On December 13-19, 2015 took place a study visit to Poland. Its main goal was to get acquainted in practice with ensuring and protection of the rights of most-at-risk children and youth, exploring the system of comprehensive prevention, social, psychological and correctional services in Poland and, as a result, improving the work with most-at-risk children and youth at the regional and national levels in Ukraine in the future.

Among 12 participants of the study visit there were representatives of NGOs and state organizations, lawyers, teachers, social workers etc. Study tour was planned for the group of the most successful participants of the educational course “Protection and ensuring the rights of most-at-risk children and youth”. The course was conducted in a period from March until October of 2015 under the framework of the project “Protection and ensuring the rights of most-at-risk children and youth” implemented by NGO Information Center for Human Rights supported by ICF “AIDS Foundation East-West” (AFEW-Ukraine) in cooperation with the International School of Human Rights and Civic Actions and Educational Human Rights House – Chernihiv and under financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The key partner of the study visit from the hosting side (the Polish party) became the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR).

As a part of study tour its participants visited such organizations as HFHR, Family Counseling Center on prevention, care and treatment of addictions of MONAR Association, Sociotherapeutic Center “Common House” (Wilga), Polish Drug Policy Network, Shelter and Juvenile correctional facility for girls (Falenica), NGO “Political Critique”, Association Group of Pedagogy and Social Animation Praga North (GPAS), National Bureau for Drug Prevention.

Thanks to the study visit the graduates of the educational course “Protection and ensuring the rights of most-at-risk children and youth” had an amazing opportunity to learn in practice about the Polish system of work with vulnerable children and youth, understand the key principles of juvenile justice system and family courts, as well as specifics of rehabilitation, re-socialization and adaptation of demoralized adolescents [1], and/or those who prone to demoralization. Due to visiting different organizations that work with children and youth in Warsaw and nearby, as well as thanks to meeting the staff and pupils / clients of such establishments the participants of the study visit saw the various social models of psycho-social and rehabilitation services, expanded their horizons and received inspiration for further actions and changes in Ukraine.

“It was both interesting and useful to learn about the Polish system of providing help to minors who are under the conditions of demoralization”, – said Valentyna Prysiazhniuk, social pedagogue of the Zhytomyr City Center for Vocational Education, who shared her impressions from the trip. “Each component of this system impressed me with its own characteristics: Sociotherapeutic Center “Common House” – with its idea and “mini-bomb”[author’s note – an opportunity given to a child when he or she can independently choose a day to ditch school]; street educators – with their devotion to children and “mobile school” [author’s note – mobile interactive educational and informational exhibition for children]; the director of Shelter and Juvenile correctional facility for girls Romuald Sadowsky – with his humanism, love and devotion to his work, “angels and demons” [author’s note – refers to using the metaphor of Catholicism to analyze the negative and positive trends in behavioral changes and development of a person]; drug addiction establishments – with complexity, diversity and focus on quality of services provided. And the entire system of providing care and support for most-at-risk adolescents impressed me by its philosophy that the society of adults should take responsibility for the misdeeds of children. Therefore I suggest to change our approaches to work on this issue by creating conditions for adults to realize this truth”.

The participants established partnership with polish NGOs and state institutions and after returning to Ukraine would use gained knowledge and skills to improve their work and plan future projects and service to in the interests of most-at-risk adolescents.

Natalia Novyk, project manager of NGO “Human Rights Information Center” was also impressed with what she saw: “I still can not believe that it could actually be like that. When we were at the Juvenile correctional facility for girls in Falenica I thought that it all was special staged performance and the director was “playing to the audience”. But afterwards I realized that it is all about the special approach in Poland – to love and respect “difficult” children instead of punishing and isolating them the way it is done in Ukraine”.

AFEW-Ukraine and the participants of the study tour express their special gratitude to Olga Salomatova, an expert of HFHR, who made this visit saturated, useful and interesting. Furthermore, it is important to recall that it is the last year’s visit of AFEW-Ukraine‘s partners to Poland that inspired us to develop and create a joint educational course on ensuring human rights of most-at-risk adolescents. Thus this trip of professionals is a good example of continuation of the Ukrainian-Polish cooperation that as we hope will only strengthen in the future.

[1] “Demoralization” is an unique concept for Polish system of social, psychological and legal support. It is reflected in regulatory and legal framework and defined as a vulnerability of a child and/or adolescent according to their risky behavior and other risks related to accommodation, education, leisure time and environment.