Whole Child International

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Whole Child International is a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 2004. Whole Child focuses on improving the quality of care for vulnerable children worldwide by working within childcare institutions (orphanages) and in limited-resource childcare centers where children often show the same unmet developmental needs and poor outcomes as those in orphanages. Whole Child's program is built as a countrywide collaboration, working together with a national government and a major local university to implement a unified strategy across a nation's childcare system.

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Millions of vulnerable children around the world do not receive adequate care and suffer from a lack of stable, supportive relationships. This is particularly true for children in developing countries growing up in orphanages, those from low-income families who spend the majority of their day in early childcare centers and those being bounced around foster care. While the global community tackles some of the underlying issues facing these children, their immediate developmental and emotional needs are not being met, resulting in stunted development, high levels of criminality, and other adverse outcomes, reinforcing the cycle of poverty.

Whole Child International creates a nationwide program to establish high-quality care as a basic standard that is provided to all children, in any setting in which they receive that care. We work within the local child welfare system to build capacity within local universities, local government and caregiving staff. Together with existing stakeholders we make the changes necessary to build stable, family-like environments that enable proper child development — ensuring that all children can fulfill their promise as productive members of society.

Theory of Change

Whole Child's model is based on the theories of Hungarian pediatrician Emmi Pikler (1902–1984), the Reggio Emilia approach to Early Childhood Education, and other sources. The Pikler Institute, in Budapest, Hungary, was founded in 1946 to care for children orphaned and abandoned during the Second World War. Pikler's methodology involves increasing opportunities for meaningful attachment and bonding between caregiver and child through "continuity of care."

Continuity of care ensures that children have one consistent caregiver instead of multiple caregivers over a long period of time. It additionally consists of small groups assigned to a single caregiver to replace larger, more chaotic populations randomly assigned to an often non-continuous staff. Research has found that children with secure attachment relationships with their caregivers are more likely to play and explore and to interact with other adults (Raikes, 1996). [1] Conversely, more frequent changes in caregivers have been reported to be associated with negative child outcomes including high levels of distress (Cryer et al., 2005) withdrawing behaviors and higher levels of aggression later on (Howes & Hamilton, 1993). [2]

Program Implementation and History

Karen Spencer, a Canadian-born American social entrepreneur, founded Whole Child in 2004. She was motivated by the plight of institutionalized children and a lack of major organizations committing to working within orphanages as long as children continue to live in them. [3] Whole Child's early program development was done in collaboration with the University of Central America in Managua, Nicaragua, as well as the Pikler Institute, the Center for Excellence in Child Development at the University of California, Davis, and the Office of Child Development at the University of Pittsburgh, and the WestEd Center for Child and Family Studies.

Working with the government of Nicaragua, Whole Child conducted its initial work in varied institutional settings in Managua, Nicaragua. In 2006, Whole Child began training caregivers at the El Diviño Niño children's home in Managua to improve the quality of childcare given to their children, and after the program expanded to other settings of varying sizes and populations, the Inter-American Development Bank granted Whole Child a $500,000 technical collaboration to expand and develop the work.

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) recognized the early work of Whole Child International, and in 2009 Whole Child was selected as "one of the top NGOs" in the CGI membership roster. With funding from the Inter-American Development Bank, TACA Airlines, and other donors, Whole Child programs in Nicaragua were scaled through their 2009 Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action, "Elevating Early Childhood Care in Latin America." The organization also had visionary early support by Tom Mower of SISEL International, its founder Karen Spencer, and others who have been drawn to its unique social-entrepreneurial approach to solving a seemingly intractable social problem.

In 2014, the Inter-American Development Bank granted Whole Child a $1 million technical collaboration to implement the resulting program in neighboring El Salvador, whose government is an active collaborator in the project along with the University of Central America in San Salvador.

In 2017, USAID awarded Whole Child $4.9 million for the "Protection and Quality Care for Children" Project in El Salvador, a $7.4 million effort to address "the rights and needs of El Salvador’s most vulnerable children by strengthening the national child protection system and improving quality of care for all children," according to USAID. [4] The project is a collaboration between the two organizations along with the Salvadoran government, Duke University Global Health Institute Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research, the University of Southern California School of Social Work, and the University of Central America in San Salvador, among other organizations.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orphanage</span> Residential institution devoted to the care of orphans

An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foster care</span> System of non-parental temporary child-care

Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family member approved by the state. The placement of a "foster child" is normally arranged through the government or a social service agency. The institution, group home, or foster parent is compensated for expenses unless with a family member. In some states, relative or "Kinship" caregivers of children who are wards of the state are provided with a financial stipend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child care</span> Care and supervision of children

Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), child care typically refers to the care provided by caregivers that are not the child's parents. Child care is a broad topic that covers a wide spectrum of professionals, institutions, contexts, activities, and social and cultural conventions. Early child care is an equally important and often overlooked component of child's developments.

Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to describe disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from unavailability of normal socializing care and attention from primary care giving figures in early childhood. Such a failure would result from unusual early experiences of neglect, abuse, abrupt separation from caregivers between three months and three years of age, frequent change or excessive numbers of caregivers, or lack of caregiver responsiveness to child communicative efforts resulting in a lack of basic trust. A problematic history of social relationships occurring after about age three may be distressing to a child, but does not result in attachment disorder.

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is described in clinical literature as a severe and relatively uncommon disorder that can affect children, although these issues do occasionally persist into adulthood. RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts. It can take the form of a persistent failure to initiate or respond to most social interactions in a developmentally appropriate way—known as the "inhibited form". In the DSM-5, the "disinhibited form" is considered a separate diagnosis named "disinhibited attachment disorder".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attachment theory</span> Psychological ethological theory about human relationships

Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.

Magda Gerber was an early childhood educator in the United States and is known for teaching parents and caregivers how to understand babies and interact with them respectfully from birth.

Child and family services (CFS) is a government or non-profit organisation designed to better the well being of individuals who come from unfortunate situations, environmental or biological. People who seek or are sought after to participate in these homes have no other resource to turn to. Children might come from abusive or neglectful homes, or live in very poor and dangerous communities. There are also agencies that cater to people who have biological deficiencies. Families that are trying to live in stable lives come to non-profit organisations for hope of a better future. Child and family services cater to many different types of people who are all in different situations. These services might be mandated through the courts via a governmental child protection agency or they might be voluntary. Child and family services may be mandated if:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maternal deprivation</span> Work on the effects of separating infants/young children from their mother

Maternal deprivation is a scientific term summarising the early work of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother. Although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists, Bowlby's work on delinquent and affectionless children and the effects of hospital and institutional care led to his being commissioned to write the World Health Organization's report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe whilst he was head of the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic in London after World War II. The result was the monograph Maternal Care and Mental Health published in 1951, which sets out the maternal deprivation hypothesis.

Charles H. Zeanah Jr. is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is a member of the council (Board) of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).

Casa Viva is a non-profit organization based in Wheaton, Illinois and San Jose, Costa Rica. Casa Viva seeks to place children who have been separated from their families into a safe, caring family. Casa Viva is Spanish for “Living Families” or “Living Homes.” The model of international child care that Casa Viva has created:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of attachment theory</span>

Attachment theory, originating in the work of John Bowlby, is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory that provides a descriptive and explanatory framework for understanding interpersonal relationships between human beings.

Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.

Institutional abuse is the maltreatment of a person from a system of power. This can range from acts similar to home-based child abuse, such as neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and hunger, to the effects of assistance programs working below acceptable service standards, or relying on harsh or unfair ways to modify behavior. Institutional abuse occurs within emergency care facilities such as foster homes, group homes, kinship care homes, and pre-adoptive homes. Children who are placed in this type of out of home care are typically in the custody of the state. The maltreatment is usually caused by an employee of the facility.

Karen Anne Spencer, Countess Spencer is a Canadian social entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Whole Child International, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to improve the quality of care for vulnerable children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deinstitutionalisation (orphanages and children's institutions)</span> Process of closing down orphanages

Deinstitutionalisation is the process of reforming child care systems and closing down orphanages and children's institutions, finding new placements for children currently resident and setting up replacement services to support vulnerable families in non-institutional ways. It became common place in many developed countries in the post war period. It has been taking place in Eastern Europe since the fall of communism and is now encouraged by the EU for new entrants. It is also starting to take hold in Africa and Asia although often at individual institutions rather than statewide. New systems generally cost less than those they replace as many more children are kept within their own family. Although these goals have been made internationally, they are actively being working towards as reform and new reforms are put into practice slowly as is fit for each country.

Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DSED), or Disinhibited Attachment Disorder, is an attachment disorder in which a child has little to no fear of unfamiliar adults and may actively approach them. It can significantly impair young children's abilities to relate with adults and peers, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As well as put them in dangerous and potentially unsafe conditions. Common examples of this include sitting on a person's lap of which they do not know or leaving with a stranger.

Residential child care communities or children's homes are a type of residential care, which refers to long-term care given to children who cannot stay in their birth family home. There are two different approaches towards residential care: The family model and the shift care model.

Mary Dozier, an American psychologist, holds the Amy E. du Pont Chair of Child Development at the University of Delaware.

Early childhood education in the United States relates to the teaching of children from birth up to the age of eight. The education services are delivered via preschools and kindergartens.

References

  1. 2 Raikes, H. (1996). A secure base for babies: Applying attachment concepts to the infant care setting. Young Children, 51 (5), 59-67.
  2. 3 Howes, C., & Hamilton, C. E. (1992). Children's relationships with caregivers: Mothers and child care teachers. Child Development, 63(4), 859-866.
  3. "Whole Child International - Programs". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2014-11-19.
  4. "FACT SHEET - PROTECTION AND QUALITY OF CARE FOR CHILDREN PROJECT" (PDF). Retrieved 2023-10-18.