Kaunas Old Town Children's Day Centre

Address:Dauksos 52/14, LT-3000, Kaunas, Lithuania

Tel./Fax +370 37 423310

E.mail: senvdc@takas.lt

The purpose of the Programme is to protect the rights of a child in a family without placing him/her into institutional care. This is a socio-educational programme primarily meant for children from socially disadvantaged families. Children's condition in Lithuania is getting worse because of society declines morally, spreads out alcoholism and drug abuse, increases poverty. Children from multiproblem families live in continuous poverty. The starving children are forced to beg, steal, engage in prostitution.

            Established a couple of years ago, the Programme had its immediate objective to provide meal and care to children from dysfunctional families in one of the poorest districts of the Kaunas city. Since that time about 50 children (7-17age) have been visiting the Centre daily. The Day Care Centre is a place where child can receive social, psychological and spiritual help. Children can come to the Centre themselves or can be referred by the Child's Protection Services (or others). Some of these children had been begging in the streets before they came to know about the Centre, some had experienced parent's abuse (in the cases where alcohol problems are part of the reasons for lack of parental care), and usually they have poor living conditions. The parents of these children are unable to provide meal for their children, so they can come and take food with them. The staff of the Centre are trying to involve children in various recreation activities or games in order to promote their self-esteem and help them integrate into society. The children are also helped with health and self-care. They are taught practical skills with regard to house cleaning, etc. (many children live in houses without central heating, hot water, bathrooms, etc.).

The Centre is one of the few establishments in  Lithuania aimed to provide help for neglected and abused children and their parents. Therefore the primary mission of the Programme is to provide services for children and their parents in the place of their residence, i.e. in case of difficult situation in the family, the child is not separated from his/her family and environment (school, friends, etc.), which agrees with the main tasks set by the government for institutions of this type. The Centre is expected to join the network of existing services for children and supplement this network with new services for the most disadvantaged groups of our society.

Goals of the Centre are:

to give specialised psychological, legal, and social help for children ? victims of abuse and their family members, independently of their nationality, religion and social class,

to educate society to identify abuse and stop it.

Objectives of the Centre are:

to stop the abuse of the children,

to integrate children into society and school,

to serve children meal and provide them safe environment,

to gather information about children ? victims of abuse,

to give them and their family members psychological, social and legal help,

to lead groups for those children and their families,

to gather and prepare volunteers,

to educate specialists of various spheres,

to provide legal psychological expertise,

to do preventive and educational work,

Results: The Centre is a place of rehabilitation for abused and abandoned children. There they  feel safe and are able to receive social and spiritual help. This will reduce the number of criminal cases in the district and  have positive effects on society. Besides, the society  regularly inform on the causes and consequences of child neglect and abuse. Work with the parents of the child help the families to find solutions to their problems.

There are three institutions (Kaunas Municipality, Kaunas Archdiocese and Kaunas Caritas) which are the main supporters. According the agreement Kaunas Archdiocese maintained the building, Kaunas Municipality pay salaries for stuff.