In order to ensure the successful operation of the project “Development of child day-care centre activities in Švenčionys district municipality”, a project implementation group was gathered at the end of 2014 which consists of specialists from Kaltanėnai education and tourism centre, as well as coordinators and social educators from Adutiškis and Švenčionėliai child day-care centres. This group organizes meetings on a monthly basis, where it discusses various underway activities and issues, learns to address any arising problems, and so on.
The Adutiškis and Švenčionėliai child day-care centres, which started their activities since the beginning of January of 2015, are able to organize their work with visitors quite smoothly: various classes and activities are taking place in both centres for several months now: children do their homework, perform a variety of tasks, watch movies, meet specialists from various different fields, play, prepare and participate in various events. It is wonderful to see children and young people participating not only in day-care centre events, but also in various events which are organized on a national level: in the campaign “For Lithuania and for Me”, in the contest “Children’s Easter 2015”, in the drawing and poster contest “Aukštaitija – our home” which was organized in order to celebrate Earth Month and Ethnographic Regions Year. Obviously, there is a considerable amount of differences between the content of activities of these centres and the needs of visitors, since both centres are attended by around 50 children and young people of various ages: Adutiškis child day-care centre is attended by younger children, while Švenčionėliai child day-care centre is attended by older ones, and moreover, most of them are boys.
In February, all members of the project implementation group started to attend qualification training organized by the educational support service of Švenčionys district. Several meetings were held with the psychologist of this service V. Guogienė, who trained child day-care specialists to work with children who have behavioural and emotional disorders, to help hyperactive children, etc.
In March, social educators from both child day-care centres visited social risk families with children, they learned more about the living conditions of children and talked to their parents. These families will be similarly visited in the future, and each visit will be recorded in appropriate documents. The workers were happy to be able to peacefully talk with the majority of parents, which, in turn, promised to participate in organized events together with their children.
One of the particularly relevant problems which occurred when trying to implement the project is lack of support which is necessary in order to provide meals for the visitors of Švenčionėliai child day-care centres, because the project does not have enough funds for that. Thanks to the efforts of the child day-care centre coordinators, attempts are made to at least partially solve this problem, thus, the project implementation group is grateful to JSC “Švenčionių vaistažolės”, which was not indifferent to the needs of children and provided the day-care centres with various kinds of herbal teas.
As summer approaches, the personnel from both day-care centres started to responsibly prepare for the repair works of facilities which are used for the activities of the child day-care centres in the bases of Adutiškis and Švenčionėliai secondary schools: by trying to decide how to properly equip these facilities, what is missing, etc., whereas the visitors of these centres are eagerly waiting for the recreational summer camp.
For more information about the project, please call (8 387) 44368 or send an e-mail to kaltanenu.utc@gmail.com [1] .