BAGUIO CITY – The Saint Louis University (SLU), through its Sunflower Centennial Halfway Home for Boys, is hosting a Foster Care Forum on Saturday, October 7, 2017 at the Perfecto Building in their main campus located along Bonifacio Street, here.
The forum is set to discuss how one can harness their generous spirit and motivation to serve to create stronger, healthier, and happier communities by brightening the life of a child through fostering.
Diana Juskov, the Project Development Officer of the Sunflower Halfway Home for Boys, differentiated fostering from adopting a child.
“Foster Care is the act of temporarily caring for a child as they wait for the issues in their biological families to be resolved by Social Workers assigned to the family either by a child caring organization or DSWD. Adoption is the placement of a child in a family where they remain permanently”, she said.
The SLU Sunflower Centennial Halfway Home for Boys is a residential center for boys who are victims of abuse, neglect, and abandonment.
“For approximately six years, the center has provided educational assistance, temporary shelter and psychosocial services to Children in Need of Special Protection. We have worked tirelessly to serve and protect the children in our care and our latest offering allows us to diversify our services to better enhance the safety and wellbeing of our boys”, she continued.
Among projects that the Halfway Home advocates is a Foster Care Program that emphasizes the need for children to be in families to mediate the trauma a child has suffered that has resulted in them being placed at the SLU Sunflower Halfway Home.
“The SLU Sunflower Halfway Home does an exemplary job in protecting and restoring peace to a child’s life after leaving a difficult situation and we believe the continuation of a child’s developmental progress lies in providing natural home environments”, Juskov said.
The Foster Care Forum is being delivered in tandem with the Parenting Foundation of the Philippines, a non government organization, who are the forefront of fostering children for over two decades, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development – Cordillera Administrative Region (DSWD-CAR).
A highlight of the forum will be the sharing of experiences from current Foster Parents, who will testify the sense of fulfillment and purpose in their lives they experienced since becoming a foster parent.
The DSWD-CAR will discuss eligibility requirements and the licensure process involved in foster caring.
Interested parties who want to join the event can proceed to P-700 from 12:00 noon to 5:00 PM on October 7. Further details on the event maybe obtained from landline 443-2001 loc 386, from 09274682457, or at the Sunflower Children’s Centre Facebook page.
“Allow the delight to be ours as we host you for an afternoon of information and meal sharing. Your support is greatly appreciated and hope you leave our event with the zest and enthusiasm that this program was built upon”, ended Juskov, who is from Australia, sent by the Australian Volunteers for International Development (AVID) Program on an Australian government funded voluntary assignment to help create the Foster Care Program.
By: ARMANDO M. BOLISLIS
