Purpose: To demonstrate ways of reforming the existing childcare system and increasing children's life opportunities.

Project objectives:

• developing alternative placements for children who may need these;
  
  
• gate-keeping (preventing children's admissions to the institution;
  
  
• restoration of children into their families;
  
  
• preparation for leaving care

Target group:

• Families who have applied for the admission of the child/children into the institution, families whose children have been placed into the institution, and families who wish to become foster carers or guardians;

The project demonstrated that social work intervention at a crisis point can help families in the community to avoid residential placement of their children or regain those who have already been in care for some time.

It also aimed to make low cost improvements in the standards of institutional care where many children remained throughout their childhood.

Preparation for leaving care, and support afterwards into adulthood, was also introduced as a vital step in helping young people, who may have lived in an institution all their life, readjust to life in the community.

The project aimed also to support residential staff through the process of change and to provide training, both for their work as residential social workers and for their potential re-deployment into new social work careers. A team of 6 social workers was supporting the Internat.

The project was implemented with Lviv oblast Department of Education and Lychakivskiy district administration, Lviv city.

This project was part-funded by the Health and Social Care Partnerships Scheme, Department for International Development. A Ukrainian NGO, Step by Step, were acting as consultants on developing new educational approaches.