St Patrick’s Salesian School in Malta through its Support Services Team is organising a three-day conference in collaboration with the Office of the Commissioner for Children exploring therapeutic interventions with children who are in out-of-home care and their families.  The term ‘out-of-home care’ includes foster care, residential care and therapeutic residential care, among others.

The event will be held from Thursday 12th till Saturday 14th March 2009 at Hilton Malta International, St. Julian’s.  It will be preceded by a day pre-conference workshop entitled Learn the Child on exploring strategies and interventions for educators and carers on how to best support looked after children in their learning and enhance their educational experiences in school settings.  

The Conference will include the participation of exponents from international organizations and experts in the field alongside contributions from local professionals, agencies and other bodies.  The overall structure of the Conference will consist of plenary sessions open to all conference participants in addition to workshops covering specialized issues to which participants would choose to attend.  The programme will also include a pre-conference workshop that will be run by an international expert on learning outcomes for children in out-of-home care.

The overall aim of the conference will be to enable conference participants to engage with the dilemmas and challenges that out-of-home care poses for children and their families within the local context.  It is our aspiration that the conference gives voice to issues that the children and their families have to face, including those frequently brought to the foreground in therapeutic encounters. 

The Conference is open to social workers, care workers, foster carers, educators, therapists, psychologists, counsellors, academics, students and international participants.  

For further information kindly send an email to info@whereishomeconference.org