In the context of orphanages, the current situation of caregivers and OSC’s suggested the need for a service which can help to strengthen the need for Socio-Emotional development of the caregiver and children. The program intent to educate caregivers for their own development and their role in the children overall well being.
1- Physical Development:
Physical Growth and their increasing ability to control the muscles of their body.Safe surrounding, good nutrition,active play and exploration of their physical abilities.
2- Intellectual Development:
Growth of child’s ability to think and reason.They organize their minds,ideas,and thoughts to make sense of the world they live in.
3-Social and Emotional Development:
Child's ability to understand the feelings of others, controls his/her own feelings and behavior.
The children living in the orphanages remain isolated from society. These children are often seen as taboo or are patronized by the people in the society. This situation leads to several behavioural and social issues in these children, which leave them in a very vulnerable state and children take a very long time to be comfortable in a social environment.
The core features of emotional development include the ability to identify and understand one’s own feelings, to accurately read and comprehend emotional states in others, to manage strong emotions and their expression in a constructive manner, to regulate one’s own behavior, to develop empathy for others, and to establish and maintain relationships.
Responsive care giving supports infants in beginning to regulate their emotions and to develop a sense of predictability, safety, and responsiveness in their social environments. Early relationships are so important to developing infants that research experts have broadly concluded that, in the early years, “nurturing, stable and consistent relationships are the key to healthy growth, development and learning.
Experiences of Children with people around them provide an opportunity for them to learn about social relationships and emotions through exploration and predictable interactions. Professionals working in child care settings can support the social-emotional development of infants and toddlers in various ways, including interacting directly with young children, communicating with families, arranging the physical space in the care environment, and planning and implementing curriculum.
Close relationships with adults who provide consistent nurturance strengthen children’s capacity to learn and develop. Moreover, relationships with parents, other family members, caregivers, and teachers provide the key context for children's social-emotional development. These special relationships influence the infant’s emerging sense of self and understanding of others. Children use relationships with adults in many ways: for reassurance that they are safe, for assistance in alleviating distress, for help with emotion regulation, and for social approval or encouragement. Establishing close relationships with adults is related to children’s emotional security, sense of self, and evolving understanding of the world around them. Concepts from the literature on attachment may be applied to early childhood settings, in considering the infant care teacher’s role in separations and reunions during the day in care, facilitating the child’s exploration, providing comfort, meeting physical needs, modeling positive relationships, and providing support during stressful times.
Social Understanding
During the infant/toddler years, children begin to develop an understanding of the responses, communication, emotional expression, and actions of other people. This development includes infants’ understanding of what to expect from others, how to engage in back-and-forth social interactions, and which social scripts are to be used for which social situations. “At each age, social cognitive understanding contributes to social competence, interpersonal sensitivity, and an awareness of how the self relates to other individuals and groups in a complex social world”. Social understanding is particularly important because of the social nature of humans and human life, even in early infants. Recent research suggests that infants’ and toddlers’ social understanding is related to how often they experience adult communication about the thoughts and emotions of others.
Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation skills are important in part because they play a role in how well children are liked by peers and teachers and how socially competent they are perceived to be. Children’s ability to regulate their emotions appropriately can contribute to perceptions of their overall social skills as well as to the extent to which they are liked by peers. Poor emotion regulation can impair children’s thinking, thereby compromising their judgment and decision making.
Impulse Control
Children’s developing capacity to control impulses helps them adapt to social situations and follow rules. As infants grow, they become increasingly able to exercise voluntary control over behavior such as waiting for needs to be met, inhibiting potentially hurtful behavior, and acting according to social expectations, including safety rules. Group care settings provide many opportunities for children to practice their impulse-control skills. Peer interactions often offer natural opportunities for young children to practice impulse control, as they make progress in learning about cooperative play and sharing. Young children’s understanding or lack of understanding of requests made of them may be one factor contributing to their responses.
Due to the backgrounds from which these OSC are coming to orphanages, the health of these children is in a very bad state. So, the primary focus of the orphanages becomes their health and secondly they focus on Education and Legal requirements of OSC. Physical health being the primary focus and due to the lack of time and resources the Emotional and Social well-being of these children is often neglected.
The Caregivers play an important role in the lives of the Orphans. They are the people who are in the closest proximity of the children and stay connected with them 24*7. The Orphanage takes care of the physical needs of the children in a remarkable manner and maintaining their health is their primary focus. The lack of Socio-Emotional development is an area which needs to be worked on. We analysed the functioning of the Orphanage and realized that the children spend a major time of their day in the Orphanage with the caregivers.
Right from getting up in the morning to eating breakfast, getting ready for school, taking help in regular activities, going out, and various other activities, the caregivers take care of the children. Thus, our team developed a model for imparting our service with the help of caregivers.
We observed that the caregivers working in the orphanage belong to disturbed backgrounds and lacked confidence. Our approach, after understanding the lifestyle of the children and the caregivers living in the orphanage, was to cater to the needs of the children as well as the caregivers in such a manner that it would be beneficial for both the children and the caregivers. So we came up with the concept of a training program for the caregivers which would enable them to grow and will help in providing quality care to the children focusing on the socio-emotional development. This helped us in formation of our larger goal which became our vision.
Caregivers being in the closest proximity of the children can build a relationship with these children to give them a feeling of family. This will help in developing the tendency of relationship building in the children. Along with that these caregivers can teach these children how to behave and express themselves which makes them confident to handle themselves in the outside world.
In the context of orphanages, the current situation of caregivers and OSC’s suggested the need for a service which can help to strengthen the need for Socio-emotional development of the caregiver and children. The program intent to educate caregivers for their own development and their role in the children overall well-being.
The objectives define specific milestones within a specific timeline for achieving a goal.We developed specific phases for detailing the implication of key aspects of our service for achieving the vision of Social well-being. Here are three aspects which are essential for Social well-being and we divided our phases according to the three aspects.
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING PHASE:
Relationship building is very important for overall development of an individual. Parents and caregivers provide what no book, app or TV show can. Early relationships provide key cognitive stimulation to support early brain development.
Early development is shaped by both genetic coding and experiences. Different experiences provide the opportunity for certain genes to be switched on or off in early years. Providing a safe and nurturing environment and reacting to your baby’s babble, mimicking sounds and actions, as well as providing eye contact and gentle physical contact are all reciprocal interactions that support early brain development.
It is important for babies and young children to have rich and supportive relationships with parents and family members in their early years, extending to community members as they get older. Every relationship your child has will help shape their early development; from supporting brain and physical development, to helping shape an understanding of their world.
Relationship Building related to Age groups:
INFANCY(0-13 months) :Infancy is the first stage when the foundation of trust truly begins to develop. Babies communicate their needs mostly by crying. It can be hard to figure out what a baby’s cry is trying to communicate but try your best to understand what the baby is trying to indicate and respond to it. This is the first step of Relationship building.
TODDLERHOOD(13 months-3 years) :This is the age where one should leave space for child’s feelings and offer empathy and support for tantrums while not punishing or shaming the child for struggling with big feelings. This helps in relationship building.
PRESCHOOLER(3-6 years) :At this age offering choices to children and continuing to respond to their needs and offer empathy, connection and support build a strong relationship. One should not have too high expectations from the child as very high expectations will leave too much space for disappointment which can lead children to doubt themselves and the security of the relationship.
SCHOOL AGE(6-12 years):At this age children are eager to listen, brainstorm and compromise and giving the child the space and trust to build their independence helps in building the relationship.
TEENAGERS(13 years and above):At this age listening to the children is extremely important without judging them and showing them that you trust them is essential for building a strong relationship.
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT PHASE:
Personality development is the development of the organized pattern of behaviors and attitudes that makes a person distinctive. Personality is what makes a person a unique person, and it is recognizable soon after birth. A child’s personality has several components: temperament, environment, and character.
Temperament is the set of genetically determined traits that determine the child’s approach to the world and how the child learns about the world.
Environment is responsible for nurturing a child and adoption of different patterns of the behaviour surrounding the child.
Character is the set of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral patterns learned from experience that determines how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. A person’s character continues to evolve throughout life, although much depends on inborn traits and early experiences. Character is also dependent on a person’s moral development.
In 1956, psychiatrist Erik Erikson provided an insightful description as to how personality develops based on his extensive experience in psychotherapy with children and adolescents from low, upper, and middle-class backgrounds. According to Erikson, the socialization process of an individual consists of eight phases, each one accompanied by a “psychosocial crisis” that must be solved if the person is to manage the next and subsequent phases satisfactorily. The stages significantly influence personality development, with five of them occurring during infancy, childhood, and adolescence .
INFANCY(0-13 months)-During the first two years of life, an infant goes through the first stage: Learning Basic Trust or Mistrust (Hope) . Well-nurtured and loved, the infant develops trust and security and a basic optimism. Badly handled, the infant becomes insecure and learns “basic mistrust.”
TODDLERHOOD(13 months-3 years)- The second stage occurs during early childhood, between about 18 months to two years and three to four years of age. It deals with Learning Autonomy or Shame (Will) . Well-parented, the child emerges from this stage with self-confidence, elated with his or her newly found control. The early part of this stage can also include stormy tantrums , stubbornness, and negativism, depending on the child’s temperament.
PRESCHOOLER(3-6 years)-The third stage occurs during the “play age,” or the later preschool years from about three to entry into formal school. The developing child goes through Learning Initiative or Guilt (Purpose) . The child learns to use imagination; to broaden skills through active play and fantasy; to cooperate with others; and to lead as well as to follow. If unsuccessful, the child becomes fearful, is unable to join groups, and harbors guilty feelings. The child depends excessively on adults and is restricted both in the development of play skills and in imagination.
SCHOOL AGE-The fourth stage, Learning Industry or Inferiority (Competence) , occurs during school age, up to and possibly including junior high school. The child learns to master more formal skills:
-relating with peers according to rules
-progressing from free play to play that is structured by rules and requires teamwork (team sports)
-learning basic intellectual skills (reading, arithmetic)
At this stage, the need for self-discipline increases every year. The child who, because of his or her successful passage through earlier stages, is trusting, autonomous, and full of initiative, will quickly learn to be industrious. However, the mistrusting child will doubt the future and will feel inferior.
ADOLESCENCE-The fifth stage, Learning Identity or Identity Diffusion (Fidelity) , occurs during adolescence from age 13 or 14. Maturity starts developing during this time; the young person acquires self-certainty as opposed to self-doubt and experiments with different constructive roles rather than adopting a negative identity, such as delinquency. The well-adjusted adolescent actually looks forward to achievement, and, in later adolescence, clear sexual identity is established. The adolescent seeks leadership (someone to inspire him or her), and gradually develops a set of ideals to live by.
SOCIAL EXPOSURE PHASE:
Social exposure is tied to many other parts of overall development, which is why it’s important to start socialization with other people at a young age.
Social interaction helps young children to start to develop their sense of self, and also start to learn what others expect from them.
Positive social interactions have a wide range of both physical and mental benefits, including increased cognitive ability, good mental health, communication skills, independence and improved physical health. For many children, attending nursery is the first high level of social interaction they will have, outside of friends and family. Social interactions are vital when it comes to positive mental and physical development.
Important aspects of Social Exposure:
Language and Communication- High levels of interaction with their peers is highly beneficial for children’s communication skills. Social exposure helps in learning how to communicate feelings, interacting with others and honing the skills of thinking and understanding. It also promotes cognitive and language skills, and between the ages of three and five a child’s vocabulary grows from around 900 to 2,500 words.
Personal Space- Naturally, being at a social surrounding is different to being in your own home, but experiencing a different environment helps children learn important boundaries regarding their own personal space and that of others. It also allows children to grow confident engaging in both individual and group play, and teaches them how to interact with other children without being too pushy or overwhelming.
Listening Skills-Listening skills begin at home as children learn to follow instructions and guidance from their parents, but social exposure and interaction actively encourages listening to others, whether that’s adults or peers. Good listening skills and the ability to take instructions from other adults can ease the transition of growth, and encourage children to understand the importance of listening and processing information.
Confidence Building-Social exposure encourages children’s independence and self reliance, and learning to manage tasks on their own provides a great confidence boost. Seemingly simple things like putting their shoes on or learning to hold a paintbrush all build children’s self esteem and gives a feeling of ‘I can do it’. A social environment can encourage children without pushing too hard and providing the perfect safe space for them to grow.
After having discussion with the Social Worker involved and observing the orphanage by ourselves the first the phase to work upon was the Relationship Building phase. Its really important for Children in the orphanage to have a good bond with these caregivers,so that they can have productive interactions with each other.
Curation of Activities:
An important aspect of our service is curation of activities, along with informative sessions and discussions a very important part delivering our service is through activities. The reason behind this is that the practical implication of a concept has much more emphasis on a human mind in comparison to discussions and talks. When multiple sensory organs participate in an activity the impact of that activity lasts long and retains in our memory for a longer period of time.
We curated activities dedicated to each phase and discussed it with a psychologist and a doctor who collaborated with us.
Discussion with the Psychologist and the Doctor:
Mrs. Mehul Dudeja Gulyani who has done Masters in Counselling Psychology and Ms. Shilpi Chauhan who has done M.B.B.S. validated the activities which our team curated.
Some insights from the discussions:
-Communication Skills are really important as they build trust and improving communication skills of both the caregivers and the children is essential.
-Listening to the child is important as it gives them a sense of importance and a feeling of being heard.
-The caregiver has to be empathetic and understanding at the same time.
-The caregivers have to be careful while dealing with the children.
-Caregivers also have to draw a line so that the adamant group of the children realize the difference between right and wrong.
-Different techniques should be applied for dealing with different children.
-Curating activities which aims at inclusiveness are important.
-Never confuse discipline and punishment.
-Using visuals for explaining different things to children helps in grasping them in a better way.
-Guiding caregivers for their growth is also necessary.
-Development of patience while dealing with different types of children is important.
-Doing various things together is important for the social development of the children.
-Daily activities which inculcate values in the children should be practiced.
Day 1:
Orientation Program:
The Care-Bees team will introduce themselves to the care-givers. We will explain our aim and objectives to them and why are we present at the orphanage and what is their role in it.
Ice-Breaking:
After the introduction of the Care-Bees, we will start with an ice-breaking activity called the “Candy introduction”. This activity involves introducing themselves in an interesting format by using examples of fruits and vegetables or any other edible item and associating their personalities with it. For example, a person can describe him or her through a strawberry and can say that he/she has a sweet-sour nature or a “Khatta-Meetha” nature. The care-giver will draw the edible item and will then explain their personality and will give an introduction about him or her.
This will make the introduction interesting and at the same time it will help our team to understand how the care-givers associate themselves with other things and what do they feel about themselves.
Discussion of some notable points:
After the introductory session we and the collaborators (social-worker/specialists) will elaborately discuss some notable points with the care-givers to make them understand the important aspects of being a care-giver. These points are discussed and validated with the psychologist in detail prior to the implementation of the service.
A video session:
The session concludes with a video. The video depicts the relationship between human beings. Through the video we will try to inculcate an empathetic emotion in the care-givers and we will try to make them associate themselves with the people in the video.
For example, we might show the care-givers a video which is based on the relationship of mother and her daughter or a school teacher and the students. The video will indirectly communicate the importance of the care-givers in the life of the children as they can associate with it and it will encourage them to take care of the children in a better dedicated way. The emotions generated after watching the video will leave the care-givers with some emotions creating an impact on their personality in a positive manner and this will be the conclusion of our session.
Refreshments will be served to the care-givers according to the time suitable during the execution of the service.
Day 2:
Introduction:
The Care-Bees team will introduce themselves to the children in a delightful manner and will proceed towards the ice-breaking activity.
Ice-breaking:
We will start the introduction of the children by the “candy introduction” and will explain our personalities with the help of edible items done with the care-givers. We will make the children draw the edible items which they associate with and will in an interesting format help them in introducing their personalities. This will help us in a non-monotonous introduction of the children and will make them open-up in a fun manner. This activity will help us in the assessment of the ability of expressing the emotions by the children and will give us an idea about how do they perceive themselves as an individual.
Your name and its meaning:
After the introduction of the children we will make them understand the meaning of their names. This activity will help them understand the meaning which their name carries, and we will associate the meaning of their name with positive and optimistic values associated with their names. This will help in confidence building of the children as they understand the importance of their existence and that their name also carries a meaning. It will make them think and realise.
Colour all-over:
This activity involves painting and coloring a huge sheet of paper with hands. This activity involves the participation of every member present in the orphanage. The sheet of paper will have bold heading – “WE ARE ONE”, or “WE ARE A TEAM”, this will inculcate the feeling of togetherness in the children and even in every member residing in the orphanage. This helps in communicating the fact that all the people of the orphanage are equally important and that doing a task together can be interesting and can lead to exchange of emotions also. This develops relationships and helps the children in understanding the importance of other people. This activity will also involve music in the background for a lively atmosphere.
Let’s plant together:
This activity will take place after the color activity. It will involve division of children and care-givers in teams and plating a plant. Through this activity children will learn the importance for caring not only for the people but also for the society and the environment. This will help in understanding the values associated with the attitude that should be developed towards taking care of every living organism present and division and working in teams will help in understanding the process of team work and trusting others. It will also help the children in building a better relationship with the care-givers. This activity will be informative for the children as they will be told about the plant being planted and the process involved while bringing a sense of responsibility at the same time.
This activity will conclude the session of the second day.
Refreshments will be served to the children according to the time suitable during the execution of the service.
Day-1: Training the Caregivers and making them understand the importance of Socio-Emotional development for the Orphaned and Separated Children.
Day-2: Interactive Activities between Caregivers and Children in Orphanage.
The service was executed with proper prior planning and the framework was followed during the execution of the service, after the completion of the service there were many notable points:
-The use of vernacular language is necessary as it is easy for the caregivers and children to understand.
-The children with special needs require more attention during different activities.
-The interactive activities helped in development of bonds between the children and the caregivers and initiated conversation between them.
-The children were interested in doing activities which are new to them.
-The caregivers were happy as they felt they are being given importance and it was for the first time that people were working for them and their well being.
-The caregivers tried to understand and apply the things being taught to them.
-The social worker and the staff of the orphanage also actively participated in the activities and realized that such sessions should be practiced in the orphanage.
-The use of visual and auditory mediums has more impact on the caregivers and the children.
-The involvement of the sisters in the activities can be increased.
-The utilization of the space of the orphanage can be improved during the execution of the activities.
-The execution of the sessions can be planned out keeping in mind various circumstances.