Minutes of the Federal Council in Roskilde/Denmark on 2 October 2003

Helga Stefanov - Austria
Christine Karner - Austria
Dashenka Tashkova - Bulgaria
Rumiana Jekova - Bulgaria
Soren Hegstrup - Denmark
Ole Rasmussen - Denmark
David Lane - England / Wales
Ewan Anderson - England / Wales
Sirje Groosmann-Loot - Estonia
Sari Laaksonen - Finland
Martti Kemppainen - Finland
Daniel Colombet - France
Daniel Vidaud - France
Josef Koch - Germany
Friedhelm Peters - Germany
Xenia Spernau - Germany
Judit Cseres - Hungary
Lazlo Csola - Hungary
Malay Dewanji - India
Emmanuel Grupper - Israel
Theo Binnendijk - The Netherlands
Wim Kok - The Netherlands
Famke Schiff - The Netherlands
Anton Tobé - The Netherlands
Aad Vroon - The Netherlands
Albert Likhanov - Russia
Nikita E. Prokovsky - Russia
Andrew Hosie - Scotland
Jana Svetlikova - Slovakia
Sena Druzic - South East Europe
Adela Adzimomerovic - South East Europe
Audo Kuduzovic - South East Europe
Roland Stübi - Switzerland
Rolf Widmer - Switzerland
Suzanne Widmer - Switzerland

1. Opening and announcements
Theo Binnendijk welcomed the participants.

• Estonian Union for Child Welfare will celebrate its 15th anniversary on the 4th of October 2003.
• On the 25th of September 2003 was the inaugural meeting of FICE Scotland. A group of 25 persons participated the meeting. The Board of FICE Scotland was chosen. From 24th of April 2004 FICE Scotland will be a Full Member.
• Roland Stübi sent greetings from Richard Joubert.
• Josef Koch mentioned the edited book of the papers given at the FICE congress in Berlin 2002.
2. Minutes of the meeting of the
• Federal Council in Moscow on 28-29 April 2003
? Roland Stübi asked for a list of the abbreviations used in the minutes.
Action: Famke will send a list of abbreviations together with the minutes.
? Josef Koch thanked FICE International for the Sfr.10.000 which FICE Germany was offered for the shortfall of the congress Berlin 2002.
FICE Netherlands wondered why the shortfall was paid because it is not the policy of FICE International to pay national sections if they have shortfalls; it should be for the responsibility of the section who organises the congress. On this occasion only an exception had been made by the CE and FC.
? The FICE Foundation had been established and had started its work.
• Executive Committee in Paris on 11 July 2003
? The fee for the Federal Council in Bulgaria in May would be cheap, but not as cheap as the €40 mentioned in the minutes.

3. Report of the Vice Presidents
• Anton Tobé had prepared a report about the projects in South East Europe; this had been sent to all members.

• David Lane had written a report on his activities.
- Website
- The archives of FICE International were in Amsterdam. David Lane planned to spend some time going through the FICE archives to see what would be worth inserting in the web record.
- National sections were asked to make their journals available, together with a summary of articles in one of the official FICE languages.
- David Lane said he intended to retire from FICE activities in two years time. It would therefore be necessary to find a successor to run the FICE-Inter website.

- Glossary
The FICE glossary needed to be upgraded. It would entail a lot of work and require co-operation with other organisation, for instance a University. It was propos that money from the European Union or other institutions should be sought in order to try to bring out the glossary in more languages. The project had to be financed properly. David Lane was authorised to co-ordinate a small Steering Group to undertake initial work on these items.
Robert Soisson and Leo Ligthart would be contacted to inquire if they were interested in working on the glossary.

- ENQASP
ENQASP was made of different associations and keen on standards for training and qualifications in the social professions. Organisations such as IFSW and AIEJI participated, and FICE needed to consider whether to do the same. Soren Hegstrup would join the meeting in Paris in October 2003 to see if it is worthwhile to be a member.

• Explanation of the report of Martti Kemppainen:
- Nepal had been interested in FICE for a long time already. Martti Kemppainen had been in contact with the organisation CWIN as a correspondence member for more than 10 years. It was proposed that Nepal and India should be encouraged to collaborate in order to strengthen the platform Asia.

- Belorussia wanted to be a section of FICE International. The Swiss government had made a report on the situation in children homes in Belorussia.

- The social ministry work and NGO in Albania wanted contact with FICE national sections.
Action: Anton will see what he can do in respect of the contacts in Albania.

• Report of Daniel Vidaud:
- In respect of francophone Africa Daniel Vidaud had written a report. Half of the francophone countries seemed to have a training system, but others have none. Daniel Vidaud had had personal contact with people in seven countries to build up bridges between education and social work.
In Congo an association had been formed to work in different sections of social care, especially AIDS which is a major problem, and on schooling.
Next December in Senegal a training workshop would be organised by Rolf Widmer.
With the help of Belgium Daniel Vidaud would try to come into contact with other French speaking countries.

- FICE had been represented in a number of meetings on the education of children in difficulties. The most important was ‘Children of the Cities’. Because of economic difficulties a lot of children with an agriculture background go to the cities and live there.

4. Actual situation projects
• Educateurs sans frontières
To run the project it had to be clear what the profile of the project was to be and how FICE would get what is required (database, people). FICE would go ahead with Educateurs sans frontières on low profile. Ewan Anderson was willing to assist in realising a plan to get the project run.

• PEP
During the stay in Roskilde Sari Laaksonen would have a short discussion with the representatives of the countries in order to gather information about the actual situation of PEP.

It was explained that FICE offers only a network to arrange and monitor placements. It offers no facilities like insurance in case of accidents, and the responsibility rests with the candidate and the host organisation, not FICE.

• Baltic countries
Martti Kemppainen will have a meeting with Ukraine in the second week of October 2003.

• Canada
Canada was willing to pay the membership fee for FICE.

Australian
Soren Hegstrup had corresponded with an Australian organisation about youth and children of the streets. Next spring he would visit Australia and strengthen the contacts.

• Partnerships with other international contacts
- David Lane and Theo Binnendijk had represented FICE in a meeting with AIEJI, IFSW, ENSW in Copenhagen in May this year. All these organisations had the same problems as FICE concerning the appointment of a Secretary General, membership fees etc. They were all convinced about the need for co-operation, but they had no intention to merge.
During that meeting FICE and AEIJI were wondering if it was necessary for both organisations to be active in the same countries. Lars Steinov should make a new appointment for a meeting towards the end of 2003.

• Collections on policies of childcare
Again no information had been offered, and the FC agreed to drop the project.

• Training
The project was to consider what role FICE could have in training. In Copenhagen there seemed already be documents about this item. The FC decided to drop the project.

• Children’s rights in institutions
No information about this project had been received from Robert Soisson. The project was dropped.
FICE Switzerland had written a brochure about the rights of children: ‘Rechte haben, Rechte kriegen’.
Action: Andrew Hosie would send some information about children’s rights.

270 universities in different countries in Europe offered a master programme on citizenship. Soren Hegstrup would make a presentation on the identity of children: what does it mean to be an inhabitant of this big society.
Action: Soren Hegstrup will make a presentation about this subject in the next FC. Soren will send some information.

• Collection of successful projects
This project would be held up until the results of the questionnaire were known. The project would start when the results of the questionnaire were shared with the members.

• Standards
It was reported that James Anglin was concerned about the prevailing opinion of people about long term residential care. He referred to a conference in Stockholm from 12-15 May 2003. The Swedish government condemned residential care and was for foster care. James had the opinion that residential care was needed, but discussion needed to focus on how to realise it in the best way.

Jim Anglin would have more members added in the project Standards. Emmanuel Grupper, Martti Kemppainen, Andrew Hosie, David Lane and Ewan Anderson would participate.

Action: Members of the project on Standards will produce a declaration from the view of FICE and will prepare a proposal to identify to whom the letter should be sent besides to the Swedish Government.

5. General Secretary
It was and still is a task for FICE International to find a General Secretary.
FICE Bulgaria was in the possession of an excellent bureau and with a full-time and part-time secretary. It was proposed that the Rumiana Jekova should be asked to support FICE International in some of the General Secretary’s tasks for one day a week. FICE Bulgaria was willing to work out this request together with FICE International.

6. Membership
• ANCE France
Daniel Vidaud and Daniel Collombet explained the critical situation in which ANCE France found itself. René Bernard was unable to participate in the FC because of the financial situation and the question of ANCE France’s continued existence. On the 3rd of October 2003 René Bernard would have an appointment at the Court. The situation of ANCE France was such that the organisation had to be dissolved.
In the 1990s ANCE France as a whole was a strong organisation with many training institutions, associations and professional staff members. The headquarters were located in Paris. The funds of ANCE France were formed by membership fees, subsidies and training institutions income, each for one third. In recent years the intake to training courses had dropped enormously. As a consequences ANCE France had lost 20% of its members. In 2002 ANCE France went to court to take measures. Finally the Government had decided to cancel all subsidies from the first of September this year on, which made it impossible to work under those conditions.

René Bernard was director of ANCE France and had been President of FICE Europe since September 2002. He would not have taken this position if he had known what was about to happen. A new President needed to be chosen for FICE Europe.

ANCE France had always a strong position in FICE. The participants of the FC expressed their feelings for the people who worked for ANCE France for so long.
Daniel Vidaud and Daniel Collombet said that some people intended to make a new start for FICE France. FICE International would help to build up a new organisation. Emmanuel Grupper suggested that FICE France should be rebuilt in the way that Israel had done.

For the time being members of FICE France would stay as members, and ANCE France would make a proposal for the coming period.
Theo thanked the French delegation for the exchange of information.

• Austria
Monica Niederle was the new President of FICE Austria. Theo Binnendijk had met her during the congress in Victoria, Canada, in September this year.

• South Africa
The development of the youth care system in South Africa was impressive. The problems the country was confronting were huge. There were 1,000,000 children with AIDS. The people in South Africa were working hard to address the problem. South Africa intended to participate again in FICE. The size of the membership fee might be a problem.

• Tanzania
FICE had been approached by Tanzania for information about FICE International. The secretariat had sent the general information and requested for more information about interest in FICE. Until now no reply had been received.

• The significance of visits of FICE sections or delegations for the public relations of sections in the Eastern countries was mentioned.
Dasha Tashkova and Roland Stübi had organised a seminar in Bulgaria which was also meant for people from the ministry.
In June this year Theo Binnendijk and Anton Tobé had visited FICE Bulgaria and talked to the ministry responsible for childcare.

• FICE International had received more and more emails from people who were interested in FICE. The secretariat had asked for further information from the organisations but had not yet received replies.

7. Finances
• Rolf Widmer, Treasurer, had for a long time had problems in accessing the account of FICE International. In the mean time the problems had been solved. Rolf apologised to those who had been expecting money.

• Ten of the thirty countries had paid their membership fees. Rolf Widmer urged other members to inform him how and when their contributions would be paid.
Membership was the only source of income for FICE. Rolf Widmer would try to find additional sources; therefore it was important to receive the filled in questionnaires. (See item 9.)

• The CE decided to have two FC meetings a year. One would be held in a low-cost country. FICE delegates would pay an increased fee in order to subsidy financially weak countries in the event that the FC were be held in a more expensive country.

• Rolf Widmer had been in contact with a sponsor who intended to support FICE for Sfr. 10.000 a year; the sponsor wanted to be informed about the activities of FICE.

8. Website FICE International
See item 3 and the report of David Lane.

9. PR material
• Questionnaire
Rolf Widmer had received seven questionnaires. Of these, three were filled in very well and the other four were incomplete. It was understandable that not all the requested information was immediately to hand, but members were requested to find it out and to list their activities. Some information must be well known. It was important to have an overview of what FICE does.
Action: Members have to send the questionnaire to Rolf Widmer before 1 December 2003.

• Brochures FICE International
The brochure of FICE International had been reprinted. The brochures were distributed to the national sections. They also got labels with the address of the secretariat of FICE International to stick on the brochures

• Annual report
An annual report is needed for the PR of FICE. Every country had to write an annual report.

10. UNESCO / ECOSOC / Council of Europe
UNESCO
FICE was represented in different working groups on the education of children in difficulties. The most important were: children of the cities, tolerance and migration. A lot of information was generated; the information should be available for all the FICE sections.
UNESCO recognized FICE as an international NGO. UNESCO required from all the international NGOs information on their roles and activities and would evaluate their contributions to its overall policy. If FICE were to keep its status as international organisation it had to report her activities.

Council of Europe
At the end of June in Strasbourg at the meeting of the Council of Europe the focus was on action taken in the member countries in Europe and on aid for developing countries. For 2004 the Council had decided to give NGOs more rights regarding research and representative roles within the civil society of their countries. Different working groups had been formed on quality and educational matters.

Ecuador was working on a project concerning street children. Ecuador needed support form UNESCO to realize the project. FICE, created by UNESCO, could have a role as intermediary and to endorse the project as NGO.
It was proposed that a project should be established to form a commission in FICE to support and provide consultation for projects. Theo argued that monitoring the progress of projects took time, and it was therefore reasonable if a percentage should be paid for the consultation and administration done by the project commission.

11. Congress in Glasgow in 2004
• The General Assembly and Federal Council would be on 7 September 2004.
• The theme of the conference for young people was: ‘Creating a place for me’. 100 young people (14 – 17 years old) and supervisors could subscribe; participating adults would have to speak English; there would be no entrance fee for the young people. Support for their travel costs would be requested. There was a strong desire from the organising committee for national sections to send two young people and an accompanying adult to support the organisation of the congress.
• There would be an exchange of information between the conferences for adults and for youngsters respectively on the third day. There would be a dialogue between adults and young people.
• It was proposed that the financially strong countries should support the financially weak countries. Andrew Hosie would co-ordinate this.

A symposium Towards a European Policy on Secure Accommodation for Children in Renfrew, Scotland, in November this year was being organised by Scotland, Germany and Luxembourg. The programme and information were available. 40 persons had applied.

12. Federal Council in May 2004
Programme:
• 6 May 2004: Federal Council
• 7 May 2004: presentation by FICE Bulgaria, presentation by other FICE members, FICE Europe
• 8 May 2004: visit to children homes
The meeting would be in Venika, in the countryside of Sophia. The fee for the Federal Council was not clear yet. Members had to apply to FICE Bulgaria.

FICE Europe
In the next General Assembly it would be necessary to elect a new President for FICE Europe. The Vice President of FICE Europe would fulfil the tasks of the President until the General Assembly in Scotland.
At the end of November this year FICE Europe was to have a meeting in Frankfurt. The Board would inform FICE International about the results of this meeting.
Gerd Schemenau, Secretary of FICE Europe, had been in Bulgaria to conclude the Bulgarian project in cooperation with Austria.
FICE Europe participate in the organisation of a project of a German organisation: ‘Young offenders in Europe’, which will be held in February 2004.
Only four members of FICE Europe had paid their fees. Members who did not pay were requested to pay their €50 to Daniel Collombet.

13. Any other business
Mr. Likhanov had the opinion that the way the Russian Children Foundation was structured offered a suitable model for FICE in Russia. The Russian Children Foundation consisted of 420 private organisations which were legally organised. It did not receive financial support from the state.
Mr. Likhanov introduced an idea to facilitate and to strengthen the popularity of FICE in Russia. Every year on the 1st of June a children day would be organised concerning the needs of handicapped children. 10.000 children from all over Russia would come to Moscow. The project had a charitable character. The Government paid for the accommodation, and theatres supported performances on behalf of the project. Mr. Likhanov proposed an opening ceremony of the project under the umbrella of FICE International by Theo Binnendijk and himself. He asked FICE to participate for 20% in the costs.
Theo thanked Mr. Likhanov for the invitation; FICE International had think about the proposal.

ABBREVIATONS:

AIEJI - International Association of Social Educators. (The initials have been retained from the time when it was the Association Internationale pour l’Education de la Jeunesse Inadaptee.)

ENQASP - Quality Assurance Social Professions

IFSW - International Federation of Social Workers

NGO - Non Governmental Organisation