Update: Temporary Placements at Bolingo
A year ago, we posted this blog post about three siblings coming for a temporary stay at Bolingo Village. If you haven’t read it yet – check it out and come back for the update.
Bolingo Village wasn’t intended to accept temporary placements. Still, last year, we made an exception for three siblings for three main reasons.
We knew no matter where these children went while their parents tried getting back on their feet, it would be a confusing and traumatizing time for them. We knew that coming to Bolingo would be a less disruptive experience than spending that time in an underfunded, understaffed orphanage.
Social services standard procedure regarding how Bolingo Village gets new children is that once a child has been placed somewhere, they do not like to move them. Meaning that if these parents aren’t able to reclaim their children, and we didn’t take them in at the time, we would not be allowed to welcome them into Bolingo Village.
We had a house that was three kids shy of capacity. The other children had all been together for months and have grown together as a family. We felt that this family welcoming the siblings into their home wouldn’t interfere with the family unit that had already developed, even for a short stay.
We knew, regardless of the outcome, we would have mixed emotions. We were right – we do have mixed feelings. These three kiddos have been a part of the Bolingo family for a year and are here to stay!
We are so happy that Bolingo Village is their safe place to call home and that we were able to prevent them from growing up in a traditional DRC orphanage.
We’re less thrilled to say that we aren’t sure what happened to their parents. They had six months to get things in order or, at the very least, keep the lines of communications open with social services, but that didn’t happen. The parents haven’t reached out to social services since the day the children were temporarily surrendered. Sadly, they also haven’t taken us up on our offer for them to come to see their children at Bolingo.
While the news that they are officially forever part of the Bolingo Village family is new and exciting to us – they’ve been living it for a year already. They’re settled in, happy, and loved.