Which good practices in the field of out-of-home care have proven successful from the point of view of those affected? Which quality standards can we derive from this and how can we implement them? These are the questions Quality4Children, a project of SOS Children's Villages, IFCO (International Foster Care Organisation) und FICE (Féderation Internationale des Communautés Educatives) focuses on.
The three organisations developed a set of quality standards for out-of-home child and youth care in Europe in order to improve the care situation for hundreds of thousands of concerned young people. The Quality4Children Standards were developed through a participatory approach: the Storytelling method. The standards’ principal strength lies in the use of this participatory method. More than 500 people (332 were storytellers) with experience in out-of-home child contributed to the development of the Q4C standards. Nearly half of them were children, young people and young adults with care experience; the other half was made up of biological and foster families, caregivers, social workers and other stakeholders.
A total of 32 European countries participated in the project. The Quality4Children network of contact persons in Europe consists of nearly 60 people from the three Q4C partner Organisations coming from 46 countries in Eastern and Western Europe.
In June 2007 the Quality4Children Standards were launched at the European Parliament. There are 18 standards, which have been divided into three chapters: Decision-making and admission process, Care-taking process and Leaving-care process. Some of the core themes reflected in the standards are for instance participation and empowerment; right of siblings to be cared together; communication, understanding and respect, etc.
Since then, progress has been made in many European countries. For instance, the Maltese Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity used the Q4C Standards as a basis for their "National Standards for Residential Child Care”. In Austria, Germany and Luxemburg, caregivers in child-care facilities use them to monitor their work and several educational institutions use them as part of their teaching programmes.
This Quality4children network currently aims at sharing the experiences that have been made since 2007 in the areas of:
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Advocacy: Specific advocacy activities aiming at implementing the Q4C Standards and using the Q4C Standards to advocate for the children’s rights
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Implementation: Measures that the three Q4C partner organisations have taken in order to implement the Q4C Standards within their organisations
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Child and Youth participation: How have the Q4C Standards influenced the participation of children and young people within the three Q4C partner organisations
In order to ensure such an exchange, Quality4Children plans to host an international conference in 2011 based on the areas mentioned above. This conference is the follow-up to the first Quality4Children Conference which took place in Gmunden, Austria in 2005 and was attended by around 500 participants from 40 countries.
For more information see:
www.quality4children.info
quality4children@sos-kd.org