Shattered Families

A dramatic report has woken me from my blogging slumber. "Shattered Families" outlines research carried out by the US based Applied Research Center. It found that over 5000 children were currently in foster care after their parents had been either detained or deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This despite countering US Immigration and Child Welfare laws and policies, not to say international conventions,  based on the assumption that families will, and should, be united, whether or not parents are deported (NB: the US is alone with Somalia in not having ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child).

One mother deported to Mexico and separated from her 9-month old son, waited over a year to be reunited with him - by which time he had spend more time in foster care than with his birth mother. This family was fortunate. After a year, Child Protection Services draft a permanency plan, an outcome of which can be parental rights being terminated and the child being put up for adoption despite the parents possibly being in a position in their country of origin to be reunited with their child.

This is not the first time I have heard of children being separated from their detained parents. Under the UK's previous labour government, social workers were encouraged to remove children into foster care to force undocumented migrant families to return to their country of origin. The policy was overturned, largely because social workers refused to remove children who were not at rosk of harm.

And in my time working with families in chronic poverty in the UK, I saw too often children taken into care due to a lack of commitment, understanding and resources to keep families together. Yet when family-support organisations, such as ATD Fourth World, provided a long-term accompaniment to parents, they were able to demonstrate to social workers and family courts their capacity to care provide a safe and caring environment for their children.

It needs child welfare professionals, family advocacy organisations and also neighbours of these families to speak out against such practices which, as the report and video below state, shatter families.

A lesson in presentation (using Ikea boxes!)

Great post today from Duncan Green on his blog which gave me the pleasure to discover Hans Rosling. What a joy to watch. If only all those who presented in seminars and conferences (me included!) could be so entrancing! Rather than being an onerous task we feel compelled to put ourselves through in the hope of retaining one hundredth of what is said, a Rosling lecture is a lesson in communicating ideas.

That said, he is an economist, and as often occurs in this discipline, at times he leaves me a little cold. Watch it and let me know your opinion, but his way of talking about child mortality is unpleasantly unemotional at times.

In any case, happy watching and learning!

Le "vivre ensemble"

For the last few days I've been working and welcoming members of the organisation I work for who have come to France for our AGM. It's riveting to hear the diversity of their experiences, coming from as far afield as Peru to Philippines and Dublin to Dar Es Salam.

One of the main themes discussed was that of the right of people living in extreme poverty to participate and have a place at the table on discussions that directly affect them at the local, national and international level. We were fortunate to be able to attend a seminar on a French project concerning "Working, Learning and Living Together." A particularly dynamic expression of participation came from 3 women who are neighbours in an inner-city housing estate in the Parisian suburbs. Two were rehoused there with their families from having lived in bed and breakfasts and hostels. One chose to live there, as part of her commitment as a "full-time volunteer" to share and better understand the lives of people living in long-term poverty.

What was so interesting about this exchange was how genuine it was - an expression of the encounter between 3 women from diverse backgrounds but with a shared commitment to overcome extreme poverty. A positive expression of what the French call "le vivre ensemble" (poorly translated as "community relations"). The mums who'd previously been homeless before arriving at this housing project spoke of how initially they were just relieved to finally have a place to call their own. "Even if there had been a huge hole in the floor, I was just so happy to have my own front-door key and not have to worry about where we could cook a meal, what the social workers were thinking and whether they'd come to take the kids away." This was then a first step to getting involved in the community and having the courage to attend local participatory forums to speak out about issues that affect their lives - schooling, parenting, but also wider issues such as work or the environment.

Eradicating poverty doesn't only have to be about time-limited projects with concrete outputs and outcomes. It also passes through a coming together of people willing to learn and spend time to get to know people living in poverty. The local authority in this Paris suburb now wants to pull down the housing estate and build houses for "the poor".

Is the solution to build a new ghetto? Or to find news ways to promote and support efforts for a more sustainable and harmonious "vivre ensemble"?

Beggars can be choosers

I came across this video on the Guardian website the other day, a shocking piece of television from Spain.
If you don't speak Spanish, here's a short resumé. The "journalist" is talking with Atlético de Madrid fans in Hamburg the day of a European football final. He spots a homeless man and encourages fans to show their generosity to "make the man happy". The bemused man is incredulous when, egged on by the "journalist", fans begin putting coins, mobile phones and visa cards in front of him, much to the amusement of the presenters back in the studio.

It says a lot about our society when a homeless person becomes nothing more than a source of derision, with the resulting effect construed as legitimate entertainment by broadcasters.

When does a person living on the streets stop having a name and become "el mendigo" - the beggar? Welfare mum? Street kid? Asylum seeker?

Recently, ATD Fourth World in London launched a photography exhibition called "The Roles We Play" as part of the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion . It aims to recognise the contribution of people in poverty and challenge negative attitudes towards vulnerable and excluded families.

Amanda, left, has a name other than poor:  neighbour, wife, mum, citizen. It is possible to go beyond a mere tag to meet and understand people living in poverty. I'd be very interested to hear about other projects giving people in poverty something more than a label.