In 2014 for the first time PRIDE began to be implemented in Macedonia. SOS Children's Village Macedonia as a long term service provider for fostering and support children at social risk, recognized the need for a consistent, structured and simple model of practice that will enable the creation of a competent and supportive system of foster care in the country. Ministry of Labour and Social Policy generously provide support to PRIDE implementation and with mutual collaboration organized the first PRIDE introductory conference. The conference attended more than 120 professionals and reasons why PRIDE is required in Macedonia, was elaborated.
The implementation of the PRIDE in Macedonia would not have happened if it was not given full financial support by SOS Children's Villages the Netherlands.
SOS Children's Village Macedonia has the copyright for PRIDE in R. Macedonia.
The first Training of Trainers session has started with 22 participants consist of 11 professionals from SOS Children’s Village Macedonia, 3 foster parents and 8 participants from the state social authorities (Ministry of labour and social policy, Institute for social activities-Skopje and Centre for social work city of Skopje)
After the ToT training, 6 trainers’ teams started training with 46 existing foster families or 57 foster parents from Skopje and conducted nine sessions / training in a period of 3 mounts. In the same period 3 trainers’ teams started training with 17 prospective foster families or 27 prospective foster parents from Skopje and conducted nine sessions / training for a period of 3 mounts. The training modules for existing foster parents were adapted according to the assessed needs.
The first group of PRIDE trainers in the process of visioning for the future of PRIDE in Macedonia delivered following vision and recommendations for improvement of the system of care and was delivered to the Minister of labour and social policy.
"For children and families in the Republic of Macedonia needs a decentralized system of care which will have competent professionals and adequate resources for common (networked) support and development of care, based on standards and clear procedures”.
Recommendations were delivered such as: promote PRIDE in R. Macedonia; to train the adoptive parents with PRIDE program; Teams from the Canters for Social Work in Macedonia working in the field of child care can be trained in accordance with PRIDE; In-service training for foster parents in order to strengthen their skills and knowledge; Establish a Foster parent’s association; To have competent foster parents; Decentralization of the social protection system; Fostering can become a profession; Improving the standards and procedures for alternative care; Developing a system for monitoring and evaluation of the quality of child care; Improving teamwork, Training Centre that produces future foster parents and strengthens existing; Resource Centre to support the care in foster families; Life book for each child (an obligation for all foster families);
It remains a challenge to try to implement as many of the recommendations listed above.
On the PRIDE CONFERENCE `Results from the PRIDE Project` all involved received certificates such as first group of PRIDE trainers and the first group of prospective and existing foster parents.
One of the many testimonials by the foster parents was: The PRIDE book helped me to understand a lot about child care. This book is like a cookbook and clear directions how to cook beautiful meals or recipes for beautiful cakes. I will use it in a future as much as possible.
Mario Janchev, Programme development director, SOS Children’s Village Macedonia, mario.jancev@sos.org.mk