Simba Family Care

The Netherlands

DURATION: 2018 – 2022 TOTAL BUDGET: €2,365,000 – spent in 2020 €402,782

Project description

SOS Children’s Villages offers Simba Family Care, whereby siblings are placed together in a family house if problems temporarily make things difficult at home. We deploy a family counsellor who works intensively to strengthen the family, which increases the chance the children will return home. The children receive the personal attention and professional support they need. The families we focus on have to cope with a diverse range of problems and find themselves in a negative spiral, which means the situation at home is no longer a safe and stimulating environment for the children. The family counsellor provides intense support to the children and parents, in which the family’s social network (wider family, school, sports club, friends) are also involved. This is the first time that SOS Children’s Villages The Netherlands is running an in-country programme.

Target group

Children from families with serious concerns and problems, who need to live temporarily in a safe, family-based environment with their siblings

Activities and results

The project is in the operational phase. The main results in 2020: • We started counselling four families. The children of one of the families have now returned home, and these parents and children are receiving follow-up care from our family counsellor. • With five family homes a partnership was launched and two partnerships with two other care providers were entered into. We actively seek connections with youth protection in the regions where we support families. • The Simba Family Care methodology was defined in 2020, which means it can now be shared with other implementing organisations. Meanwhile, the project has undergone an interim evaluation, its insights being actively shared and followed up with our partners. • Defence for Children lobbies with SOS

Children’s Villages/Simba Family Care to legally anchor that sibings are taken into care together in the case of an out-of-home placement. • In September 2020, we published a report on placing siblings together in the event of an out-of-home placement. A motion followed in the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) on this subject, which was adopted on December 1st. According to the submitters of the motion, separate care is contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the

European Convention on Human Rights.

We advocate for the right to be taken into care together to be enshrined in law. The

House of Representatives supports this by asking the cabinet to prepare legislation. • The study relating to the House of

Representatives motion (2019) – how to better safeguard the fundamental principle of ‘collective placement’, was launched at the end of 2020. • Throughout 2020, we launched diverse campaigns to increase awareness on this subject. We reached over 900,000 people through, for example, an article in NRC, social media posts, an interview with Kim

Lian van der Meij in 100% NL magazine and an item on RTL Koffietijd with managing director Arian Buurman.

Impact

By providing families with intensive support over a long period of time, and by advocating for the for the right of siblings to be taken into care together in the case of an out-of-home placement to be anchored in the Youth Act, the vicious circle of separation and abandonment is broken and the foundations for a bright future are laid.

The pilot project was made possible thanks to the contribution from the Dutch Postcode Lottery’s Extra Draw.

Real life as a family has started again

Brenda van Alst, family counsellor at Simba Family Care, recounts a personal story, which she addresses to the mother of a family she was counselling when the children were living in a family house, and when they returned home. Brenda has provided follow-up care since the family was reunited.

“It was almost a year ago when I met you for the first time; the mother of two children who were not allowed to live with you and your husband. You had been trying for a while to get things back on track so the children could return home. As a family counsellor with Simba Family Care I provided your family with support, with the aim of family reintegration.You always focused on that goal. “It is possible, Brenda”, you said. “We are good parents, but the addiction took over.” I saw how hard you worked to make sure you stayed clean.

Empty beds We got to know each other better. I told you about my boys, who are the same age as your children. You liked that; having a normal conversation between two mothers. As a family you took all the help and advice you were offered, which meant that in the end everyone (including the children’s judge) positively decided on family reintegration. The moment you had looked forward to for so long finally arrived before Christmas. You bought a cake, but didn’t go over the top, after all, home is home. After the children had been back for a week, you told me what it was like to walk into the bedrooms and see them sleeping in their beds again. When you spoke those words, the pain of all the previous months was unleashed. The shock you felt when you opened the bedroom door; how empty the rooms were, the realisation that your children were really gone. Now that they are back home, before you go to bed you walk past their beds, stroke their hair and give them a kiss, ending the day on a positive note.

Real life as a family has started again, with everything that goes with it, even during the Covid-19 crisis, and home schooling. You told me that you can finally ‘join in the discussion and moan’, just like other parents. The twinkle in your eyes revealed your happiness. When we jointly looked back on the past year, you ask yourself how things would have turned out if our paths hadn’t crossed. You said: “Perhaps our children would not have come home.” In the silence that followed we both felt grateful our paths had crossed.