CASE STUDY: BRIDGES SAFEHOUSE

From its inception, Bridges had always prioritized family care for the children who came through their facility and never accepted children for the purpose of providing access to better education. However, the children and families they worked with faced a slew of complex challenges stemming from their migration out of a bordering country to escape armed conflict. They were often denied their basic human rights and struggled with cyclical poverty, incarceration, drug trafficking, and abuse.

Several years later, Bridges had established three more facilities for children and families from these various high-risk target groups, one of which provided temporary shelter to mothers and their children coming out of domestic violence situations. Although they reintegrated nearly 200 children out of their facilities over time, they were constantly taking in new referrals from the government, child protection networks, their crisis hotline, and community members. Some of the key Bridges staff members knew that there had to be better alternatives to continuing to take in more placements but did not know how or where to begin.

Although Thomas had been living in the country for more than ten years, spoke the language, and had friendships with members of the local community, he came to recognize his own limitations as an expatriate founder and pushed for a shift to national leadership. He appointed Bridges’ community outreach team leader, Kamal, with oversight of the project and its four facilities, promoting him into the role of director of the organization. At the same time, Thomas also stepped out of his role as principal donor, appointing Nina, an expatriate staff member with a social work background, to the task of overseeing the overseas funding organization as executive director.

Thus two staff members with relevant experience and professional backgrounds were entrusted with the responsibility of making organizational and programmatic decisions. Kamal, as the new director, was given the space to shape the project relying on his professional training in community development, as well as his personal experience as a member of the migrant community he served. Nina, in her new role as principal donor, worked to strengthen their organizational practices and financial transparency.

Armed with a skill set unusual for most principal donors, Nina was also able to utilize her relevant professional qualifications, two years of on-the-ground experience working directly with families, and near-fluency in the migrant community language, in her fundraising responsibilities. She effectively communicated complex messaging to her donor base around the root causes Bridges was seeking to address through their work and developed ethical fundraising strategies without relying on the ubiquitous and problematic ‘orphan care’ messaging.

Kamal turned his attention to advocacy within government and community groups and ramped up their existing efforts to prevent family separation. While their prevention work with families proved largely successful, their search for family-based care alternatives in the community proved less so. When Kamal eventually came into contact with Child and Family Development Agency, an external organization providing technical support for the transition out of institutional care, he was finally able to access the guidance and tools he needed to make progress towards the development of formal foster care in the community.

Child and Family Development Agency connected Kamal to other practitioners in the region who were already implementing foster care despite their initial doubts that it could be possible. Kamal now credits one of the workshops he attended through these connections as pivotal in his decision to fully transition out of residential care. Although he was already familiar with the evidence on the harmful effects of institutional care, and even provided training to government officials on the subject, there had been a disconnect in how such evidence related to their own residential facilities.

Through nuanced discussions with Child and Family Development Agency that challenged some of the views Kamal did not realize he held, he came to identify behaviors of institutionalized children in some of the children in their care. Kamal was also provided with technical guidance around the implementation of foster care within contexts with weak regulatory frameworks. This included the development of screening, recruitment, and training strategies as well as concrete explorations of how to navigate the complex dynamics of securing government approval for foster care of undocumented children. Through the combination of these various types of support and connection to peer practitioners, Kamal was able to visualize how transitioning out of a residential care model was relevant and tangible for Bridges, and it was only then that transition became a reality they could pursue.

Kamal’s final moment of clarity came during a farewell event Bridges organized for some of the children leaving their facilities to return to their parents. As everyone grew emotional at the prospect of the children’s permanent departure, Kamal was shocked to hear other children asking him in tears when it would be their turn to go home. Throughout ensuing conversations with the children, Kamal heard directly from them about their desire to live with their families, even in cases where there had been history of severe abuse.

Kamal’s initial motivation to work for an organization supporting at-risk children transformed into a personal responsibility to see the children safely back into their families and communities where they longed to be. During future farewell events for other children leaving their facilities, he felt hugely burdened thinking about the impact of those events on the remaining children, as they waited for their turn to go home.

Through a formal partnership signed with Child and Family Development Agency in 2014, Bridges spent the following two years preparing for a full transition out of residential care. They worked through advocacy and partnerships to secure government permission for a foster care pilot and improved their reintegration practices utilizing more technically robust procedures and interventions. Nina continued to lead Bridges through an involved process of implementing changes at the organizational level.

Although Bridges and its governing and funding boards were legally registered, the partnership with the principal donor organization had previously been based primarily on trust. There were few written agreements or frameworks in place outlining clear expectations around the use of funds, reporting requirements, programmatic activities and budgets, and any breaches of policy. Through Nina’s work with the overseas funding board and reporting templates provided by Child and Family Development Agency, the formerly loose partnership structure was strengthened into a formal and contractual partnership meeting the necessary due diligence requirements.

Despite what looked to be a smooth transition ahead, Thomas, the founder and former director/principal donor unexpectedly re-entered the picture partway through the process, imposing an unrealistic deadline of six months for the closure of all four of their facilities. Kamal requested the support of an overseas practitioner with foster care experience who had had some previous involvement with Bridges, and Nina was able to secure funding for an extended in-country placement for the practitioner to work alongside Thomas and the rest of the team. Transition work continued throughout a highly stressful period that ultimately resulted in parting ways with Thomas, and Kamal recognizes now that he could not have survived the turbulent transition process without the ongoing support and guidance from both the practitioner and Nina.

By 2017, Bridges had closed three of their facilities and transformed the fourth one into a long-term small group home for children who could not be placed in families or communities. Nearly half of the children in their care at the start of the transition have now been placed into foster care and roughly the same number have been reintegrated into birth families and kinship care. The remaining young people are living in community-based care in semi-independent living arrangements with intensive support from social workers, and three children live in the small group home as they await foster care placements.

Kamal now delivers awareness raising workshops on family-based care, both within the migrant community as well as in his community of origin to prevent the flow of children from his home country into institutional care. Having experienced a full transition process and witnessed positive changes for many children he thought could never go home, he is more passionate than ever about supporting children to grow up in families and plans to support other institutions through the transition process.

SCORING

RATIONALE FOR SCORING AND TRANSITION STRATEGY

All of the individuals involved in the establishment, funding, and operations of the organization were motivated by a genuine and cause-based concern for children, and there was an absence of other motivations conflicting with the best interests of children. The director and principal donor were not the founders of the organization and instead were both employed and appointed to their positions. Their professional backgrounds contributed to their ability to theoretically understand the harmful effects and limitations of institutional care.

However, full buy-in was not achieved until, through an emotional experience of hearing directly from the children, the director made the connection between his theoretical understanding and how the evidence was apparent within his own facilities. Transition also did not seem feasible to the director until he was provided with technical support outlining concrete pathways to transition.

Intercultural dynamics and potential complications resulting from operation within a patronage system did not significantly impact the transition because the process was largely outworked by a director operating within his own community. He was hired into his position because of his qualifications and experience, rather than his relational connections to the community where the children originated.

Many of the common risks stemming from a loosely-structured partnership between the director and principal donor were curtailed by putting the appropriate frameworks and formal agreements in place. Any potential damage and interference caused by the founder, who no longer held influence tied to his former roles as director and principal donor, was severely limited by the restriction of his power and authority.

While it is not typical for transition projects to provide family-based alternative care as part of their post-transition programming, a number of factors made it possible for this organization. This included the absence of any concerning motives of either stakeholder, both stakeholders having relevant professional experience, a director who was a member of their target community and a principal donor who was well integrated into it, and a contractual partnership that was established well before the transition commenced.

However, the most significant factor was that they had already been providing similar services around reintegration and support for family-based care prior to transition. Although a handful of children who could not be placed in families or communities remained in their care for several years, the vast majority of children that came through their facilities were only in care between three to six months prior to reintegration. They had never solicited funding through misleading messages around ‘orphans’ or referred to the children as ‘theirs’, instead focusing on the importance of reunifying children with their families whenever possible.

Thus from an organizational, programmatic, and funding perspective, the organization did not have to undertake radical changes to continue to outwork family-based alternative care as part of their post-transition programming. This sets them apart from the majority of other transition projects where the provision of alternative care is feasible only under a carefully considered set of circumstances.