The Complex for Social Services for Children and Families Brought Together Friends of Foster Care in July, 2012.
Equilibrium is included in the pilot group for training of candidate foster and adoptive parents under the PRIDE programme of FICE – Bulgaria. This is based on a tried-and-tested American model and the aim is the foster children to be brought up in competent foster families who both understand and are able to respond professionally to their needs.
Since April 2012, the team – Svetla Mezhri – manager of Centre for Social Support, and the psychologist Yana Deleva, has trained candidate foster parents under the PRIDE programme. The programme lasts three months and consists of 9 training sessions and 4 home consultations.
The last session from the PRIDE training programme took place on 20th July, 2012. The aim was to provide an opportunity for the candidate foster parents to discuss issues that interest them and will help them to make an informed choice about becoming foster parents.
The meeting was attended by representatives of I Have a Family project of Ruse Municipality who are in close collaboration with the team for Foster Care in the Complex, representatives of Regional Directorate of Social Assistance, Ruse Child Protection Department, the management team of Equilibrium, the director of the Complex for Social Services, relatives and friends of the candidate foster parents. Special guests were the candidate adoptive parent, a young instiutional care-leaver, a biological parent whose child is in a foster family and professional foster parents. This provided a variety of perspectives and also the opportunity for sharing of real experience, problems and successes.
During the meeting four families from Ruse who have completed the PRIDE training, received official certificates from FICE – Bulgaria, the organization who has the license for the training programme.