On October 21st, a meeting of the Club of Foster Caregivers of Territorial Communities of Lviv Region “Community – Home for Foster Care” took place in Sheptytskyi.
The event was organized by the IBO “Partnership for Every Child” in cooperation with the Sheptytskyi City Council and the Lviv Regional Military Administration as part of the project “Family for Every Child: Development of Family Foster Care”, aimed at supporting foster families, promoting experience exchange, and establishing partnerships between communities.
A foster family is a special form of temporary care for a child who is in difficult life circumstances. Such families provide the child with not only shelter but also care, upbringing, attention, and a sense of security. Typically, a child stays in a foster family for up to three months, but in exceptional cases, this period can be extended to six months.
Families of foster caregivers from across the Lviv region, as well as those considering the possibility of opening their homes to children in need of temporary care, visited Sheptytskyi. Among the guests were Deputy Head of Lviv OVA Khrystyna Zamula, Head of the Children’s Service Volodymyr Lys, representatives of the Lviv Regional Office of UNICEF Svitlana Stelmakh and Ihor Kobryn, Deputy City Mayor Volodymyr Koval, Deputy Head of Sheptytskyi RVA Iryna Nalyvaiko, as well as representatives from Zhovkva, Sokal, and Lviv communities.
Greeting the participants, Deputy City Mayor Volodymyr Koval presented a gratitude certificate from the executive committee of the IBO “Partnership for Every Child”, and Deputy Head of Lviv OVA Khrystyna Zamula handed out thank-you notes from the region’s head to foster caregivers of Lviv, Sokal, and Sheptytskyi communities.
In a sincere atmosphere of communication, foster caregivers shared their experiences, discussed the challenges they face daily, difficulties in educational and medical fields, the shortage of social workers, emotional strain, and the process of getting accustomed to the children. However, the most talked-about topic was love — the kind that helps overcome everything: “There is emotional attachment, it’s true. When a child says, ‘You will be my mom and dad,’ even though their biological mother lives a few hundred meters away, but due to circumstances, the child has excluded her from their life… How can I refuse a child the desire to have a family? Then you realize you are giving away a piece of your heart, yet at the same time, you see the child being adopted by people whose eyes shine with happiness. And you realize you did the right thing. Yes, we get attached, but we make others happy.”
As part of the event, participants also joined in the opening of the Cohesion Space “Source of Love” and the creation of a symbolic location — the bench “Hands that Hold the Home.” Its QR code leads to information about foster care and reminds everyone that they can be a support for a child in their community. On the new bench, participants left impressions of their palms as a sign of unity, love, and belief that every child deserves a family.