Our very own Director, Walter Young, is offering hope of a future with a loving family for thousands of abandoned Ugandan children as part of a UK delegation lending their expertise to help develop the African country’s foster care system.
Life is very much a lottery for the tens of thousands of abandoned and vulnerable children left to fend for themselves on the streets of the Ugandan capital Kampala or in its multitude of orphanages. The risk of being dragged into a life of crime, prostitution or exploitative work is high while for those placed in the care of institutions their quality of care varies dramatically from home to home. But the future for these young people is looking brighter thanks to the efforts of Walter together with UK charity Substitue Families for Abandoned Children (SFAC).
Together with SFAC, Walter is working to share knowledge and best practice from the UK. The partnership has the backing of the Ugandan government, which is committed to supporting the country’s first foster care programmes to tackle the issue of abandoned and vulnerable children. He is helping the authorities establish infrastructures to identify, train and support foster carers, taking children out of orphanages and back into the care of communities.
The scale of the problem they are tackling is huge. UNICEF estimates there are 2.7m orphans in Uganda, with 44% of children left orphaned due to AIDS. Poverty and conflict has seen some mothers and fathers placing their children into orphanages because they don’t have the money to look after them. There are currently 50,000 children in more than 500 baby and children’s homes. These youngsters are seen as the lucky ones. Many who are orphaned are forced to live on the streets or under exploitative conditions of labour, sexual abuse, prostitution and other forms of abuse.
Child-headed households are common with older siblings supporting younger brothers and sisters, doing what they can to earn money to buy food. One in four households in Uganda fosters at least one orphan, but many of these care-givers are overburdened. They often lack the socio-economic capacity to provide adequate care and support for these children.
It is into this backdrop that Walter was invited by his friend Mick Pease – who founded the Leeds-based charity Substitute Families for Abandoned Children (SFAC) – to lend his expertise and knowledge of foster care infrastructure development and the delivery of care.
“Far too many children are being institutionalised in orphanages and while the Ugandan government and their partners are making progress towards ensuring those children are adequately provided for, a lot remains to be done,” said Walter.
“Organisations in Uganda are looking to the West to help address this problem.
“They want to get as many children as they can back with their own families, extended families or into foster care or adoption within Uganda. They recognise the huge benefits for a child of being in a loving family environment.
“The work we have started is to support that agenda and strategy, mostly helping local charities and NGOs to develop the expertise and know-how in foster care and to identify foster carers.”
Walter brings with him to Uganda a wealth of experience in social work. He qualified back in 1991 and worked for a time with Northumberland County Council before forming Team Fostering with his wife Elaine and friend the late Peter Richardson.
“We set up Team Fostering because we really believe in foster care, it is a great way to transform children’s lives, to help them grow up as rounded individuals and give them a better start in life,” said Walter.
“All the income we get is reinvested into the children, there are no shareholders so we can fully invest in children and give them the best possible start we can.”
That experience is serving Walter well as he works with the authorities in Uganda to transform the life chances of orphaned and abandoned youngsters.
While the Ugandan government is supporting a strategy to develop a foster care infrastructure to take youngsters out of orphanages and into the care of foster and adoptive parents, a lack of expertise and experience in this complex field has made it necessary to bring in knowledge from the UK.
“There is foster caring in Uganda, there is a culture of people looking after each other’s children in the community,” said Walter.
“But that tradition has been diluted by people moving to the cities to look for work and communities get broken up. One of the things that struck me was the courage of the children. There were children in difficult settings, child-headed households with no adults around to look after them.
“There was one 14-year-old boy looking after his younger brother and sisters who was going out to try and find work everyday, often couldn’t find work, but it was his bravery in not making a fuss and just getting on with it that really struck me. Family fostering which is properly funded and supported is in its infancy. It’s about how we tackle that, how do we develop a Ugandan way of fostering in a safe and appropriate way to protect children which is also appropriate for the country?”
For the past 14 years Mick Pease has travelled to numerous countries as far afield as Tajikistan, Brazil and Cambodia as a social work training consultant helping organisations and authorities to learn about and develop foster care.
“The best response is to try to develop community-based responses rather than removing children into orphanages without considering alternative family- based care solutions,” said Mick, 62, who lives in Leeds and has been a social worker for 35 years.
“It’s estimated that globally somewhere in the region of 80% of children living in orphanages have at least one parent living, some have both and nearly all have living relatives.
“I invited Walter at Team Fostering to travel with me to Uganda to input his ideas. What we are trying to do is to come up with a system which will be welcomed by international charities, governments and funders.”
The majority of Walter and Mick’s work is concentrated in Kampala and the countryside towns and villages surrounding the capital. Channelling funding into community-based care programmes instead of orphanages could help establish a proper care infrastructure in the country. But the media appeal and viewer impact of children being looked after in big institutions makes it difficult for charity workers to make a financial impact with donors in the more complex issue of family-based care.
Fostering In Uganda
Together with SFAC, Walter is working to share knowledge and best practice from the UK. The partnership has the backing of the Ugandan government, which is committed to supporting the country’s first foster care programmes to tackle the issue of abandoned and vulnerable children. He is helping the authorities establish infrastructures to identify, train and support foster carers, taking children out of orphanages and back into the care of communities.The scale of the problem they are tackling is huge. UNICEF estimates there are 2.7m orphans in Uganda, with 44% of children left orphaned due to AIDS. Poverty and conflict has seen some mothers and fathers placing their children into orphanages because they don’t have the money to look after them. There are currently 50,000 children in more than 500 baby and children’s homes. These youngsters are seen as the lucky ones. Many who are orphaned are forced to live on the streets or under exploitative conditions of labour, sexual abuse, prostitution and other forms of abuse.
Child-headed households are common with older siblings supporting younger brothers and sisters, doing what they can to earn money to buy food. One in four households in Uganda fosters at least one orphan, but many of these care-givers are overburdened. They often lack the socio-economic capacity to provide adequate care and support for these children.
It is into this backdrop that Walter was invited by his friend Mick Pease – who founded the Leeds-based charity Substitute Families for Abandoned Children (SFAC) – to lend his expertise and knowledge of foster care infrastructure development and the delivery of care.
“Far too many children are being institutionalised in orphanages and while the Ugandan government and their partners are making progress towards ensuring those children are adequately provided for, a lot remains to be done,” said Walter.
“Organisations in Uganda are looking to the West to help address this problem.
“They want to get as many children as they can back with their own families, extended families or into foster care or adoption within Uganda. They recognise the huge benefits for a child of being in a loving family environment.
“The work we have started is to support that agenda and strategy, mostly helping local charities and NGOs to develop the expertise and know-how in foster care and to identify foster carers.”
Walter brings with him to Uganda a wealth of experience in social work. He qualified back in 1991 and worked for a time with Northumberland County Council before forming Team Fostering with his wife Elaine and friend the late Peter Richardson.“We set up Team Fostering because we really believe in foster care, it is a great way to transform children’s lives, to help them grow up as rounded individuals and give them a better start in life,” said Walter.
“All the income we get is reinvested into the children, there are no shareholders so we can fully invest in children and give them the best possible start we can.”
That experience is serving Walter well as he works with the authorities in Uganda to transform the life chances of orphaned and abandoned youngsters.
While the Ugandan government is supporting a strategy to develop a foster care infrastructure to take youngsters out of orphanages and into the care of foster and adoptive parents, a lack of expertise and experience in this complex field has made it necessary to bring in knowledge from the UK.
“There is foster caring in Uganda, there is a culture of people looking after each other’s children in the community,” said Walter.
“But that tradition has been diluted by people moving to the cities to look for work and communities get broken up. One of the things that struck me was the courage of the children. There were children in difficult settings, child-headed households with no adults around to look after them.
“There was one 14-year-old boy looking after his younger brother and sisters who was going out to try and find work everyday, often couldn’t find work, but it was his bravery in not making a fuss and just getting on with it that really struck me. Family fostering which is properly funded and supported is in its infancy. It’s about how we tackle that, how do we develop a Ugandan way of fostering in a safe and appropriate way to protect children which is also appropriate for the country?”
For the past 14 years Mick Pease has travelled to numerous countries as far afield as Tajikistan, Brazil and Cambodia as a social work training consultant helping organisations and authorities to learn about and develop foster care.
“The best response is to try to develop community-based responses rather than removing children into orphanages without considering alternative family- based care solutions,” said Mick, 62, who lives in Leeds and has been a social worker for 35 years.
“It’s estimated that globally somewhere in the region of 80% of children living in orphanages have at least one parent living, some have both and nearly all have living relatives.
“I invited Walter at Team Fostering to travel with me to Uganda to input his ideas. What we are trying to do is to come up with a system which will be welcomed by international charities, governments and funders.”
The majority of Walter and Mick’s work is concentrated in Kampala and the countryside towns and villages surrounding the capital. Channelling funding into community-based care programmes instead of orphanages could help establish a proper care infrastructure in the country. But the media appeal and viewer impact of children being looked after in big institutions makes it difficult for charity workers to make a financial impact with donors in the more complex issue of family-based care.
Fostering In Uganda
“Getting funding for family-based programmes is a real challenge whereas funding for orphanage care has great donor appeal,” said Mick “My question to donors is, ‘if you weren’t able to parent your own children where would you rather have them cared for, in orphanages or in family-based care? Why should children from poorer countries be treated any differently than those in the West? They need a family just like our children do. The tragedy is that these family-based options have rarely been considered and it’s time they were. Children’s voices need to be heard and they deserve to have the opportunity to be raised in a safe family environment.”
Grinding poverty – the World Bank estimates that 38% of Uganda’s population live on less than $1.25 a day – exacerbates the challenge of building a better future for the country’s newest generation.
“Probably the single biggest reason why children are put into orphanages is poverty,” said Mick. “Families think they are doing the right thing putting their children in an orphanage because they will have a ‘better life’, access to education, food, healthcare and opportunities, without thinking of the psychological damage it inflicts on the child. We must never forget the longer term psychological damage and loss of identity for children raised in orphanages. Most children want to remain with their family, it preserves their sense of belonging and identity.”
As well as the major beneficial impact for children of being placed back into the care of relatives, foster carers or with adoptive parents, Ugandan society as a whole will prosper from their development.
Walter said: “The knock-on effects for Ugandan society are huge. Children will feel all the benefits of growing up in a caring family, to be a valued member of society and a productive member of the community. Ultimately, we would like the Government to take full responsibility for child welfare. The best case scenario is that the vast majority of the orphanages would not be needed anymore, or would be turning their attention to putting children into families and setting up foster carer and infrastructure programmes.”
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