For almost a year now, the team of the Bobrovsky Orphanage has been behind closed doors. We held an on-line meeting with the specialists of the Portage team in this institution, which we support and hope that after the pilot period, Portage will also remain in the practice of working with children.
The meeting with this team went on – some of the specialists were isolated, some were in touch from home. Together with us, the meeting was attended by consultants from the Pskov Center for Curative Pedagogy and Differentiated Education in Pskov – Maria Noskova and Irina Arlamova. They accompany the team of the Bobrovsky Orphanage for the entire period of the pilot project.
“We are working both inside the institution and outside, outside the perimeter of the institution. Classes with children did not stop for a single week. We adjusted to the circumstances, but carried on the work. When we leave the watch, we have to entrust the conduct of classes to someone else and sometimes difficulties are encountered. For example, a child gets used to me in two weeks, and after a shift shift, a new employee comes and the child needs to get used to another person. Therefore, it is not always possible to conduct classes in such conditions and it takes time to develop closer contact. And we are trying very hard to achieve this. ” – shared Olga Ermel, Team Leader and Project Manager Portage.
Over the past year, specialists from the Portage team entered isolation in a different composition: when one, and when two or three specialists at the same time. And those who are in isolation with the children conducted classes with each child of the project, and those outside the institution called to find out how their wards and discussed the course of the classes, gave advice and filled out the child’s documents. Here they always try to organize their work so that at least one Portage specialist is on duty.
The specialists of orphanages had to rebuild not only their work schedule, but also constantly, every two weeks, part with their own family and children in order to support orphans with TMNR. But thanks to isolation and the fact that the specialists were forced to spend the night in the institution, work with orphans became more productive: the specialists had more time to observe the children, the reasons for the behavior of some children became clear. Previously, these specialists spent 8 working hours with children, and now – all 24 hours. And the children received three times more attention and care.
We believe that the children in the Bobrovsky orphanage are very lucky that they have such caring specialists and strive to support both the work of the Portage team in this institution and provide financial assistance to the institution.