SUMMARY OF A POSITIVE YEAR AND PROJECTION OF THE RESULTS OF THE TECHNICAL COOPERATION

RELAF and UNICEF Mexico, along with the Mexican government, are developing a technical cooperation in order to implement and strengthen the Foster Care Programmes in Mexico, both at federal and state levels. Work on the federal level is being done jointly with the Federal Attorney's Office for the Protection of Children and Adolescents and with the National DIF (the National System for the Integral Development of Children); at state level, we are working together with five DIF agencies: Mexico City, Tabasco, Morelos, Campeche and Chihuahua. The goal is to train the technical teams on the implementation of all the processes of a foster care programme while strengthening their practices, supervising their interventions and supporting them so that they can incorporate standards and procedures with a rights-based approach, in light of the manuals prepared for the implementation of the Foster Care Programmes. The states are currently in the execution phase, which involves the preparation of a work plan, the introduction of children to their foster families, and the monitoring of the foster care processes. The initial stage to call, evaluate and train the foster families has already been finished.

During the second semester of the year, considerable advances have been made in a country whose states did not have Foster Care Programmes: the construction and establishment of the programmes are underway, tools have been prepared and the teams have been trained. In this sense, the results of the year are positive: 33 foster families were evaluated and, among them, 19 were trained and 12 were certified. In addition, 13 children are living with their respective foster families.
All of this was achieved in a constantly challenging context but also in a situation in which the children, the families and the local working teams have shown a great deal of commitment. During the next year of work, we will continue to broaden the results, reaching and training more families and fostering more children.