Reunification
A safe and loving family is the building block of society and the God given environment for the development of each new child to flourish. When a child comes to Hogar Nazareth we work hard to fill in that role but we are aware that the biological family can not be replaced. With that, our Social work team focuses not only on guaranteeing the integral protection and rights of each child during their stay at Hogar Nazareth, but on strengthening family bonds and searching for nuclear and extended family members when those connections don’t already clearly exist, with the goal of reunification when possible.
“The family is the most ancient institution which God founded in Paradise, when He called the first pair of human begins into existence. The first blessing which God gave was for the wellbeing of the family.”
- Saint John Vianney
Stages toward stronger family bonds
-
Visits of Social Work team to familial homes
-
Monitored phone calls
-
Monitored family visits at Hogar Nazareth
-
Unmonitored phone calls
-
Unmonitored family visits at Hogar Nazareth
-
Short monitored visits of children in their families homes
-
Short unmonitored visits of children in their families homes
-
Extended unmonitored visits of children with their families
-
Submitting recommendations to Governing agency for children and Adolescents for Reunification.
-
Government agency approval and Reunification
-
Follow up visits.
Longer term stays:
There are of course situations in the families where a quick reunification is not the proper next step and thus the child will stay longer term. Sometimes the children will stay all the way up to 18 years old. When these situations are identified, the social work team works hard and creatively to ensure that there are good opportunities and support systems to move onto at 18 years old.
Quick Reunifications
We see that some children who come to Hogar Nazareth have difficult family situations which resolves quickly. There are also situations where we find extended families and the child is able to go to their home with them after a shorter stay(6 months to a year) thanks to the hard and smart work of our Social Work team.