News from FICE Romania

Despite the special conditions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, FICE Romania was committed to launch and promote again this year the ”19 Days of Activism for Prevention of Violence and Abuse Against Children and Youth”, 1-19 November. 

You[th] for Participation!
You[th] for Diversity!" - An International Youth Exchange to Strengthen Democracy

The project "You[th] for Participation! You[th] for Diversity! is a trilateral youth exchange project that brings together young people from Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Germany to exchange ideas on the topics of "participation", "diversity", "inclusion" and "discrimination".

News and updates from FICE Bulgaria

FICE Bulgaria is in the final phase of implementing the project “Perseverance, Determination, Values” funded by the Tsotsorkov FoundationThe project aims to provide support to pedagogical specialists working with children and parents in their efforts to improve children’s social-emotional skills and values.

News and updates from FICE SERBIA

Despite the challenging social circumstances in Serbia, since March last year, regarding  Covid-19, FICE Serbia has persisted in the implementation of the planned activities. 

70 Years FICE Switzerland!

At the Annual General Assembly on 8 October 2022, the members of the board and further members celebrated this important milestone and discussed previous and future activities to benefit the quality of out-of-home child and youth care. Among the highlights discussed were the project “Creating Futures'' implemented from 2015 to 2022 in partnership with the Hungarian FICE network NENESZ and youth homes in both countries, the ongoing engagement for Quality4Children Switzerland and the continued, active role of FICE Switzerland in the development of FICE International and the FICE Europe network. 

Updates from FICE Austria (November 2021)

Since 2020 the Board is in an ongoing strategic planning process led by its presidents Christian Posch and Bettina Terp. This process is expected to be finalized by the end of 2021. The Board has one new member: Ms. Raluca Verweijen Slamnescu and is now composed of nine board members. Currently, FICE Austria has increased its membership number to 23 member associations based in Austria and has additionally several individual (private) members.

News and updates from FICE Croatia

FICE Croatia, along with other Croatian associates, held a webinar on the importance of mental health in working with youth, which included topics such as the emotions and mental health, techniques and methods such as 4 windows of knowing and learning, burnout and the role of self care in mental health. 

In addition, on November 29, 2021, FICE Croatia held an annual General Assembly.

A Statement on the Humanitarian Crisis of Children and Adolescents at the Polish-Belarusian Border

At the border between Belarus and Poland, children's and human rights have been violated and

neglected now for months. The strategy of bringing refugees to the EU border with Poland in order

to pressurise the EU is inhumane and exploits the desperate situation of the refugees. The EU is

exacerbating this distress with a rigid and violent border policy and is disregarding international

law and EU agreements - this must be stopped immediately.

„Future-forum Residential Child Care“ (Zukunftsforum Heimerziehung)

From 2019-2021, FICE Germany (IGfH) has launched, moderated and organized “Future-forum Residential

Child Care” (Zukunftsforum Heimerziehung), a nation-wide platform to collect, discuss and evaluate past and current issues in the field of residential child and youth care in Germany. With a special emphasis and hearing of service users’, (children and youth as well as parents), professional social workers’ and other experts’ perspectives, the goal of the future-forum was to identify key issues and core needs for the structural and professional development of residential care in Germany.

The future of residential child care in Germany (and beyond) will have to be based on the following

coordinates “ rights - participation – acknowledgement/validation – sustainability”. A starting  point for professional action must be the question of how residential care realizes basic and social rights to participate in society - for and together with young people and their families.

Full project conclusion paper (German language only) : www.transfertagung-heimerziehung.de

FICE Croatia has started a campaign to collect donations for Residential Home Vrbina

The building of the Residential Home Vrbina Sisak was built in 1928, while the Residential Home Vrbina Sisak was founded in 1954, on March 26. Unfortunately, due to the terrible and devastating earthquake that struck Banovina (Central Croatia) on December 29, 2020., the building of the Children's Home Vrbina Sisak was severely damaged and unusable, as evidenced by the red mark on the building "unusable". 

What is the Deinstitutionalization reform in Ukraine?

Deinstitutionalization (DI) is a reform of the institutional child-care system aimed at creating an environment in which most children can be raised in families and the need for institutional care is kept to a minimum. The implementation of the reform began in 2017, and the reform strategy is designed in three stages until 2026.

FICE Bulgaria - project Inclusion Without Borders

Bulgaria continues to have the highest percentage of people at  risk of poverty and social exclusion among the EU members - 32.1% (Eurostat, 2020). A large portion of them are children and youth (32.8 % of the people under 16 and 35.6 % for people 16 to 24, Eurostat, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and the related restrictions have exacerbated this situation, especially in the age group 16 to 24.