Robert Glover has brought about a mini revolution in China, one that he envisions will spill out to other parts of the world.

But it is hand in hand with the Chinese Government that this father of six has been bringing about a social transformation for orphans.

Tens of thousands of children's lives have been changed since the day in 1997 when the Shanghai government asked the social work professional from Britain for help.

Care for Children which Glover founded wants to clear all the country's orphanages of all orphans -- and place them into ordinary homes.

An institution, no matter how well-financed and well-staffed, cannot reproduce the love and care that parents give naturally, argues the executive director of Care for Children, an international charity currently headquartered in Beijing.

When Glover first visited China in the summer of 1996, he did not come to find fault with the country's not-so-perfect system of raising the orphaned and the abandoned, but "to see what we could do. From day one, we've come not to look at problems, but at finding solutions for problems."

He adds that orphanage workers, often called "ayi" in Chinese, are dedicated, but with virtually no professional training, not really equipped to do such a demanding job.

Glover illustrates that the difference between institutional care and family care is simple to detect: "You need only look at the child," he says.

He recounts the time when he visited an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan Province. "This child ran up and took my hand and he wouldn't let go. His shoes were far too small for him, he was shuffling along."

On the other hand, when a Ningxia civil affairs official called on a foster family, he could hardly believe his eyes: The orphan who was thought to have disabilities was growing up happy and healthy. And the last thing he wanted was to leave his foster parents.

Memory of Norfolk

Robert Glover had 20 years' experience in social work prior to coming to China. All he had learned told him it is essential to avoid children becoming "institutionalized." A review by Glover and many other professionals in the UK screamed out against the old philosophy of keeping children in orphanages. "Institutions, for the most part, create dysfunctional, dependent children," explains Glover.

The norm had been for children once they reached the age of 17 to be sent out, more or less left to fend for themselves, in the community.

He told of an incident that, in a sense, brought home to him full force the notion of abandonment.

One such young man had been brought up in a residential home until he was 17, when he had to go out and live on his own. On Christmas Eve, he threw a brick through a shop window and was arrested. When asked why he did it, he replied: "It was Christmas. I had no money. All my friends were in prison. So, I wanted to go to prison, too."

At least there he could watch TV and enjoy the holiday turkey.

The average age for young people to leave home in Britain is 21. "Even then, when they need to, they can always come back to mum and dad. Families provide a buffer of protection that most people take for granted."

He cites research that showed there was a huge correlation between those brought up in institutions who ended up in prison. "Of persistent offenders aged 17-21, 80 per cent had been in care," says Glover.

"If you have no dad, how could you be a dad to someone else?" he asks. A generation of institution-raised children will lead to another generation of dysfunctional families.

Glover explains that, unlike in China, those placed into children's homes in the UK are mostly not orphans, but problem children whose natural parents, who often come from troubled backgrounds themselves, simply give up the effort of parenting. But when social services departments began placing these children into foster families, many of the natural parents suffered pangs of remorse and sought to take their children back, thus reducing the rate of abandonment by some 40 per cent.

Shanghai model

When Robert Glover arrived in Shanghai to advocate the foster care approach and get children out of large-scale institutions in 1997, not in his wildest imagination would he have imagined it to become the runaway success it has.

The local government did not need much persuasion. It worked closely with Care for Children in running a pilot programme to gradually move orphans out of the institution and into ordinary families.

One might have the misconception that, realizing all the benefits of family care, the government and the charity were shoving orphans into any families that would take them. As a matter of fact, Glover was very particular about choosing foster families. He had designed a rigorous process of screening.

Families with above-average incomes would not automatically qualify. The number one priority has always been the amount of love and care one would give the child and a good track record of parenting.

"We look for people who are open and have stickability, those who won't give up when it gets tough," he explains.

Although a few children were placed into wealthy families, a typical foster family was one with a grown-up child and one of the parents not working. Some were factory workers who had been laid off and spent their days aimlessly, not a few playing mah-jong. Fostering a child renewed their sense of purpose in life.

While most of the children were 3-5-year-olds, some teenagers were also placed. Three have since gone on to a university education.

One of the main yardsticks for a foster programme is the "breakdown rate," which refers to the percentage of children who are returned by foster families back into institutional care. In the West, this rate hovers around 25-30 per cent, but in Shanghai it has been only 7 per cent.

And there are 500 families on the waiting list.

The secret of the Shanghai model is the involvement of the whole community, according to Glover.

When a child is moved to a foster home, the whole network of community support kicks into action. Neighbours pitch in with gifts. They bring food and send hand-me-down clothes. They drop in to spend time with the parents and foster child. They offer advice of all kinds.

It should not be ignored that financial incentive does play a role in the success of the programme. "Foster parents do not make money, but they shouldn't lose out financially," says Glover.

Foster families are given a monthly allowance, which amounts to 300 yuan (US$36) a month. Care for Children foots half the bill. Also, government still takes care of medical and education expenses for the children, since many suffer from disabilities. But the costs are a fraction of those for keeping a child in an orphanage.

It is natural that foster families would want to adopt the children once the bonding is complete. In Shanghai, the adoption rate is about 40 per cent after a child is placed in foster care for three to five years. It would be much higher if the financial factor were removed. Parents who adopt, as in the UK, thereafter have to pay all the expenses of bringing up the child. They also lose the ongoing support of care professionals, invaluable as youngsters shift into their turbulent teenage years.

Now that the Shanghai programme has been such an unprecedented success, and following an independent international evaluation, Care for Children, encouraged by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, is gradually expanding to other parts of the country, in particular economically disadvantaged areas. As of July 2004, there were 16 orphanages in 14 provinces that had taken on the foster care project jointly conducted by China Social Work Association and Care for Children.

Glover is convinced that foster care will change the structure of China's welfare service. The Ministry of Civil Affairs hopes to move 50 per cent of children from orphanages and other social institutions into foster families by 2010.

By official count, there are currently about half a million orphans or abandoned children in China. Some experts put the number at 2 million. This disparity in numbers is due to the definitions which are sometimes differently assessed.

To achieve that goal, Glover knows that a hands-on approach will no longer be efficient. So, all Care for Children's efforts are geared to consultancy and training. He figures that, when up and running a regional workshop, it can train 50 "leaders," who in turn train 150 foster care workers, who then train 1,200 parents, and they can ultimately care for 600 children.

Care for Children runs an average of five such workshops each year, and the impact ripples through several provinces.

"Our aim is to turn orphanage workers into childcare experts," reveals Glover. "Our training includes in-service training, local conferences and workshops as well as master degree programmes in the UK."

Transition

Before every orphan finds his or her own home, institutions still have a role to play. For that, Care for Children has carefully conducted the cost-benefit analysis and plans for alternatives.

When 10 children are moved from institutional care to foster care, the expenses for foster care go up, but those for orphanages come down. When it reaches a certain point, foster care will not only make social and psychological sense, but economic sense as well.

Care for Children will help shoulder part of the costs until the cost-benefit curve reaches the break-even point.

The organization divides the future resource centre work into four areas - training, rehabilitation, support and residential care. By "residential care," he means "homely units" for 20-30 children instead of the current ones that house hundreds. For one thing, some children will always be difficult to place, and for another, they can function as "transfer stations" where children may be placed in temporary care.

Glover feels short-term care should not be mixed up with long-term care. When children have to be placed into what he calls "bridge foster care," (prior to adoption) he makes sure that the families explain to the child that they are not the "parents," but their "parents" will come along to collect them through adoption. Bridge foster parents need special training, as their role is quite different to that of long-term foster parents.

Abandonment is a terrible experience for anybody and it could be traumatic for children, he says. For those unfortunate to lose parents or be abandoned when little, he does not want their misery repeated. That is why he feels the need to clarify the purpose of short-term care and screens and trains foster families before he allows them to take a child into their homes.

Care for Children and his staff are also reluctant to have volunteers helping out at orphanages. "If you plan to drop by only two or three times and disappear, this could be damaging to the child," suggests Sun Yuanjie, a project manager for Care for Children who used to work for the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

Children need to be able to bond with adults and it takes time to develop this. When someone comes to play with them for three weekends in a row and then stops, the children have to sever the emotional bond that has evolved over the weeks. That would be like adding salt to an injury.

For that reason, well-to-do families may not necessarily be more qualified than average families. Some believe, wrongly, that their financial status is a big plus. China may not yet be a wealthy country, but it is not short of loving and caring parents, says Glover.

At the start of this year, it was estimated that some 34,000 children had been given a new start in life, welcomed by foster families. And if Glover has his way, many more will soon get the love, stimulation and nurture through the hugs and kisses that only parents can indulge.

Late last month, Glover, from Norfolk on the east coast of England, was at Buckingham Palace to collect an OBE from Queen Elizabeth for his work with Care for Children.

In 2001, Shanghai honoured him with their White Magnolia Award for his "outstanding contribution to the city."

But his real rewards come from the lives transformed, a priceless gift.

(China Daily May 13, 2005)