Update on the Ukrainian Orphan Project:
Neufeld Institute’s Support for Ukraine’s Family Care for Orphans Initiative
Please donate if you can.
DECEMBER 2024 UPDATE
The Ukrainian branch of the Neufeld Institute was established in 2023 to provide resources and support for families and professionals in Ukraine. One of its most significant social projects is supporting Ukraine’s transition from an orphanage system to one of family-based care for orphans.
Our Neufeld Institute Ukraine team is being led by Eva de Gosztonyi, a senior member of our faculty, and includes two gifted Ukrainian nationals, Iryna Shokur and Julia Fomina, who together are developing and delivering training materials for the helping professionals involved in supporting families who wish to foster or adopt one or more of the over 100,000 orphans in Ukraine. The request for Neufeld Institute courses initially came from Social Service agencies in Kyiv and the Transcarpathian region.
The team has created online resources to provide Ukrainians with information about the Neufeld paradigm in their own language: a website, a YouTube Channel, a Facebook page, an Instagram page, and a campus for delivering courses.
An 8-session introductory course to the Neufeld Paradigm, What Children Need: A View Through a Development Approach, was created and delivered free of charge in 2023 to 120 social workers and interveners of the Kyiv and Transcarpathian Social Services Centres. Feedback from participants was very positive. In 2024 this course is being delivered to another group of more than 250 professionals. These professionals come from agencies all across Ukraine, including Save Ukraine, SOS Children’s Villages Ukraine, Ridni, Care in Action, UNICEF, Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Childcare Development, Diymo and Rokada as well as specialists of Social Centres including national trainers from about 18 regions of Ukraine.
In 2024 we completed the transformation of Making Sense of Aggression and Alpha Children into Ukrainian using voiceover and translated slides. Making Sense of Aggression was offered in March 2024 to 82 Social Workers who responded enthusiastically to the material. Alpha Children was offered in September 2024 with 83 Social Workers and was equally well received. These courses were offered on the newly created the NI Ukraine campus. All courses that are offered to the Social Service and other Ukrainian agencies are being offered free of charge.
On February 14, 2024, NI Ukraine signed an agreement to become an official consultant to the Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Childcare Development of the Ministry of Social Policy, a governmental initiative to train social workers and others to provide support to families adopting orphans.
We are very grateful to have received grants from the Canadian Ukrainian Foundation and the Temerty Foundation to transform and offer free of charge Alpha Children, Making Sense of Anxiety, and The Art and Science of Transplanting Children.
We are driving a major social project through the sheer dedication of our Institute, without ongoing financial support. Critical initiatives such as the introductory course, What Children Need; editorial translations; campus maintenance and development; short information capsules for parents, and consultations with the Ministry remain unfunded.
This work continues thanks to pro-bono efforts, but your donations are crucial to sustain it. To keep empowering our Ukrainian team, we need your support.
Thank you so much,
Eva de Gosztonyi, Iryna Shokur and Julia Fomina
Neufeld Institute Ukraine