Update on the Ukrainian Orphan Project:
Neufeld Institute’s Support for Ukraine’s Family Care for Orphans Initiative
Please donate if you can.
Our Neufeld Institute project 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 develop and deliver training materials for the helping professionals involved in this important and timely Ukrainian initiative.
This team has established the following 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 (still in development).
This team has created a 7-session Introduction to the Neufeld Paradigm course and delivered it from July to October, 2023 to 50 social workers and interveners of Kyiv Social Services Centre. Feedback from participants has been very positive.
We have since been approached by the Transcarpathian Social Services Centre and two other agencies to provide this introductory course. Trainings started in October of 2023.
We engaged a professional language agency to create a Ukrainian version of the Making Sense of Aggression course using voiceover. This is nearly complete.
We have entered into a dialogue with the Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Childcare Development of the Ministry of Social Policy to determine how the Neufeld Institute could collaborate with their governmental initiative to train social workers and others to provide support to families adopting orphans. They are very interested in recommending our courses and have invited us to contribute to the development of their basic curriculum for families wanting to adopt.
We are approaching funding agencies to support this project so that we can continue to translate and create materials to support the Neufeld Institute courses (Making Sense of Aggression, Alpha Children and Making Sense of Anxiety). However, this takes time, and we continue to need funds so that we can support our Ukrainian team financially. (Eva is providing her services pro-bono.) They have worked incredibly hard to make tangible support to the social workers in Ukraine. This initiative is very necessary and is really appreciated by those receiving the training as it reminds them that we, in Canada, are thinking of them as they take on this immense task.
This has been a golden opportunity for the Neufeld Institute to make the kind of difference we wish to make in this world. Thank you for your continued support.