Family Strengthening Programmes

What do FSPs do, practically?

Each programme is made up of a package of services to support families and communities to assume their responsibility to protect and care for their children. Each part of the part is delivered in accordance with our standards. This includes:

1. Direct to the Child: Ensuring children get essentials for survival and development. This includes educational, nutrition, health care, emotional support and adequate living conditions. In addition we help formally registering the child’s identity if needed and deal with other rights such us ensuring child-headed (Aids Orphan) families can continue living in their parents' home.
   
2. Direct to the Family: Help families protect and care for their children. Includes developing parenting skills where needed; sorting a stable source of resources (e.g. income or food production) to provide for their children and to manage family resources efficiently.
   
3. In the immediate community: Strengthen support systems for vulnerable children and their families within the community. 
   

Within the community, the Family Strengthening Programme works to ensure that all three elements (as outlined above) are effectively addressed.  However, the particular services that are offered vary from programme to programme, according to differing situations from community to community.

Family strengthening work is carried out through programmes. This means that we do not necessarily need to build new facilities in order to carry out our work.  The use of existing infrastructure is preferred, whether through SOS facilities (e.g. social centres, medical centres, and sos schools) or other available facilities within the community.  We continually innovate and learn to improve our programmes.

Family Strengthening Programmes are carried out in partnership with local implementation partners to ensure that they are effectively ‘rooted’ in the community and are jointly “owned” by these partner organisations and SOS.