First National Meeting on Foster Care

On October 27 and 28, the Sistema  Nacional de Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (the National System for Integral Family Development, DIF) organized the First National Meeting on Foster Care in order to establish guidelines for the alternative care of children. National and international experts explained the situation of children and adolescents without parental care in Mexico, as well as foster care strategies to establish these protective measures.

Matilde Luna, Director of RELAF, gave three lectures to Attorneys for Children of the Mexican Federation (32 states). Standards for practices and programme developments were discussed, as well as the challenges of building a comprehensive alternative care policy based on family and community life. Meanwhile, the Federal Attorney for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, Nelly Montealegre, stressed the need to carry out a comprehensive deinstitutionalisation programme that includes the deinstitutionalisation of children and adolescents in temporary foster families.

Several persons of reference took part of the meeting, including: Christian Skoog, UNICEF Representative in Mexico; Dora Giusti, Protection Chief for UNICEF Mexico; Ricardo Antonio Bucio Mujica, Executive Secretary of the National System of Comprehensive Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents; Carmen Silveira de Oliveira, former National Secretary for the Promotion of Children’s Rights of Brazil; Cristian Allende; former Vice Secretary for the Protection of the Rights of Children and Adolescents in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina; and Isabel Soto, advisor to the National Institute for Children and Adolescents of Uruguay.                                                                      

Among the work we are carrying out in Mexico, we would like to highlight the two training sessions conducted with teams from the Foster Care Pilot Programmes. The first module was conducted by Sonia Barrientos, member of RELAF’s Consultative Council, and focused on recruiting, evaluating and selecting foster families, as well as their subsequent training. The second module was conducted by Cristian Allende, who was responsible for the preparation of the work plan and the presentation and monitoring of the foster care processes.