The Puy-de-Dôme department lacks structures to accommodate placed children. Social services therefore called on ANEF, National Mutual Aid Association, which is responsible for opening and managing 3 houses in Messeix, Clermont-Ferrand and Brassac-les-Mines.
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The Puy-de-Dôme department will soon have 3 new social children's homes, managed by ANEF, the National Mutual Aid Association. The association responded to a call for projects from the Departmental Council, based on a simple observation: “There has been a shortage of places in child protection for many years now, with many needs for child placements which were previously unmet”explains François Chassaigne, General Director of ANEF 03-63.
The Departmental Council has decided on a program to open places, one of the tools of which is the creation of a social children's home on 3 different sites, Clermont-Ferrand, Messeix and Brassac-les-Mines . “It fills a gap”welcomes François Chassaigne.
Unused buildings belonging to the Departmental Council are made available to the association: “In Messeix and Brassac-les-Mines, the houses will be in former medico-social action districts, which are buildings which belong to the Department. In Clermont-Ferrand, it’s in a wing of a retirement home”. Work is planned on the 3 sites and should be completed in the coming months.
-ANEF is pleased to be able to begin recruitment, with a planned start before the summer, indicates François Chassaigne. “There will be around thirty positions which will be social workers, specialized educators, mainly educator monitors, social workers or social and family economy advisors. Afterwards, there will be positions for night watchman, housekeepers and also secretary psychologists”. In total, no less than forty positions will be filled to manage these establishments.
“They may be at risk of educational deprivation when they are at home”
Children between 3 and 18 years old will be welcomed: “They may be at risk of educational deprivation while at home. We will have boys, girls… In the Brassac sector, we will rather have children between 11 and 15 years old, since there is a middle school in this town. In the town of Messeix, we will be targeting a younger audience, between 3 and 11 years old, since there are mainly primary schools. In Clermont-Ferrand, there will be 20 children in the entire age group, so between 3 and 18 years old.”
Until then, these children are often forced to stay at home, regrets François Chassaigne: “As there is a shortage of places, for certain children, we rely instead on other measures which are not placements, which we call AEMO, educational action in an open environment or educational assistance in an open environment. These are educators who travel directly to families to support and respond to problems that the child may encounter, or to meet parents as part of the exercise of parental authority.”
These new homes should make it possible to avoid the separation of brothers and sisters in care, welcomes François Chassaigne: “Where this system can be interesting is in particular to meet the needs of siblings.”
This avoids the concentration of many children on the same site, with 42 places on 3 different sites: “We avoid too large collectives. In Messeix and Brassac, we will have around ten children. It's much more interesting to work in small groups, much more relevant and convincing in terms of support. We are dealing with structures on a human scale, which are not concentrated only in the urban sector.” Often, the numbers in children's homes are much larger, with 50 or sometimes 100 children on the same site.
