January is a holiday month in Nicaragua when e.g schools are closed for a long break. It is a good time to revise several documents pertaining to the Fundación, to update them when necessary, or to produce them when they do not yet exist. Revising appointment and telephone lists is a quick job. But updating other documents is time-consuming.
We have been working on the following documents:
- a document in which we explain how our community gives shape to our living together and caring for each other, using the philosophy of The Ark.
- a protocol pertaining to maltreatment and abuse of the very vulnerable group of people we are working with. Our employees need to be tuned in to this. Part of this protocol is a form that every employee has to sign.With this protocol we are ahead of the times in Nicaragua, as this is very far from standard procedure here.
- all sorts of forms that we use in the procedure for taking in a potential resident for our Home. Given our experience with the family of Jose who violated our rules, we are now working on a stricter admission policy. To give the document more weight, the representative of the next potential resident would not only have to sign a more detailed agreement, but it would also have to be signed in the presence of a lawyer. Of course we cannot prevent people not honouring agreements, and stricter rules are not necessarily a solution. But on the other hand we need to do whatever we can to protect our residents from the whims of their family. If we do not stand up for our residents, nobody will.
New policies
We are currently also working on an emergency plan in case of a fire, or needing urgent medical attention etc. We already had a practical version of an emergency plan for the Home, but now the Board has decided that we need a more encompassing emergency plan for the entire Fundación.
That keeps us busy. We want to achieve common understanding of the procedures. Our day-to-day operating determines what needs to be formally regulated, where we ought to be more explicit. We have to find the right balance between what is minimally needed to create awareness among all staff and the inhibiting effect of too many regulations. But it shows that our Foundation is becoming stronger and that we face the challenges that come on our way!