The Mederi Foundation – help the children – is a non-governmental organisation which was registered in 2003 following long consultations with similar organisations, including La Voix de l’Enfant in France. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and its cooperation with the health, social and legal services, the Foundation was accepted by the Ministry of Health and the Minstry of Social Politics. It is registered in the grounds of the Memorial Institute Child Health Center in Warsaw.
Mederi Foundation supports all forms of interdisciplinary assistance aimed at the identification, prevention and counteraction of consequences of child maltreatment, integrating the medical profession around the issue of child abuse: defining the standards of conduct in child clinics and hospital wards, ensuring permanent support for the child and family after the discharge from the hospital, participating in family supervision, working with the family of the abused child and creating the most secure environment for children who have been victims of crime.
From the start, the Foundation has engaged in training and academic activity, organizing nationwide conferences and workshops for professionals working in the field of child abuse. One such conference presented a model of care to children as the victim of violence and creating child friendly interview rooms, which met with a lot of interest from Polish health service employees.
Mederi Foundation has created several handbooks on issues of child abuse. These include a judical handbook for medical professionals – “How to help an abused child?”, which had a collection of legal regulations concerning children as abuse victims, this was published on the website of the Health Ministry. Another judicial handbook – “Child Abuse and Neglect – Low Protection”, was aimed at experts dealing with the prevention of child abuse and counteracting family violence. Mederi Foundation has created a Family Confidence Center, which takes part in the national network for children with post traumatic stress disorder and in the network of municipal (Warsaw) help of sexually abused children . We follow programs supporting families with social problems and abusive families.
We work as a multi-disciplinary team of professionals with different experience including family mediators, paediatricians, lawyers, mental health professionals, psychologists, pedagogists and social workers. We have cooperated in several projects: Medical cooperation between Poland and Ukraine (2005, RITA project with Polish-American Foundation for Freedom), best practices exchange for students from Belarus, Ukraine and Azerbaijan (2006, RITA project), project Alc-Viol (DAPHNE II 2004-2008 JAI/DAP2004-1/059/YC), AGIS project and Train Together – ‚Se former ensemble’ – training of professionals working for taking charge of and collectiing evidence of child victims of sexual violence. (2007/125/JAI “Security and safeguarding liberties”), Global rights – European acting together GREAT (2010). We have cooperated with social services in Wa