Background Information
NGO worker and volunteer in community development organization.
Her family was a foster care family, she saw how the child was able to thrive in a family environment. The child and the family had a good experience with fostering and Soksorya sees this experience as a good model for how to care for a child.
She began with Children in Families working in both the kinship and foster care programs and now works exclusively with kinship care.
Our Interview With Practitioner
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Building relationships with the families, learning who they are and their distinct characteristics, learning specifically what each family needs and providing that individualized care
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Asking the right questions and understanding why the family may be struggling (i.e. asking why the child doesn’t want to go to school and learning that it is because she’s embarassed about not having new clothes or because she failed her exam)
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Soksorya met with the teacher and found out the girl doesn’t read and write very well. Soksorya hired a tutor for the girl and now she can read and write and feels confident enough to be back in school
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Finding the family’s strengths
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Investigating and finding out the underlying issues at play (if a family is not honest, she tries to understand why)
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Families have to agree to the plan. If not, it won’t work.
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Seeing firsthand that families can change and make better lives for themselves