ACTIVITIES OF TECHNICAL COOPERATION IN PIGÌÉ (MUNICIPALITY OF SAAVEDRA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA).

The Municipality of Saavedra is committed to develop foster care: the Foster Care Programme Bajo el Ala was established by the Area of Childhood from the Secretariat of Social Development, and it works along the whole territory of Saavedra, based in Pigüé, where the municipal government of the District rules.

The program promotes transitory foster care in the extended family or in foster families that belong to the community, with the purpose of guaranteeing the right to community- and family-based care of children and adolescents who, for different reasons, are not taken care of by their parents, until the situation causing the separation is solved and the children are able to live with them again.

The Programme Bajo el Ala is the only foster care program of the District. RELAF was present in its launching ceremony, which consisted of an open discussion on foster care held at the Deliberating Council. It included the presence of the highest authority of the Municipality, Mayor Rubén Carlos Grenada, and of the Director of the Area of Childhood, Lic. Alejandra Gonzales. The support of the authorities for the Program is very important, and both of them highlighted in their speeches the wide prospects opened up by the program in relation to the provision of family-based alternative care for those children and adolescents in the District that need it, an option that is not available with the formal modality. Moreover, Matilde Luna and María Sánchez Brizuela held a presentation to introduce foster care and the guarantee to community- and family-based care in the region on behalf of RELAF, after which the technical team of the program presented it, expecting that the message would reach all the presents and that future foster care families would come up from this first meeting between the program and the community.

Besides participating in the launching of the program, RELAF held a training workshop with the technical team of the Programme Bajo el Ala, accompanied by all the professional staff (social workers, psychologists and lawyers) of the Secretariat of Social Development. The team responsible for the Programme has prepared and launched the first campaign to call for foster families and it is professionally trained to carry out the processes of selection, training and monitoring of foster families during the first stage of the programme.

We will keep you informed on the advances of this local experience, to which we look forward to contribute for its strengthening and consolidation.