Turkish delegation briefed on NCFA experience with Foster Care
09-19-2013
A delegation from the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policies and the Ministry of Social Development visited NCFA to benefit from their experience in the field of foster care instead of alternative care.
NCFA has prepared a Foster Care Manual in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development and Save the Children with the assistance of psychologists, family counselors and legal specialists. The manual is a scientific awareness guide directed at and distributed to foster families. The awareness manual consists of an introduction to foster care - its stages, experience, scientific and personal aspects. It also provides a religious and scientific perspectives to alternative family care, basic guidelines to foster child upbringing and care as well as a range of issues that might confront foster families. The manual also deals with the matter of informing the child of his reality and the suitable age to divulge this information by modalizing each situation via storytelling and puppetry.
Foster care is one form of alternative care adopted by the Ministry of Social Development and was developed through the establishment of a foster care program in the Ministry. It is also one of the programs of the Family and Childhood Directorate which provides alternative care for children without parental care and legal support.
Childless Families may foster one or two children who are without parental care from childhood institutions in accordance with Childhood Care System No. (34) for the year 1972 and the Juvenile Law No. (24) for the year 1968 and its amendments. Under the supervision of the Ministry, foster parents assume the normal duties of any ordinary family in terms of attending to the health, wellbeing and education of the foster child and are entitled to supervise the child as his parents for as long as the Minister or the court decide.
Offering an alternative family with a father and a mother provides the child with a healthy and proper development through their care and nurturing. Family environment and family life is different from the mere existence of a father and a mother, and family life has more meaning than the mere existence of its members. A mother and son form a self-contained bilateral relationship and so do a father and son. As such, a mother and father and these bilateral relationships constitute interactions that are taking place within the family and affecting the child and parents both.
