[Homes to Grow]   [Disaster Relief]

PROJECTS  >>  Homes to Grow

Homes to Grow is the flagship project of the St Francis Trust. The Homes to Grow are foster homes for children who have been abandoned or orphaned as a result of neglect or of their parents contracting HIV/AIDS. Some of these children will also be living with HIV/AIDS. The foster homes operate according to a model provided by Home from Home. This model has proved to be highly successful in providing children with supportive family environments in which they can develop to their full potential. Children living in these homes are not faced with the stigma of being "institutional" children, and they reside in their own communities in which they are familiar and comfortable.

In October 2010 we opened our first Home to Grow foster home, and we are in the process of establishing more to meet the great need for these resources. We are now entering an exciting new phase in our orgnisation, as we start to move out of the planning stages into the stge of actually delivering the services that we have had our sights on. Please join us on our path towards making a difference in the lives of childen in Masiphumelele.

Key to the success of Homes to Grow is the close association that the St Francis Outreach Trust enjoys with Home from Home. Home from Home encourages smaller organisations to use their foster home model and to work with them in partnership so that effective foster care services can be replicated and provided to more children in need. The Trust therefore operates with the full support of Home from Home, and makes use of the invaluable guidance and experience that the organisation has to offer. By being taken under Home from Home's wing, the Trust can launch its operations safe in the knowledge that its foster children will receive the best possible environment and care in which to grow. The St Francis Outreach Trust must still finance its own operations, and therefore requires its own funding to ensure the continuation of this prosperous partnership.

Functioning

The model foster homes that have been used successfully by Home from Home are based on the wisdom that a loving and caring family environment is essential if children are to develop and grow into secure, confident adults. If children cannot be cared for by their own parents or guardians because of neglect or abandonment, it then makes no sense to place them in large institutional children's homes in which they are not given the special attention and care that they need. Each Homes to Grow foster home therefore houses no more than six children, and a live-in Foster Mother cares for the children in each home. The homes are located in the children's own communities where they have grown up and where they attend local schools and churches. Every effort is made to keep siblings together.

The Foster Mothers are legally recognised as the children's foster parents, and the close network of Foster Mothers ensures that they learn from one another and are able to provide each other with support. They are in turn supervised and supported by a professional team that is affiliated to Home from Home. The small ratio of children to Foster Mothers means that every child is able to have a large amount of interaction with his or her caregiver, a feature that is sorely missing from larger children's homes. Through these measures the children living in the Homes to Grow receive the best possible medical, educational, emotional and physical care possible.

The Buildings

The buildings are designed to look like other permanent structures within the surrounding community, and there are no distinguishing features to identify them as foster homes (e.g. signage). The physical environment therefore plays a huge part in ensuring that the children living in the homes are not viewed by the community as being at all different. Low cost construction methods are used using local labour, adding to the provision of employment in under-resourced communities. The construction of buildings is therefore a local process that benefits community members as much as possible.

The buildings have three bedrooms (two with bunk beds for the six children and one room for the foster mother), a bathroom and separate toilet, and an open plan kitchen/lounge. In the back of the house will be enough space for a playground with a jungle gym and a small garden to plant vegetables.

Foster Mothers

Foster Mothers are chosen for their suitability to look after six children, caring for them as if they were their own. While there are no definite criteria in deciding whether or not candidates are suitable for fulfilling Foster Mother positions, it is preferable that Foster Mothers display some of the following characteristics:

• Having had their own children, who are no longer their dependents in their daily care
• A natural affinity for children and relevant experience in caring for children
• To be either single or in a stable, committed, long term relationship
• To be other same ethnicity and language as the children in need of care
• To be physically well and active, and to be of high integrity
• To be able to manage a household, including budgeting
• To be screened and approved as a Foster Mother by an independent, reputable welfare agency

All of the Homes to Grow's running costs to implement its structures and provide its services will be met by donor funding. Foster Mothers are remunerated both by the Trust and by receiving government grants for fostering children.

Admission and referrals (family reunification)

Many children who arrive at Homes to Grow have been taken out of their parents' care due to neglect, abuse or abandonment. Social workers are responsible for enacting the legal processes of moving children from detrimental family environments into the more suitable and nurturing foster homes. Where possible, these social workers must work with the children's families so that they can create suitable home environments for the children to return to. If this process cannot take place then the children's foster guardianship is reviewed every two years, and children can remain in foster care until they are 18 years old. In the cases children coming to Homes to Grow as a result of their parents having HIV/AIDS-related complications, the children are likely to stay in the care of their Foster Mothers until they turn 18.

Andrina

The St. Francis Outreach Trust has underatken to support an existing foster mother who currently lives in an informal structure on her own plot of land in Masiphumelele. Andrina is looking after her own mentally-handicapped daughter as well as two foster children who have lost their parents through HIV/AIDS. She is now elligible to have partially-subsidised housing built on her plot through the state-run Informal Settlement Upgrading programme. The Trust is assisting her to secure the finance required to participate in this programme, and shall support her with training and involving her in the Home from Home network. Her living costs shall be met through receiving foster grants from government.

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