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!