Carrying on a tradition of training the staff in orphanages for special children, the second training on working with complex behavior of children and adults with special needs was held on the basis of the Kirovo orphanage on May 15 -17. Although the training was initially planned as a continuation of the one which had taken place in autumn, this time other employees of two orphanages participated in it, namely teachers, nurses, rehabilitation specialists of the Kirovo and the Zaporozhzhye orphanages.

This time, Oksana, Candidate of Psychological Sciences from Odessa, and Marina, a volunteer and a student of the Odessa University came in on Eugene, the training specialist from Lvov. During the training, participants were able to revise, deepen and expand their knowledge of patients’ problematic behavior. Also they analyzed individual cases based on practical examples, working with individual children and adults from the Kirovo orphanage.

In the course of the training it became clear that problems are identical – people under care cry for no reason, fight, bite, and eat inedible objects. But the most crucial problem admitted by everybody, is lack of staff in orphanages, which makes it impossible to provide individual care to patients in order to solve the problem in every case.

Among other things, participants tried to wean an adult girl from eating inedibles and, in principle, they managed to distract her, but the problem is that in a real working situation the personnel-patient ratio in a state orphanage does not equal one-to-one, not to mention a team of several people working with a patient simultaneously.

However, taking part in a second training, this time as an organizer, not a listener, I am absolutely positive that even with the minimum amount of staff it is possible to achieve a result, if there are at least a few motivated people who will try to implement changes to their work. Slowly but surely. Step by step. And bit by bit, we hope for increase in the official norms of staff in orphanages for people with special needs. Someday...

In the meantime, we are planning to continue lead-through with a training specialist from Lvov in August on the basis of the Kirovo orphanage and according to the preliminary arrangement it will be a practical training in a group of bedridden children.

Many thanks to our faithful friend Keisha from New Zealand for the opportunity to arrange this training; we are so grateful to trainers Zhenya and Oksana as well as to the administration of the Kirovo orphanage for making it possible to conduct the training within the walls of their orphanage and for the dance performed by the fosterlings at the end of the training! And our special thanks to all involved people who provide constant support to children and adults with special needs! People kind and fair are everywhere and we always remember about it!