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CYC-Online July 2011 / Issue 149
and break ing down bar ri ers be tween
place ment and the local en vi ron ment. You
gather peo ple at the work place for 2-3
hours, open the on line pro gram using a
pro jec tor, then first go through a ses sion’s
the ory part and end up plan ning to gether
how you will co op er ate in immediate
improvements of practice.
In the pro ject de scribed below, or -
phan age and fos ter
fam ily lead ers
(from Ro ma nia,
Italy, Tur key, Spain,
Greece, Aus tria
and Swit zer land)
were in vited to a
“train ing for train -
ers” ed u ca tion,
went home and in -
tro duced it to their
workplaces, and
the de sign was
then mod i fied to be as work place- and
user-friendly as pos si ble. They also pro -
duced most of the pho tos and videos in
the program.
The European Fairstart Project
(www.fairstart.net): real life tested
standards for caregiver education
From 2008-10 I started a Eu ro pean
Com mis sion grant pro ject in co op er a tion
with the Dan ish State So cial and Health
Care Col lege in Den mark. The pur pose
was to de velop and test an ed u ca -
tion/development pro gram em pow er ing
local care givers in at tach ment based care
for young chil dren placed out side home. A
sci en tist net work was formed, and or -
phan age leaders/fos ter fam ily man ag ers in
7 coun tries tested the de sign in real life
and fi nally rec om mended EU ed u ca tional
stan dards to the com mis sion.
Results and online education
Re sults were very pos i tive with re spect
to both im proved qual ity in care, staff/
leader co op er a tion and child de vel op -
ment. One pro ject out come was
www.fairstart.net/training
. This pro gram is
in 8 lan guage ver -
sions, free of charge
and only re quires
internet ac cess. To
re duce ed u ca tion
costs, the pro gram is
used at the work -
place sup ported by a
hand book for the
leader, two score -
cards for be fore-and
–after as sess ment,
and 15 on line ses -
sions in clud ing video dem on stra tions of
the ory in daily prac tice.
Beyond Europe: versions for 3
rd
world
caregivers
At pres ent (May 2011), pro gram suc -
cess has spurred a sec ond EU pro ject,
FairTrans, to dis sem i nate the pro gram in
risk zones in 3
rd
World coun tries. Also, the
pro gram has just been cho sen by the gov -
ern ment, SOSChildren’s vil lages and
REACT as fu ture stan dard ed u ca tion for
the 8000 In do ne sian or phan ages. It is
being trans lated also into French, Amhari
(Ethi o pian), and many East ern Eu rope and
Asian lan guage trans la tions are being pro -
duced by Translateurs Sans Frontiéres
(trans la tors with out bor ders,
www.tsf-twb.org
).
De sign de vel op ment is pro duced in co -
op er a tion with Swiss
www.seedlearn.org
,
a non-profit or ga ni za tion aim ing at cre at -
ing ef fi cient e-learn ing for so cial
or ga ni za tions. In the fu ture, more ver sions
may be pro duced and pub lished at
www.globalorphanage.net
The global pro ject pur pose is to sup -
port qual ity or phan care stan dards and
cre ate a pos i tive pro fes sional iden tity in
care givers and their or ga ni za tions.
I’m com pletely stunned by the en thu si -
asm of sci en tists, users and de vel op ers in
many coun tries, and I’d like to thank just a
few of them here: Charles Zeanah of
Tulane Uni ver sity, Rob ert Mc Call Pitts -
burgh Uni ver sity, R.A.D. Hoksbergen
Utrecht Uni ver sity, Sheyla Blumen Lima
Uni ver sity for sci ence net work ing. EU
gov ern ments, pro ject part ners, child care
lead ers and staffs in the Eu ro pean pro ject.
Trans la tors With out Bor ders, so cial
worker Karine Bordeleau of Can ada for
the French trans la tion, AIEJI and
SOSVillages, REACT In do ne sia, and many
oth ers who gen er ously gave their time
and knowledge to the project.
We all hope that CYC work ers will
make use of the pro gram in their ef forts
to im prove child care. If you need sup port
or have a bad internet con nec tion, you
can also get the pro gram on DVD in your
pre ferred lan guage by mail ing me at
npr@erhvervspsykologerne.dk
.
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CYC-Online July 2011 / Issue 149
Mental health of children and young
people
A con sid er able body of re cent re search
high lights the im por tance of child hood ex -
pe ri ences in lay ing the foun da tions not
only for in di vid ual men tal health and
wellbeing later in life, but also for the de -
vel op ment of trust ing so cial and
com mu nity re la tions and for cre ativ ity and
pro duc tiv ity (Fore sight pro ject, 2009;
Layard & Dunn, 2009). In flu ences on chil -
dren’s men tal health and wellbeing at the
level of the in di vid ual child, the fam ily and
the wider com mu nity are summarised in
the tables 1 and 2.
Children_and_young_people_who_are__looked_after'>Children and young people who are
looked after
The in flu ences that af fect the men tal
health and wellbeing of chil dren who are
looked after are sim i lar to those that af -
34
CYC-Online July 2011 / Issue 149
With men tal health and
wellbeing in mind
Allyson McCollam
Abstract: This paper is based on work un der taken on be half of the Scot tish De vel op ment
Cen tre for mental Health and it ex plores key chal lenges in ad dress ing the men tal health needs
of chil dren and young peo ple who are looked after away from home. It con sid ers some mod els of
work ing that show prom ise in build ing bridges be tween ac tiv i ties to pro mote good men tal health
for all such chil dren, as well as high light ing ac tiv i ties that focus on as sess ment, care and
treat ment for those who re quire such in ter ven tion.
Child
Family
Community
Learning
difficulties
Parental conflict
Socia-economic
disadvantage
Communication
difficulties
Family
breakdown
Homelessness
Developmental
delay
Inconsistent
discipline
Disaster
Genetic
influences
Rejecting
relationships
Discrimination
Difficult
temperament
Inability to adapt
to child’s
changing needs
Other significant
life events
Physical illness
Parental mental
illness
Academic
“failure”
Physical, sexual
or emotional
abuse
Low self-esteem
Death or loss of
close
relationship
Table 1
Risk fac tors for men tal health and wellbeing