Child guardianship (care) in a foster care centre

Child guardianship (care) in a foster care centre

There are currently 66 foster care centres in Lithuania. Every municipality has at least one care centre. Vilnius City Municipality has five care centres, Vilnius District Municipality has two care centres and Šiauliai City Municipality has two care centres (one of which only provides services to guardians on duty).

The foster care centre provides services to children under guardianship (care), adopted children, children looked after by guardians on duty, members of foster families, employees of community children's homes, guardians (carers) with and without kinship ties, adoptive parents, and guardians on duty.

The foster care centre provides services such as:

• Finding guardians on duty, guardians (carers). The foster care centre makes sure that every child in need of temporary or permanent guardianship (care) is matched with a guardian on duty or guardian (carer) best suited to his or her interests and needs. The search is carried out by the employees of the foster care centre using the Information System of Social Support for Families (SPIS), in cooperation with other foster care centres, and by publicising guardianship and adoption at events, in the community, and in the information media.
• Counselling and information for people intending to become guardians on duty, guardians (carers), adoptive parents, or persons intending to establish a foster family.
• GIMK programme training for prospective guardians on duty, guardians (carers), guardians (carers) for relatives, adoptive parents. The main objectives of the training are: ensuring a safe environment and meeting the child’s physical needs, ensuring the child’s relationship with his/her biological family, helping the child to establish sustainable interpersonal relationships, and cooperating in solving problems between the child and family.
• Social-psychological counselling: helping families of guardians on duty, guardians (carers), relatives of guardians (carers), adoptive parents to establish and maintain safe and stable interpersonal relationships, to solve psychological personality and developmental problems, to strengthen their ability to communicate, their psychological resilience, and to improve the safety of children. Helping to create the right physical, educational and emotional conditions for growing up in a family environment.
• Volunteers, speech and language therapists, special educators, lawyers and other professionals are available whenever possible.
• Maintaining social links with the child’s biological family: mediation and representation in establishing and maintaining contact with the child’s biological family and relatives. Organises meetings between the child and potential guardians (carers) or adoptive parents, ensuring a safe environment for meetings.
• Guardianship coordinator support: advice on how to deal with problems in the family, working together to find effective solutions to the problems (upbringing, education, health care, household management, conflict resolution) and drawing up an action plan to help the family. Coordination of assistance - social, psychological, psychoeducational, psychosocial, legal, counselling, etc. for children cared for by the guardians on duty, guardians (carers), adopted and for guardians on duty, guardians (carers), members of foster families and adoptive parents, at their own request.
• Organisation of mutual support groups: group discussions for families caring for children, guardians (carers), guardians (carers) that are relatives, adoptive parents, guardians on duty, and members of foster families. Participants share personal experiences of past or present difficult family circumstances, helping each other to understand their own capacities to deal with the problems, to reassess the situation, and to find alternative solutions to the problems together.
• Assessment of guardians on duty, guardians and adoptive parents under the GIMK programme: certified GIMK teachers train adoptive parents, guardians (carers), guardians on duty and provide reports on their readiness to care for, provide guardianship (care) and adopt children. Assesses guardians (carers), kinship carers and families for the possibility of fostering children living in an orphanage or foster family and makes recommendations. Together with the guardianship coordinator, review the quality of guardianship (care). Examines and assesses the readiness of a person wishing to establish a foster family or become a member of a foster family.
• Training and counselling for the employees of community care homes: organises individual or group counselling for social workers, ongoing training, runs self-help groups, and provides support where possible.
• Participation in reviews of a child’s temporary guardianship, case management meetings and reviews of permanent guardianship when the foster care centre is providing services to the guardian (carer) and/or the child.
• Organisation and/or provision of temporary respite services for guardians on duty and, if necessary and possible, for non-relative guardians (carers), relative carers and family members.

The activities of foster care centres are governed by the Description of the Procedure for the Organisation and Quality Supervision of the Activities of the Foster Care Centre and the Supervision of the Child’s Guardian on Duty.

For more information on foster care centres, see here.