Ukraine The goal of the Families for Children Program (FCP) is to develop sustainable and replicable family care models of services for children who otherwise would be institutionalized or on the street.  The models will be developed in two oblasts in Ukraine.  The program will demonstrate its service models are vastly superior to existing services for the physical and emotional well being of children.  All FCP activities are reflected on the project website at www.familiesforchildren.org.ua.  Objectives By The End Of The Program Are To ·      Double the number of children served who are at risk of falling out of family care in the target areas of each oblast through family preservation services. ·      Increase the number of sustainable foster care projects by two in each oblast. ·      Increase the number of sustainable family-type homes by two in each oblast. ·      Double per annum the number of children in target areas who are placed into Ukrainian adoptive families. ·      Increase the number of children in family care by 400 in the oblasts served (children who would otherwise be outside of family care or at serious risk of being outside of family care) ·      Increase by two the number of additional locations where local officials are committed to replicating family preservation, foster care and family-type home models.  Description Of The Project Ukraine, like many countries of the former Soviet Union, continues to face rapidly changing social, economic and political structures that have resulted in a serious crisis in the number of children living outside family care.  Orphanages are full and the number of street children is growing.  According to the Ministry of Family, Children and Youth Affairs of Ukraine, the number of children who are outside family care is around 100,000.  Causes include serious poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and a variety of physical and psychological health conditions relating to the child and/or parents.  The current Government of Ukraine system for caring for vulnerable children and families is essentially inherited from the Soviet era.  Large child caring institutions remain the primary care option for Ukraine’s abused, neglected and abandoned children.  During Soviet times, parents were routinely encouraged to institutionalize children with birth defects and developmental disabilities.  Children whose parents faced debilitating psychological or social situations were also institutionalized.  Family-based care was not considered.  Children entered institutional care by the thousands each year, fueling the development of an extensive infrastructure of institutions dependent on child intakes for survival.  Alternative approaches to serving vulnerable children and families in crisis have been slow to develop in Ukraine.  As family situations have disintegrated, parents and government continue to turn to the extensive orphanage system for meeting the needs of children unable to remain with their families.  Often the local orphanage remains the only alternative readily available for children at the local level.  They readily accept children and few, if any, social services exist at the community level to help a family continue parenting their child.   Families for Children Program is implemented in five target sites that represent three regions of Ukraine – Kyiv, Cherkassy, Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.  Pilot programs in the target sites are tailored to meet the needs of the local community with an emphasis placed on the development of a continuum of services for vulnerable children and families that include family preservation, foster care, family-type homes and domestic adoption. Families for Children Program is implemented in close collaboration with the Ministry of Family, Children and Youth Affairs and State Center for Social Services and in coordination with other international NGOs that work in Ukraine - Hope and Homes for Children, Every Child, Christian Children’s Fund.  Regular community family care workshops serve as a vehicle for involvement of local stakeholders including government departments that serve the target population, NGOs, child welfare advocates and caretakers.