In 2007 a F.R.O.D.O. orthopaedic surgeon operated on two children from a placement centre in Bucharest. In an ideal world these children would not need to be operated on and would certainly be living with their parents. The bottom line is that this is not an ideal world and children like these are still living in placement centres.

The children’s living environment in the Bucharest centre may be clean but there is little care and stimulation and the children are frustrated, bored, often violent to themselves and others as a means of attracting attention. There is no prospect of education because of the severe learning disabilities of most of them.

F.R.O.D.O. is working to establish a learning environment for young people living there called “The Apprentice Centre” and introduce therapeutic care of children often left for long hours in their cots and others with no speech or communication.
The Apprentice Centre currently teaches six boys skills that are needed in daily life and which could possibly mean some form of work and some independence for them in the future. More importantly, it teaches them how to behave and to understand how to manage their behaviour.

The young apprentice boys have gone from strength to strength. One child called Marius has discovered a real talent for folding clothes and loves working in the laundry room. Another called Clive does his sums and is now the best cleaner of the forecourt area in front of the building! Along with the other boys in the Centre, they are learning team work, discipline in finishing a task, control of anger and frustration when things inevitably don’t work first time, as well as how to prepare drinks and snacks and to do simple craftwork. Now Clive greets visitors to the Centre with a handshake and uses sign language to show his work. Marius just gives the biggest grin.

The long term aim is for these boys to live in a small group home. With structured activity and more loving care, children and young adults with severe and complex difficulties and behaviours are transformed into kids who are knocking on the classroom door and diligently doing their work – which could lead them to living independent lives and where they can continue to develop their skills and use them in the community.