In 2006 and 2007 ‘Alternative Montana’ Community Council on Education implemented a project named “Centre for social prevention”. This project dealt with children with problematic communication, hyper-active children, and aggressive children. Different kinds of psychological and corrective support were provided for target groups.
In 2008 another similar project (Children of the Rainbow) was implemented. The experts who took part in the previous project participated again in working with Romany children. A special program for reducing deficits and supporting social adaptation for their families was developed by the project team.
The ‘Community centre for prevention and support of children at risk’ project has offered a model for social work focused on early detection of problems in families and children under threat of some kind of risk. All experts involved in the project reached people at risk and provided them the necessary support in time.
Collaboration between the project team and the local educational institutions, and children-care programs coordination as well, ensured transparency of project implementation.
Some of the project services were provided in schools and educational institutions where a high concentration of children at risk was identified. In this way a number of positive outcomes were obtained; the main ones are listed as follows:
- Class-teachers, together with the specialists, took part in activities for prevention of aggression. Children, being in their natural environment, felt more relaxed and looked forward to group-working.
- The activities implemented by the psychologists at kindergartens with mixed ethnical groups optimized the whole process of educational and social integration of Romany children without separating them from the multi-ethnical environment. With view of achieving better results, the childcare activities carried out by specialists and pedagogues were coordinated.
Pedagogues from all regional schools and those of the Local Committee for Control on Anti-social Behaviour took part in a seminar held in the framework of an Anti-drug Campaign. Some members of the youth fraction of the above mentioned Committee also actively took part in that seminar. A national expert in drugs and prevention participated as well.
In this way, the main intention of the ‘Alternative Montana’ Association to combine efforts of all stakeholders in the educational and upbringing process was implemented.
- Established advisory cabinet to work with children at risk
- Consulted over 130 children
- Improved personal protective mechanisms to reduce the reasons for aggression in interpersonal relations
- Improved interactions among children, parents and teachers
- Improved children's mental health
- Facilitated social adaptation of children belonging to marginal groups
- Facilitated Bulgarian language learning for bilingual children
- Corrected speech of 61% of the children and improved speech of 39% of them
Contact information
Maria Dimitrova Boncheva, Chair
Cell Phone: ++359 887 512 697
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