Home for children and youth without parental care
COVID-19 needs to be addressed
Our S-L learning experience took place in a public Home for children and youth without parental care before the COVID-19 pandemic started. After the first cases appeared in the country, all external visits to the Home were strictly forbidden, and our S-L program had to stop immediately. During the last 12 months we tried to maintain the contact between the students and the children online, but this has not substituted in any way the in-person experience. The children are at all times well taken care of by the Home’s staff, but they have been missing exclusive one-to-one play and learning time that our students had with the children. They also need more support with school work because their lessons at school last only half of the usual time.
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Year: 2019-2020
Institution: University of Banja Luka
# of students: 15
Email: slavica.tutnjevic@ff.unibl.org
Interaction with beneficiaries: Face-to- face
Academic Degree: Master
Discipline(s): Psychology | Education
Community Service Area & ODS: Good health and well-being | Quality education
Brief description
Until February 2020 the S-L experience consisted of regular visits to each child at least 1 and up to 3 times per week. Each student spent 1 to 2 hours per visit playing, reading, cuddling, drawing etc. with one child, thereby forming relationships with them as “their special individual teachers”. Through these one-to-one activities, the children made educational and developmental gains, while the students learned about important developmental, educational and social psychology lessons.
