The sight of street children is one of the most heart-wrenching experiences one can have. Children who should be playing, learning, and growing up with families are instead left to fend for themselves on the streets, often struggling to survive. The Kwetu Home of Peace (KHP) is a nonprofit organization committed to providing rehabilitation services, medical care, and empowerment to these street children, especially those who have been neglected or abandoned by their families. KHP envisions a society where all children have access to such services and grow up in families rather than being homeless on the streets. In this blog post, we will discuss how KHP is transitioning its care model to achieve this goal.
Transitioning our Care Model
KHP believes that the family is the best place for children to grow and thrive. Therefore, their care model is centered on reintegrating children back into their families after rescuing and rehabilitating them. By doing so, the children can grow up knowing their siblings, and extended family, and practicing their cultures. Growing up in a family, children learn the importance of family in society, and this can help reduce the number of children on the streets. KHP’s transition to a family-based care model reduces the dependency on institutionalization and increases community responsibility in taking care of the children. KHP will achieve this through:
Psychological Support to Families
KHP recognizes that families of street children often face psychological challenges such as stress, trauma, and emotional instability. Therefore, KHP provides psychological support to families to help them cope and overcome these challenges. This support is provided by trained professionals who work closely with the families to help them understand the needs of the children and how to provide proper care.
Family Empowerment
KHP believes that empowering families is key to the sustainable reintegration of children back into their families. KHP provides families with resources and training to build a strong foundation for empowerment and self-sufficiency. Some of the resources provided include necessities like food, healthcare, and psychosocial support. KHP also provides parenting skills training, family support counseling, and home visits via trained therapists and social workers.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Children in Families
After reintegrating the children back into their families, KHP provides ongoing monitoring and evaluation to check on their progress and the stability of the family. This helps identify any challenges the family might be facing and provide the necessary support to address them.
Regularly Assessing the Impact of the Program on the Families
KHP recognizes the importance of assessing the impact of their program on families regularly. This helps identify areas that need improvement and ways to make the program more effective.
Family-Based Care, Community-Based Care, Kinship Care, and Family Strengthening
KHP provides family-based care services for street children, but in some cases, community-based care or kinship care is required. Community-based care involves placing children in the care of individuals or families within the community. Kinship care involves placing children in the care of extended family members. KHP provides financial support, food, health care, psychosocial support, and parenting coaching to these families.
KHP also focuses on strengthening families by providing parent education, spiritual development, and skills training. This helps build a strong foundation for empowerment and self-sufficiency. KHP provides necessities such as food and healthcare, parenting skills training, family support counseling, and home visits.
Fundraising for KHP Programs
Through fundraising and donor support, KHP can impact more children by carrying out more family empowerment activities, supporting children in their education, affording logistics during the transition to family-based care, better affording medical support, supporting parenting capacity building, entrepreneurship skills, and workshops for healthy and safe families. KHP also provides psychosocial support for reintegrated children and families, covering transportation costs for social work, home visits, and ongoing monitoring, and funds essential staff for the successful reintegration of children with families.