A Study

We are currently doing a study comparing girls who have transitioned directly from the orphanages to independent living and girls who have lived in Hope House, a transition home for you women run by World Hope Ukraine and World Hope Canada.

So far, we have gathered information on girls who have left Hope House and transitioned to independent living in the last 3 years. Currently, we are gathering information on young women who went directly from the orphanage to independent living. We are hoping for a sample group of 10-20 girls.

Yulia and Veronika outside their dorm in Odessa

Today, I met with two girls who graduated from their respective orphanages in June and are currently living in a students dorm in Odessa. We conducted a short interview with the girls, asking them about their living conditions, education, income, and personal relationships. I had heard from the girls at Hope House how poor the student dorms were and this interview confirmed this information with facts. 

Both these girls have the status of orphan, which means they draw on a government stipend. However, though  their stipend is supposed to be 2,200 grivnas every month (about $300 a month) on which to subsist, in reality they have only received 1,100 grivnas for two months (about $140 for two months) on which to subsist. The cost of things in Ukraine is similar to prices in Canada. Soviet prices are certainly a thing of the past. 

The girls mentioned they eat no breakfast, have a plain bun and coffee for lunch, and soup or oatmeal for supper. They eat meat maybe once a week and said they never buy fruit because it is too expensive.  One of the girls is suffering from stomach problems from a poor diet. 

Finally, we asked about the dorm. One of the girls said they had one toilet for 40 students and no shower. If she wanted to shower, she went to her friends dorm, where one shower and one toilet was shared with 25 students. They described the kitchen, which had broken ovens and rats.

The girls excited at the options of what they could eat from our Foster Care Coordinator, Dina

Happily, we were able to provide some food and a treat to the girls, but this felt vastly inadequate... 

What this study has told me so far is how many of these students need assistance. Even if we obtain government support and stipends for these girls, life is still difficult. They may not receive the full sum of their stipend. These girls typically have no family to turn to and their orphanages are poorly equipped to provide any help once the girls leave the orphanage.Some are not even provided with enough underwear or bedding to start them off in the dorm. They have nothing and receive little. And worse, they have no one to turn to for help.

We are still hoping the government will support our girls in foster care. This way, these girls would be able to live with a family, have regular meals and stable living conditions. In addition, they would also have adults to care about them and advocate for them. Our pilot is only able to place 6 girls in foster homes. However, we are currently starting a rigorous government relations campaign in order to influence the government to make good on laws they already have. Laws for a foster system exist here, but the government is so far not adhering to them. 

I had thought that once the project was implemented, it would be smooth sailing. As it turns out, we have entered into a vital period and important work lies ahead of us!

Viktoria and Yulia enjoying a meal

Ongoing Partnership

Having launched the pilot three months ago and with increasing interest from the Canadian International Development Agency, another trip was in order. This trip consists of Sheldon, Project LifeStart Odessa's Project Manager, and myself, Andrea, coming to work more with World Hope Ukraine and see for ourselves how things are settling in. The trip was inspired by our CIDA Project Officer, who wanted to come and see the project as well!

Early in the trip we spent a full day introducing our Project Officer, Annie, to not only the foster homes and life skills teachers, but also to Hope House, which was the result of a previous CIDA-funded project. 

Everyone pitching in to get Sunday lunch ready at Hope House. 

On any given Sunday, anywhere from 15-30 people may come for lunch! This Sunday was no exception :)

And a Ukrainian business lunch. Sergiy, the Director of World Hope Ukraine, 

is deep in conversation with Annie and Natalya, officers from CIDA and the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine.

 

And more talking... there was no end to the discussion and questions. 

Sustainability of the project was the issue of the day and the discussion was very useful.

We were also able to spend some time with two of our foster parents (Sergiy and Larissa) and their foster girls (Katya and Olya). We spoke in detail about the placement of the girls and the adjustment process for both the foster parents and the girls. More discussion will certainly follow as we do assessments of the pilots, but so far the feedback three months into the pilot has been very encouraging. 

We were also able to celebrate the implementation of the project with the whole project team from World Hope Ukraine. We has a lovely evening talking about the project, future goals and steps to be taking, and just generally celebrating a good start! It was a treat for everyone :)

Left to Right: Sheldon (Project Manager), Valya (Life Skills Teacher), Andrea (Project Assistant), Kostya (Life Skills Coordinator), Lina (Hope House Mom), Alyona (Life Skills Teacher), Dina (Foster Care Coordinator), Sergiy (WHU Director)

And so it has been a good week, busy and productive. Sheldon is on his way back to Canada with an armful of new information to report to CIDA, whereas I will be here in Ukraine another two weeks working with the World Hope Ukraine team and seeing the pilots in action!

Another Phase to Project LifeStart Odessa

It has been two months since our teams from Canada worked with teams in Ukraine to get Project LifeStart Odessa up and running. The training weeks have brought a different pace to the project and a new set of activities. 

After months of research, compiling, and writing, we have completed our two reports. One report, At-Risk Youth in Odessa: Opportunities and Challenges, provides a situation analysis of youth in Odessa, whereas another report, Best Practices: At-Risk Youth Report, provides an overview of international best practices in the provision of child welfare services. These reports have been sent off for translation and will soon be available in English on the World Hope Canada website.

During the training, we received wonderful feedback from our teachers. Everyone has high hopes about the coming term! Since leaving, Kostya, the Life Skills Coordinator, and our two life skills teachers, Valya and Alyona, have been working with the orphanages to get everything ready to start teaching with the start of the school term!

The foster care training laid a solid foundation to this aspect of the project. We are currently working on developing ongoing training for the foster parents. This ongoing training will look like a monthly study group and provide more information on topics such as discipline, attachment, and self-esteem. This tool is intended to build on the current foundation and offer further support to our foster parents. We hope to have it ready sometime this autumn.

We have had another interesting development with the onset of an unanticipated trip this autumn to show the project in action to our project worker at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This trip will happen in October, which is looking like a very busy month for Sergiy. This will be a wonderful opportunity to showcase the project and receive some first hand feedback from CIDA. 

And so, the work continues! 

Tough Stuff and Fun Stuff

We met a couple who foster boys from the street here in Odessa. They have participated in our foster care training and will continue to participate in the support group for LifeStart's foster parents. By their organistation, they were provided with a house with enough room for 10 boys. However, problems in their organisation has resulted in them only having 4 boys in their house. They fear that their house will be closed altogether in the next few years. We were able to visit this housу and meet the boys. It was great to see that something was available for boys, but also difficult to see how unsupported they were. Hopefully they will be able to benefit from the support through LifeStart. 

The house: Rick, Maxim,  Sergiy, Ira, Alexei, Igor, Dima, Marina, Anita, and Dina

On a lighter note, we were able to visit an orphanage and do some work there. It was good for the life skills teachers to see the place where they will be working. We also enjoyed a road trip and some fun. 

Here Cathy is having a wild time at the orphanage. 

 Team Foster Care work through some heavy material at the orphanage

Team Life Skills also plowing through the modules and getting acquainted with the space

And here is the whole of team LifeStart, teachers, translators, and even a girl from Hope House (who recently came from the orphanage we were visiting)

And so, the learning and teaching continues. We have only 2 days left of the training week! Here's hopeing we have time enough to get through all the necessary material! :)

Part 2!

This week is a busy one! Both the foster care pilot team and the life skills team are here training this week! We had some hiccups in getting our life skills team here (flight delays, mix ups in airports, etc.). However, we are all here now and diving into the life and work!

One of the key lessons both teams are currently learning is the need for flexibility here! Plans can change minute by minute here, so we’ve had to drastically readjust some of the work on short notice.

We have had some frustrations as well as pleasant surprises regarding the foster pilot! We had one couple who was 100% on board with becoming foster parents and three other families that were considering this. Unfortunately, two of the potential families decided not to become foster parents. After spending the evening with the remaining people, the remaining potential became very keen on the program! Other lessons include changing the approach to training and preparing foster parents. We have had to work hard on selling the foster parents on the program, as opposed to preparing them for the various behaviours they might encounter. Our focus has been on training the trainers. All is going well, but there has been a lot of rolling with the punches.

We had a great day today meeting with the foster families. Day one involved the protocols and encouraging the foster parents. Day two involved training anв preparation of foster parents. We were able to do the training in the comfort of the home of one of our foster parents. It was great to get to know each other and teach and learn!

Here is Rick and Marina working together in the training

Here is Team Foster Care (Rick, Anita, and our translator Marina) 

with Nadya and Vasili, our potential foster parents. 

Here is our other foster parents, Larissa and Sergiy, who will be taking 4 girls!

As for the life skills team, we’ve had a very successful first day. Our team met the teachers and other World Hope staff this morning and launched into teaching the curriculum! We are getting along well and the teachers are definitely engaging with the material! The teachers are responding well to the format of our materials. Sometimes the material is difficult for them and they are hesitant to teach this, but after some discussion, they see the value of teaching some of these more difficult and personal topics!

 Team life skills preping for a busy day of training!

Here is Bea working with our translation on our first day

Our teachers Valya and Alyona are in the forground 

whilst World Hope Ukraine staff Kostya and Tatiyana are in the background

Kim and Candice working hard :)

Enjoying an icebreaker with the teachers! :)

So, all in all, life here in Ukraine is going well. We are all doing a lot of learning and having some fun as well!

And so it begins!

At long last, after more than a year of preparation, the day has come to implement the pilots! Team Foster Care (Rick, Anita, and myself) arrived in Odessa on 19 June tired, but unscathed! This past week has been a busy one of training Dina, our World Hope Ukraine’s Foster Care Coordinator, in her many roles and responsibilities. This has also been a long process of editing the protocols, ensuring a final product that would work in Ukraine, culturally, politically, and financially.

Day one of the training. We had a full house as we introduced the foster care protocols to World Hope Ukraine Staff. From left to right we have Dina (Foster Care Coordinator), Marina (Translator), Rick (Canadian Team Trainer), Kostya (Life Skills Project Coordinator), Sergiy (WHU Director), Tatiyana (First Step Centre Coordinator), Lina (Head of Hope House), Anita (Canadian Team Trainer).  

Working around the table 

Rick and Anita: Expert Volunteer Trainers!

So far things have gone very well. The work has been tiring, but we’ve also had the opportunity to explore the city, hit the beach, enjoy the sunshine, and hangout with everyone at Hope House.  We have another week of foster care training ahead of us, including working with foster parents!

Here is everyone gathered for a birthday celebration at Hope House.

And so, all is well in Odessa! We’ve had one busy and productive week of training with Team Foster Care. Team Life Skills will all be here shortly and ready to start our week of life skills training! 

Wrapping Up and Winding Up

Our volunteer teams have been working very hard this past term. We are at last in the final stages of developing the pilot programs! Here is a brief updates on what Team LifeStart has been up to!

The Life Skills Team has been working very hard in developing the curriculum. This proved to be a mighty task. However, with teamwork and lots of effort, we pulled it off! The final copy was sent off for translation last week. There will be some tweaking to do once we receive the translated copy, but tweaking is manageable! We are now able to take a short breathe before gearing up for the training week!

The Foster Care Pilot Team also successfully completed developing a comprehensive set of foster care protocols and minimum standards of care, complete with an assortment of documents to enable smooth implementation of the program! We are now focusing on polishing the training weeks and preparing for the trip!

Our Videography Team has grown substantially these past few months. A number of volunteers have stepped in to help up translate and subtitle the video footage we took in October! Translation is ongoing and we will be focusing on developing some videos, including a seminar video for Odessa officials, over the next few months!

And so, though we have had a good many bumps along the way, everything is coming together nicely. Over the next month and a bit, we will be tweaking and finalising and preparing for our trip to Ukraine. Once in Odessa, we will get to work closely with World Hope Ukraine and local practitioners in implementing these projects!

Moving Forward

Despite some hiccups and bumps, work on Project LifeStart is carrying on nicely. We've readjusted some of our plans and the project timeline so that we can keep on carrying on. A big part of these last months has been to roll with the punches, improvise, and adjust. And so, we have a long road ahead, but we are moving along it!

Our Life Skills Team has finished the first rough draft of the curriculum! We have entered into a rigorous round of revisions, which will produce our second draft! 

Our Foster Care Team has created successfully produced a working copy of the protocols! We've had some Ukrainian volunteers review the protocols and provide feedback and ensure the protocols are suitable for Ukraine. We are currently working on all the many supplementary documents necessary for a functioning and accountable foster care pilot!

Having developed rough drafts here in Canada, we are starting to hand materials over to World Hope Ukraine for review, input, and revisions. This will be an ongoing process to ensure the pilots are culturally  appropriate and effective!

World Hope Ukraine will has also started the search for the Ukrainian staff needed for the pilots. They are currently looking to hire 2 life skills teachers and a foster care coordinator. 

Most excitingly, we are beginning to plan the training trips! This is that one fine moment when the Canadian and Ukrainian teams come together and get these pilots up and running! So far, the trips are planned for late June. More information to follow! 

The New Year

In many ways the LifeStart Odessa project is carrying steadily on in the new year. In other ways, we are hitting some bumps in the road. 

We are happy to welcome a couple new members to the Project LifeStart team: Zoia and Plato. Zoia as an intern and Plato as a volunteer. It is great to have fresh faces and minds to help out!

Our life skills team is trucking on! We are hoping that we will have a rough draft of all 10 modules by the months end! From there, we will work on identifying gaps, adapting the material to suite Ukraine, and really hacking it out into a second draft!

Our team working on the foster care protocols are also working away. This element of the project has proved to be larger than we all anticipated originally. However, we are all working hard to establish a comprehensive set of protocols.

Some hiccups have occurred in subtitling our video footage. The material itself is powerful and heartbreaking. The footage includes interviews with the girls from Hope House and stories from street kids, as well as interviews with local practitioners and most of the World Hope Ukraine staff. Having been exposed to the material for some time, I had nearly forgotten how these stories and interviews can affect people. Working with three subtitlers since late November has reminded me how people can be affected! However, we have happily welcomed a new volunteer to Project LifeStart, Plato, who is helping us with the subtitling. Our videographers are chomping at the bit to start producing something from the footage, so, while we continue with the subtitling here in the office, they will produce a short film for Stephanie and Kim to use in public engagement this spring. If you would like someone to come speak to a community group, church, school, etc about the project, please contact Stephanie (stephanie@worldhope.ca)!

Another hiccup presented itself shortly after I returned from Ukraine. Only now are we realising the extent of this hiccup. Now, life in Ukraine pivots on connections. While I was in Ukraine, Odessa held  municipal elections. Sergei wasn't overly pleased with the outcome of the elections, but no real trouble came about until lately. Sergei had long developed a network of connections, which helps smooth the running of World Hope Ukraine. With the new government, many of Sergei's connections were lost, being replace with new individual in a new government. Furthermore, the previous government was aware of World Hope Ukraine and approved of the work in child welfare. The new government, however, seems to know little about World Hope Ukraine and its work, past or present. Sergei has been working hard to develop new connections in this government, but is coming against considerable resistance and discouragement. We are certainly carrying on with developing and implementing our pilot project. However, ideally, we would like the government to love these pilots, take them over, and proliferate them throughout Odessa and beyond! We are working hard to foster new relationships, to keep the spread of the pilots a possibility, but these things, so it seems, takes time and a touch of luck! 

Feel free to drop Sergei a line to encourage him in this discouraging bit of the project (gomiletika@gmail.com)! People and support are essential elements to this project!