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| Photo: SOS Archives |
Every child growing up in an SOS Children's Village is perceived individually with his/her needs and receives support in developing his/her strengths and abilities. The SOS mother attentively cares for the development of the children entrusted to her, while she herself counts on the support of her co-workers in the SOS Children's Village. This task is facilitated by Development Planning: This quality assurance "tool" contributes to planning the future of each child in an integral way.
Ideally, the concerned child and the SOS mother together, with the support of the care persons relevant to the development of the child, develop short- and long-term goals. Furthermore, measures for supporting the development of the child are identified and agreed upon. The established objectives and measures are reviewed and adapted regularly.
Development planning is a standard process in SOS Children's Villages. However, the effects of this measure have hardly been investigated. This is now to be done in the frame of a study, in order to further develop the process of development planning. As a start, a status quo survey was carried out in approximately 85 SOS Children's Villages around the world (20% of all SOS Children's Villages). The aim was to gain a comprehensive overview of the current status of development planning in the SOS Children's Villages. The results of this survey serve as a basis for the design of the effect study that will be carried out during 2007. The first results of the effect study will be available at the beginning of 2008.