Bep van Sloten: She helps close children's homes: 'It is arrogant to think that we have to save the country'

Closing a children's home is a big step, but it will ultimately benefit more families and children, says Bep van Sloten. 'Children lose contact with their community precisely because of a recording.'

Bep van Sloten was involved in closing an orphanage in Namibia and placing the orphans in foster families. The painting and the cushions on the sofa come from Namibia, the books are about Africa. (image Dirk Hol)

Amersfoort

In her work, Bep van Sloten (68) told governments and NGOs on a daily basis that children's homes are not a good place to grow up. As an international consultant in the field of alternative youth care, she advised them on the transition to other ways of caring for children. 'Saying that it has to be done is one thing, but actually doing it is another story', says Van Sloten. 'In Namibia I had to do it myself.'

Article continues below the ad

In 2013, the board of the Children's Village Usakos Support Foundation, a Dutch private initiative with a children's home in Namibia, asked for help from Van Sloten. There were difficulties with the staff and the children in the home and the foundation asked for advice. "I went there and saw all the problems you read about in the reports." The children in the home had behavioral problems and the home struggled with where the children should go when they reached adulthood. Van Sloten became secretary of the foundation, which was renamed the SOJA Foundation and decided to close the home.

'Children lose contact with their community precisely because of a recording.'

back to family situation

This month the Better Care Network Netherlands (BCNN) - a partnership of children's rights organizations - started a campaign against children's homes abroad. Based on hundreds of scientific studies, the network states that growing up in a children's home leads to serious development and attachment problems that the children carry with them for the rest of their lives. That is why they advocate that children's homes close and the children are placed back in a family situation.

Directors of foundations that still maintain orphanages abroad responded to BCNN's views in the Nederlands Dagblad . They said that it is difficult to accommodate all children from homes in safe family situations. Moreover, they believe that the economic and social situation in the countries where the homes are located is too bad to leave the care of children to the government there.

convince

Van Sloten has personally experienced what is involved in such a switch from orphanage to childcare in families. She not only had to convince her fellow board members in the Netherlands of the change, but also the families of the children and the foundation in Namibia that managed the home. In 2015, the Namibian director of the home attended a conference on the effects of children's homes. 'After that, she also believed that a turnaround was possible and necessary. She then convinced the local government together with us that things had to be done differently.'

How did you get started on that cover?

'The first step was that we told the government that we were going to close the home. We also immediately stopped taking in new children. The director in Namibia then went to find out where the children in the home came from and she found out that many of them still had relatives. Many families wanted to take the children back, but had no money for it. Poverty was the biggest problem there. It is strange that those children were actually taken away from their parents, while we can also support them financially. The Namibian foundation then drew up a plan for each child that we were going to finance from the Netherlands. For example, we wanted to ensure that the children could continue to go to school, so we pay for that education. But the most important thing we have done is to appoint a social worker to guide the process and provide follow-up care. She maintains contact with the authorities, supports the parents and supervises the situations in the families. She is crucial in this process.'

Read also

Children's rights organizations in open letter: 'Christian young people still too often work in foreign orphanages'

What's the hardest thing you ran into?

'One of the hardest things is that you have to convince everyone that things have to change. The local foundation was also like: we've been doing this for years, why does it suddenly have to be different? You are not going to tell them that they have contributed to a bad form of childcare. So we explained to them that there are better ways of caring, and emphasized that we wouldn't let them down. Convincing people is the hardest part. They have to change what they have believed for so many years and what they have raised money for. The kids are just happy with it.'

'