Reintegration and Social Work
Outskirts of Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007
As mentioned in the comments section of one of the previous posts, part of any successful attempt at reintegration of institutionalized children into their biological families and with foster or adopting parents has to be the provision of oversight and monitoring through visits by social workers.
As I also mentioned in another previous post, many of Kutaisi’s social workers at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Georgia visited Newport in Wales last year and are also upgrading their knowledge and skills through a TACIS Tempus project at Tbilisi State University.
Tbilisi State University will be training social workers at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and the curriculum is being devised with cultural traditions and differences in mind. To plug the skills gap before the students qualify, the work and expertise of those already working in social work type roles will be recognised with a certificate. This certificate course has already begun, with forty mature students. It is hoped that these successful students will provide placements for the students on the four year social work course which begins in September 2006.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that deinstitutionalization is occurring in Georgia and every attempt is being made to successfully reintegrate children from state-run institutions into their biological families or into the foster and adopting family units. The children in the photos in this post, for example, have been.
Outskirts of Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007
