Duration of project activities: 08/2022 - 08/2023, extended to 08/2024
Project grant: J&T Foundation
Project objectives: To increase the quality of social services provided to victims of domestic violence - women and their children, to support them in meeting the needs of women and their children, which will strengthen the mother-child bond, which is an important prerequisite for healthy human development.
Project Intent: Many young mothers living in a healthy family take the help and care of their grandparents for granted, and thanks to the experience and advice of the older generation, they can cope more easily with new situations arising in raising children, while having the opportunity and opportunity to share their joys and worries with those closest to them, find time to relax and devote themselves to themselves.
But the women who seek our help are women and mothers with children fleeing violence who are exhausted and traumatized. They are mothers who lack the space and time to meet their own needs. These are mothers who usually have two, three or more children, and providing for their day-to-day care is very demanding for such mothers, both physically and psychologically, in the long term and in light of the trauma they have experienced. Their day-to-day efforts to meet the children's demands take a back seat to meeting their own needs. The children are destabilized as a result of the trauma they have experienced, and they have greater bonding needs that the mother often does not have the capacity to meet. This can trigger maternal guilt in the mother, which can lead to emotional burnout and depression. So mothers are trapped and become much more vulnerable.
Based on our work experience, we have noticed that these are often women who lack primary family support. This causes them problems with their perception of how the standard family functions. They cannot sufficiently recognize the individual roles of family members, the functioning of kinship relationships, and they lack positive behavioural patterns that they can apply in raising their children.
Through our expert staff, we can provide women and their children with temporary safe shelter, comprehensive help and support. However, we wanted to provide more for these women and their children, through a person who has a prominent position in the family hierarchy. A person who would, at least in part, bring into the lives of our clients and their children a sense that there is a grandmother, a grandmother who will listen to them and, if they want, will also use her experience to help with advice or a good recipe. She will stand by them when they need to go to work, and the little ones need to be looked after or just indulge in mommy time so that they have time to rest after a busy day.
It was this need that gave rise to the idea of the project ,, BABIČKA".
Project outcome: During the months of August 2022 to June 2023, an average of 10 women and 20 children benefited from the grandmother's help and counselling per month. In the framework of individual work with the child of the clients, 365 actions were carried out which represents 553 hours of time, group work with the children of the clients was devoted 62.5 hours and 115 actions. Accompaniment of clients was carried out for 7 women and their children (13 hours 45 min.) 16 hours were devoted to independent work with the client. The interventions provided had a positive impact on mother-child relationships - strengthening the relational bond, processing traumatic experiences, personal development with subsequent independence.
