Program Refinement and Expansion

One of the most compelling new elements of our program is the documentation of the life of each institutionalized child. Whole Child has provided each child with a memory book, and has trained each caregiver to recognize and document key moments in every boy’s and girl’s life and record her observations in the memory book. When possible, caregivers also include photographs and other keepsakes. The memory books provide children with a sense of their own personal history, while fostering a deepened relationship between the primary caregiver and child. Most children leave an orphanage with no record of their months, years, or entire childhoods while in institutional care. Whole Child’s memory book program is a gift to each child that will truly last a lifetime.

In El Salvador, 2009 brought a significant change in government. The full implementation of Whole Child programs depends on a close collaboration with the ministries that oversee child welfare systems. Therefore, a smooth transition was especially important to maintain the continuity of our work. We are pleased to say that the new government of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes has been a receptive and collaborative partner. Most notably and importantly, the new First Lady, Dr. Vanda Pignato, has embraced our work and we are looking forward to a long and rewarding partnership with her and her office in the years to come.

Building Key Partnerships

In 2009 Whole Child celebrated its second year of participation in the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), President Bill Clinton’s preeminent charitable organization, which pairs carefully screened charities with appropriate funding partners. This year, Whole Child was selected as one of the top NGOs at CGI with an announcement of our CGI Commitment to Action. CGI highlighted our organization and our current and forthcoming work as an example of how to alleviate the crisis of the care of vulnerable children in the developing world.

Another of our key supporters, SISEL International, stepped up its financial contributions in 2009 and has played an instrumental role in securing our future during these difficult financial times. As of this writing, Founder and CEO Karen Gordon has just returned from Nicaragua, where SISEL provided and helped distribute gifts to the children and their caregivers for the holidays.

With all the opportunity that 2010 brings, Whole Child International needs financial support for our ambitious and cost-effective answer to one of the world’s most enduring problems — the devastating developmental impact of poor caregiving on the millions of children who live in institutions. As an early intervention program, the sooner we reach each child, the more benefit that child will have from our work. With a strong program in place for replication, our financial resources are the greatest limiter of the number of children we can reach.

Please visit www.wholechild.org/giving to donate. By expanding our capacity to reach new orphanages and new countries, your donation will have tremendous and direct impact on the world’s least fortunate children.

Whole Child International is a 501(c)(3) public charity. All contributions are tax-deductible in the United States to the fullest extent of the law.

Over the course of an hour and a half, El Salvador National Director Gabriela Serrano and Founder & Chairman Karen Gordon outlined Whole Child’s work thus far in El Salvador, and discussed our long-term ambitions to help the children of El Salvador.

We are also grateful to have been joined by our friend and colleague in El Salvador, Maria Teresa Zuniga, and the government’s Director of Childhood, Matilde Guadalupe de Espinoza. Overall it was a thoughtful and constructive introduction to the new government, and we are optimistic about forging new levels of collaboration as we move forward in El Salvador.

Left to right: Maria Teresa Zuniga, Gabriela Serrano, Dr. Vanda Pignato, Karen Gordon, and Matilde Guadalupe de Espinoza.Â

The Earth Stewardship Foundation’s mission is “to create a safe haven for abandoned children, endangered wildlife, and fragile environments.” Based on the support we have received thus far from Tom Mower, we know that the Earth Stewardship Foundation will make a major difference in its philanthropic focuses.

We’re glad to have Earth Stewardship Foundation and Sisel International as key partners in our work.

 One of the three groups of 2008-9 trainees celebrate their accomplishment…

The next priority is to provide the caregivers with hands-on technical assistance in their institutions, to ensure the training is fully applied and the caregiving practices continue to reach the children in perpetuity.

The week started with the planning session, which included the directors of one of the children’s homes, Adalberto Guirola, who helped us fully envision the adaptation of our previous work in Nicaragua for these Salvadoran sites. The directors, both nuns, have been our partners since 2005, when they accompanied Whole Child to the Pikler Institute, our model orphanage in Budapest. They have always been a rich source of input for the real-world application of our methodology, and it was deeply rewarding to begin to see our work realizing itself in the Salvadoran partner orphanages.

By then, Drs. Bob McCall and Chris Groark from the University of Pittsburgh had completed their exhaustive baseline study at Adalberto Guirola and San Vicente de Paul orphanages, and the path was cleared for us to begin work in the first to come online, Adalberto Guirola. The work began by creating a clear roadmap to the establishment of small groups, continuity of care, primary care, and other targeted strategies and methods to improve institutionalized children’s lives.

Administrative Training

The directors and technical team (psychologists, social workers, etc.) of the initial three institutions — Hogar San Vicente de Paul, Hogar Guirola, and CIPI — attended a two-day training introducing our principles and outlining their application in these settings.

The participants were receptive and enthusiastic, and by the end of the second day seemed to have clear visions of the program implemented in their institutions. But, as one of the directors told the Regional Program Manager, Gabriela Serrano, ” I usually go to trainings and leave fine. After this training I have a huge sense of responsibility for all that needs to change.”

Another focused on the need to keep children with consistent caregivers, telling the assembled participants: “I had never felt comfortable changing children from group to group, but had not been able to say it out loud. This proves my gut feeling of keeping children with the same groups.”

The challenge is clear to us all. The next step is to implement.

The event will bring together the First Lady and Whole Child with our corporate partners at TACA and Scotiabank, our government partners at Programa Ternura, and officials from ISNA, the Salvadoran governmental institute for the Social Development of Children and Adolescents.

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Update: the First Lady’s event was attended by approximately 150 people, including members of the Salvadoran press as well as many of the caregivers and administrators we will soon be working with.

 The Adalberto Guirola children’s home hosted the event.

Founding Executive Director Karen Gordon and Regional Program Manager Gabriela Serrano addressed the event, introducing our principles of care and providing an overview of our previous work in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. Others who spoke included (l-r) Carmen Elisa Sosa de Callejos, President of ISNA; First Lady of El Salvador Ana Ligia Mixco Sol de Saca; Celina de Kreite, President of Gloria de Kreite Foundation and wife of TACA’s CEO Roberto Kreite; and Lazaro Figueroa, Director of Communications and Marketing for Scotiabank.

The First Lady presented Karen Gordon with an award for Whole Child’s “invaluable work on behalf of boys and girls in the Children’s Homes of El Salvador.” Karen accepted the award, sharing it with the caregivers and administrators in the children’s homes, as well as our indispensable partners in El Salvador, the TACA airline group and Scotiabank.

For the past two months our training team has consisted of trainer Marta Periera and regional program manager Gabriela Serrano, both of whom have just returned from training at Pikler Institute in Budapest, Hungary. Marta was joined at Pikler by Arlae Gomez, recently hired to fill the second training position in Nicaragua. Arlae is due to arrive in Managua shortly, where she will implement technical support in our partner orphanages, mentor local apprentice trainers as they come aboard, and help lead training sessions.

The year’s second training sessions took place over three days late last month. As always, the training sessions featured direct learning, workshops, and discussion, described in greater detail below. This learning will be continuously reinforced at all five participating institutions through the ongoing presence of Whole Child’s trainers.

The exercises and topics in Session II engaged the participants with several highlights:

•••> A hand-washing exercise demonstrated the importance of appropriate and predictable routines for children. Participating caregivers took part in a role-reversal component that provided a jarring illustration of the emotional impact of a day-to-day routine when it is conducted abruptly and carelessly.

•••> An open discussion of the differences between between maternal and professional care drew the caregivers into an intensive exploration of the potential impact of their work if conducted effectively. Gabriela Serrano, the regional program director, was able to share some of the research conducted by our partners at the Pikler Institute, who have been able to connect positive outcomes in adulthood to the caregiving practices they have been refining for the past 60 years.

•••> The team introduced a language/communication focus into this training session to help with the problem caregivers encounter in the process of learning to talk to children who are too young to respond verbally. To illustrate the need for this central principle of our work, visual aids demonstrated the active acquisition of language and the neurological activity of young children, even before birth, as they learn to listen to and process audio cues. With this new information fresh in their minds, the participants took turns with dolls, practicing talking to the children while changing their diapers.

The training sessions tend to evoke intense, often surprisingly personal, reactions and revelations from the participants. In one activity, the trainers instructed the caregivers to think of someone from childhood who left a positive mark in their lives. After a few minutes of quiet time, one by one the participants shared stories about their mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and other relatives who helped make them who they were.

One young orphanage caregiver contributed a more illustrative testimony than we could have wished for. As if to provide everyone in the room with a reason to continue their work, she described the director from the orphanage in which she spent her childhood. With tenderness usually reserved for parents and close family members, she described the love and affection she received from her orphanage’s chief administrator who, though no longer living in Nicaragua, would remain in her heart forever.

The story galvanized the room, infusing in the participants and their reactions a renewed desire to make a difference in the children’s lives, and to create the kind of memories that had been shared by their colleague.

Thanks to Gabriela Serrano for her assistance with these posts.

Whole Child International is proud to announce a $25,000 contribution from Scotiabank. The Canadian corporation’s Salvadoran bank championed this donation, thus becoming an early partner in our efforts to raise a significant portion of our program budget from local stakeholders.

We look forward to working with Scotiabank and its employees in our programming in El Salvador in the months and years to come.

Nicole will be missed, but her skill, her care, and her discretion in documenting our training sessions, technical support, and the early days of our new office in Managua will serve the organization for years to come. We wish Nicole best of luck in her continued work.

Grupo TACA CEO Roberto Kriete and the rest of the rapidly expanding carrier have our sincerest thanks. Their support is making it possible for us to conduct and expand our services while continuing adequate oversight and further maximizing the impact of other donors’ contributions. We know this is just the beginning of a rewarding partnership with TACA Airlines.