Empowered
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Children In Families (CIF) is celebrating International Day of Persons with Disabilities today! The theme for 2018 is “Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality.” Children In Families’ ABLE Project is right in step with this objective. It’s even in our name. ABLE stands for “Accepted, Belonging, Loved, Empowered.”
Lost in translation: Part 2 Bridging the Khmer/English language gap
Earlier this week, we explored why the language used in social work matters. We looked at all the reasons why we at CIF insist on Cambodian social workers for Cambodian clients. If CIF believes so passionately in doing Khmer language based work with our clients, what do we do about working with organisations and people who…
Finding A New Family: How CIF recruits our foster parents
Frequently, when the terms “Foster Care” or “Emergency Care” are spoken about within many Western nations, a myriad of negative experiences and stories surface. People picture children uprooted time and time again. Children shuffled through a system, clutching a garbage bag to their chest filled with their only personal belongings. Children in Families (CIF) takes…
Menghong: Personal Dedication to Keeping Children in Families
Keeping a Girl in School and Family It was a steamy midday in the midst of Cambodian rice paddies. Menghong was sitting across from Bopha*, a widowed mother of eight, under the shade of a mango tree. He had had this conversation many times before with other families. He wanted to search for the right…
Child Protection as a driving value: A Chat with CIF’s Program Director and Kinship Care Manager
Child Protection is at the heart of everything CIF does. Earlier this month we sat down with Naomy, our Programs Director and Menghong, the Kinship Care Project Manager, to discuss the importance of child protection in our Kinship Care and Foster Care projects. We invite you today to be part of this conversation. The Importance…
Lucky to be fostering: One family’s journey to becoming CIF Foster parents
Maly and Nhean are like many Cambodian rural couples. They are well established members of their community, known and respected by their neighbors and involved in community life. They are subsistence farmers who supplement their income during the year with extra jobs. Nhean works as motodop – a motorbike taxi ferrying neighbors and visitors to…
Family Training: A Long-Term Approach
Over 20 adults and several children filtered into the rows of plastic chairs. They had come from throughout Prey Veng for foster care training with Children in Families (CIF). A balance of men and women attended. An occasional boisterous cry from a child would break their concentration, but it was a group intent on learning.
Growing up in Community
Loneliness is a common thread for many children growing up in challenging home environments or within foster care systems. Children often feel isolated, like none of their peers understand, or like the struggles that their families face are unique to their families. Some children have missed significant amounts of school because of financial hardship. Entering…
OSCaR in Myanmar: Providing Technical Support for like-minded organisations
In late March, two of CIF’s staff members travelled to Yangon, Myanmar, to provide training to two organisations on how to use OSCaR. Project Manager Sam Ol, and Chris, the Social Work Technical Adviser, spent three days with staff from Kinnected and from Compasio. The organisations work with vulnerable children in Myanmar and along the…
Celebrating Purple Day: A Child’s experience of Epilepsy in Cambodia
Sreypich and her foster family greet us with smiles as we ride our motos into their front yard. Today our ABLE staff have come for a visit to see how Sreypich is going. Sreypich has epilepsy and over the last seven months, ABLE has been working with her foster family to ensure that she is…
Finding a Permanent Family
Chanty has been waiting to have a child to call her own for over 20 years. Today, she proudly holds the paperwork from the court to say that Dany and Sambat are her legal children. For the first time in CIF’s organisational history, over the last few weeks five of our foster families legally adopted their foster children.
OSCaR and Social Work: Why Language Matters
Today is International Mother Language Day. The theme of the day is that “linguistic diversity and multilingualism count for sustainable development.” Put more simply, in the world of development, you need a good grasp on the language you’re working in for your work to be effective The UN goes on to explain “It is through…
Discover Family Based Care
Research shows that voluntourism to orphanages is harmful to children growing up in those institutions. Voluntourism refers to when people combine tourism with the desire to make a difference. They want to serve the people they have been visiting, often by volunteering at an orphanage. Despite their good intentions, this practice increases child protection and…
Compassion and Capacity Building: Sam Ol’s Journey to CIF
Across the Border Either coated in dust or rutted in mud, the refugee camp Sigh II – situated in the mountains of Thailand – was the birthplace of Sam Ol. His very poor and humble beginning set a stirring in his heart to fight for justice causes in society. It would become a foundation for…
Beauty in Muddy Waters
The mud comes up to mid-calf height. It is thick and sticky, leaving a dark brown coating on every surface it touches. We step hesitantly, searching for a firm footing, but our feet only sink further. Fortunately, the muddy path only lasts about three meters. Unfortunately, it is the only way in and out of…
Meet Damy: Caring for Children by Caring About Numbers
Have you ever donated to Children in Families and wondered who received the money at the other end? Someone has to make sure it gets to the right people, right? Our administration department is staffed by two wonderful ladies, Damy and Phalyn, who faithfully do the paperwork needed to keep CIF running smoothly. Today we…
You Know My Name: The Journey to Belonging
Last month we introduced you to Courtney, one of our ABLE Technical advisers. This month she reflects on her experience of accompanying one of our ABLE children to a medical appointment. We arrive at the hospital and wander around the massive grounds until we find the pediatric therapy center. Long is a high-energy 12 year-old…
A chat with Courtney: How Occupational Therapy in making a difference in ABLE
“So why did you end up volunteering for our ABLE program?” Courtney, the newest member of the ABLE team, pauses for a brief moment before she answers: “What impressed me most about the ABLE program was not only the excellence of the work they are doing, but their dedication to contextualize therapy and treatments for…
The ABLE Program and the Staff Who Make It Happen
We would like to introduce you to the staff who work in our ABLE program. Meet Lisa. She is a Physical Therapist, and has worked at CIF for the past four years. Her time here has seen the beginning and growth of the ABLE program. She now serves as a technical adviser to our Khmer staff. ABLE ABLE…
Welcome Lynny
While we are sad to say farewell to our amazing General Manager, Jesse Blaine, Children in Families (CIF) recently welcomed our new General Manager, Lynny Sor. Jesse is passing the torch and will focus more on pastorship. We are excited for this incredible, resilient Khmer woman to join our team. She is a wife, mother…
Som At Video: Kinship
Soon after her husband died of AIDS and their possessions were sold off, a desperate Som At felt there was no choice but to take her young children to an orphanage. It ripped her heart out to “trade” her children for $30 and a bag of rice. Thankfully at the last minute she changed her…
Foster Care: Sreynear’s New Beginning
Meet Sreynear, one of our beautiful foster children who went from a place of pain – a sad child who acted out in anger – to a place of life and of thriving. We are so proud of her Foster Care family for their incredible love and endurance through the difficult times. Even more, we…
Trauma and Health: Address One, Help the Other
It is so damaging it can trim 20 years off of life expectancy. It disrupts brain development, immunity, hormones, and even DNA transcription. It is childhood trauma. In the linked TEDTalk, Dr. Nadine Burke, who serves in a community with low income children and families, addresses a study by Dr.s Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda…
Kinship for Samnant
*Follow our CIF staff narrative on a field visit to check-in on a Kinship Care Family outside of bustling Phnom Penh. Names have been changed to protect identities.* “Do you want to go with me on a family visit?” My coworker, our Kinship Care Program Manager, peered at me from behind his computer. “Yes,…
Attachment And Bonding
A Safe Place – Attachment and Bonding We all need and long for a safe place – a location or person giving us space to wholly be ourselves and find comfort. Most people realize that they need relationships in which safety and freedom of identity exist. Clinicians call this attachment and bonding. But what happens…
Rithy* and Hope for Children with Disabilities
As Children in Families (CIF) grows we hope to never lose focus on what really matters – each individual. Recently one of our Kinship and ABLE program families offered to give our readers a glimpse into their life. We are excited to share Rithy’s* (name changed) story as a snapshot of how there really can be…
How do CIF, David Beckham, and Child Abuse Prevention go together?
When it comes to child abuse prevention…what do CIF and David Beckham Have In Common? Hint: It has nothing to do with exceptional soccer skills. While David Beckham may be best known for his career as a renowned English soccer player, he has recently been getting attention for something else – the launching of 7: The…