 


Another paper on the "Return to Orphanages" indicates that the dissatisfaction with the quality of child care in foster homes has led many to reconsider orphanages and institutional care for children.


So perhaps orphanages can be a much better way of taking care of children.  +1 for Bolivia!

Interestingly, today Maria Cristina gave me a thank-you letter and stated their mission statement in it. So they do have one!  =)

"Como es de concimiento general, el Centro María Cristina trabaja con niños con retardo mental, y nuestra misión está basada en la promoción de la eliminación de las barreras que impiden el ejercicio pleno de todos sus derechos, apoyando procesos de inclusión social efectiva."

My translation:  "As is general knowledge, the Maria Cristina Center works with children with mental retardation, and our mission is based on the promotion of the elimination of the barriers that impede the full exercise of all of their rights, supporting effective social inclusion processes."

To me, it sounds basically like what one would find in the States.  The idea of social inclusion of those with special needs is something that is essential.  Fortunately, one of the staff members is seeking to make little arts and crafts things to sell to then be able to take the kids out.  I wish I could be around to support them and see what was happening.  I did get him a camera though as a gift for all the hard work he's doing there (he's the volunteers' favorite staff worker, and he's been there like 8 years as opposed to many of the staff who's just been there since the beginning of the year, and before Maria Cristina, for many years at other homes), and he said he would take pictures and send them to me.  =)

Yesterday, I was talking with my friend, Jeff, who is doing Child Advocates about the foster care system and about the child he's advocating for today. I told him about the studies that showed that orphanages produced  positive and favorable outlooks, and he agreed that that would make sense, but the foster care system is just so much cheaper.  Having the government run an institution and pay for all the kids and the workers would be much more expensive than just paying families some money to take care of the children.  Sigh.  That could be something that could take changing.  I wonder if it would be possible to open private orphanages or group homes that could be supported by non-governmental entities to help out the foster care system.  I know my site director at the summer camp for children with developmental disabilities that I worked at has recently opened up her house to be a group home to two men who have intellectual disabilities.  Hmmm... maybe a possible thing to look to in the future if I ever get rich, haha.