FICE International
The Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives (FICE) is an international organization, supporting those who work in residential and day care establishments with a developmental focus.
It was created in 1948 as the Fédération Internationale des Communautés d’Enfants to support those working with "war-handicapped" children but changed its name in 1982 to reflect the broader focus of the work of residential and day-care establishments by that time.
In the 1990s it again became involved in working with "war-handicapped" children in the aftermath of the Balkan wars.
| Logo: | |
| Abbreviation: | FICE |
| Formation: | 1948, Trogen, Switzerland |
| Legal Status: | Active |
| Purpose: | Support out-of-home child and youth care |
| Address of registration: | Vienna, Austria |
| Headquarters: | Sofia, Bulgaria |
| Membership: | individuals and organizations in 37 countries |
| Presidents: | Emmanuel Grupper (Israel), Rolf Widmer (Switzerland), elected in 2019 |
| Secretary General: | Bettina Terp (Austria) |
| Technical Assistant: | Katerina Ivanova (Bulgaria) |
| Website: | https://www.ficeinter.net/ |
History
Foundation
On 31 May 1948, Bernard Drzewieski, a member of the Polish delegation to UNESCO, obtained approval for the financing of a meeting of directors of children's villages caring for "war-handicapped" children from Julian Huxley, the General Secretary of UNESCO. This took place at the Kinderdorf Pestalozzi (Pestalozzi Children's Village) in Trogen, Switzerland, from 4 to 11 July 1948. Contributors included:
- Don Antonia Rivolta, founder of the Villagio del Fanciullo, Cività-Vecchia, Rome, Italy
- Zsigmond Adam, Director of the Children's Town at Hajdúhadház, Hungary
- Henri Julien from the Children's Republic at Moulin-Vieux, France
- Georges Bourguet, Co-Director of the Rayon de Soleil, Pommeyrol, France
- Giorgio Jachia from the Città dei ragazzi, Turin, Italy
- Mr de Gronckel from the Foyer des orphelins, Cité Joyeuse, Molenbeek, Belgium
- Ernesto Codignola from the Scuola-Città Pestalozzi, Florence, Italy
- Roger Vidonne from the Swiss Home for Spanish children at Pringy, Haute-Savoie, France
- Robert Préaut from the Hameau-Ecole de l’Ile-de-France, Longueil-Annel, France
- René de Cooman from the Cité d’Enfance at Charleroi, Belgium
- Barbara Stratieski from the Giardino di Infanzia Italo-Svizzero at Rimini, Italy
- Elisa Mendès da Costa from the Children's Village of Kfar Jeladiem Ilianah a foundation for 500 Jewish children at Apeldoorn in the Netherlands
- Anna Maria Princigalli from the Convitta della Renascità in Novara, Italy, and
- Arthur Bill from the Pestalozzi Children's Village.
Other participants included experts with experience in dealing with "war-handicapped" children. FICE was founded on Saturday, 10 July 1948 by the delegates to the conference.[1]
International camps
Its first initiative was a series of international camps, bringing together war-handicapped children from different countries. The first, held in 1949 at the Children's Republic at Moulin-Vieux, France, attended by 43 children from sixteen European countries, was financed by public appeals for funds, half of which was donated by schoolchildren.[2] A second was held in 1950 at Sanem, Luxembourg [3]and the third, in 1951, at Odenwaldschule, near Heppenheim, Germany.
International conferences
The next initiative was to mount a series of annual conferences bringing together delegates from Europe and North America, the first being held in October 1948 at Cité de l’Enfance, near Charleroi, Belgium. At the second, at the Teacher Training College in Lyons, France, in September 1950, the Federation adopted a new Constitution in which only National Sections of children's communities were permitted to be members; this was to enable the Federation to be recognized as a transnational organization and therefore to obtain consultative status with UNESCO, which it eventually did in 1955[4] Though still largely a European organization, FICE attracted members from North Africa and Asia and adopted a pattern in the 1960s of holding its international conference in Eastern Europe every other year. With the rise of anti-residential care sentiment during the 1970s, the pattern of annual international conferences ceased after 1976.
Education and Training
From 1955 to 1964 FICE offered training courses for staff [5] and until the late 1970s published regular Etudes pédagogiques along with reports of working groups and proceedings of conferences.
In 1984 Franz Züsli, the General Secretary, registered FICE as a publisher in order to publish The Socialpedagogue in Europe — Living with others as a Profession, edited by Marcel Courtioux and others (ISBN 3-905607-01-8 Search this book on 
.) and it published books under its own imprint until 1993 after which it turned to other publishers.
The Pestalozzi Years
At the 1982 Federal Council at Köszeg, Hungary, the Federation agreed to adopt the name Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives, to open the organization up to all types of children's organizations and to elect Heinrich Tuggener from Switzerland, as President.
In 1983 Heinrich Tuggener was able to persuade the Pestalozzi Children's Village Foundation to provide its Secretariat and in 1984 Franz Züsli, the General Secretary of the Pestalozzi Children's Village Foundation, became its General Secretary.
From 1986 when the congress was held in Malmö, the Federation's congresses were held every two years with the Fortieth Anniversary Congress in St Gallen, Switzerland, in 1988 being the largest (over 450 participants) from the greatest number of countries (23) in FICE's history. [6]. When Franz Züsli took over, he could only count 15 active members in Europe. By the end of the century, FICE had members in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa.
The 1990s saw the development of regular Expert Seminars bringing together experts from different countries to explore topics such as staff supervision, evacuating children from crisis areas and children's rights, of an exchange program for staff and of a range of collaborations between different national sections.
Having had consultative status with UNESCO since 1955, FICE had also developed consultative status with ECOSOC, UNICEF and the Council of Europe.
1994 saw the first Congress in North America, at Milwaukee, and 1998 the Fiftieth Anniversary Congress in Paris, attended by Arthur Bill, the sole survivor of the original founding group. In 1997 the Pestalozzi Children's Village indicated that it would no longer support FICE financially and agreed to tapering its funding until the end in 2000.[7]
The Peace and Friendship Camps
One fruit to the collaboration between national sections was the provision of a series of Peace and Friendship Camps to bring together children from different sides of the Balkan conflict. These were held in Balaton-Bolgar, Hungary (2000), Bihaću, Bosnia-Herzegovina (2001), Bijela, Montenegro (2002), Uzice, Serbia (2003), Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina (2004) and Ohrid, Macedonia (2005). The success of these camps was then marked at the Young People’s Conference at Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2006[8]
Young People's Conferences
Though the young people of Moulin-Vieux had proposed a parallel conference for young people alongside the 1948 Trogen conference [9] and FICE members, for example Slovenia in 1998, had organized youth conferences alongside their annual congresses, the 2000 Maastricht Congress, organized in association with the European Scientific Association for the Residential and Foster Care of Children and Adolescents (EUSARF), was the first Congress of FICE International to attempt such an undertaking.
It was followed at the 2004 Glasgow Conference by a Parallel Young People's Congress in Inverclyde, Scotland and a parallel Young People's Congress at the 2006 Sarajevo Congress, in part to mark the successful conclusion of the series of six Peace and Friendship Camps.
Objectives
The aim of FICE International is to support professionals working in the field of out-of-home child and youth care and social services in terms of capacity building, exchange of knowledge and good practices at an international level and increasing the quality of life of children and young people in out-of-home care facilities. FICE:
- Acknowledges the fact that each child, young person and their parents have a specific individuality;
- Believes that if possible each child should grow up in a family environment;
- Supports the idea that each child shall develop their full potential, without being forced to follow pre-determined norms;
- Promotes the idea that each child or young person who cannot live with their family have the right to receive the highest quality of care, social services, educational and developmental support;
- Encourages professionals working with children to build safe, secure and trustful relationships with children and young people and thus contribute to better future outcomes for them;
- Upholds the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child;
- Denies any kind of discrimination, based on ethnicity, nationality, gender, sex, religion, age, etc.[10]
Structure
The General Assembly (GA) is the highest body of FICE International, where all members of the organization are represented. The General Assembly meets once in three years to accept new members, make important decisions about the future of the organization and vote on honorary members and officers.
The Federal Council (CF) meets twice a year to take decisions about the direction of the current activities of the organization. Among the most important topics for discussion are: the strategy of the organization; admission of members; reports from members; partnerships and collaborations; current activities; projects and opportunities; etc. All members are represented, although the number of votes depends on the type of membership. These meetings are usually accompanied by a day seminar on important topics in the field of child and youth care work.
The Executive Committee (CE). In between Federal Council meetings, the President, Secretary General and Treasurer meet from time to time to prepare the CF's business to take interim decisions on action required before the next meeting.
The Audit Committee. The Federal Council has one Subcommittee, made up of three Federal Council members, whose role is to scrutinize the accounts on behalf of the Federal Council.
Current Activities
FICE International tries to continue the tradition of Youth camps in recent years in parallel with FICE Congresses. In 2016 FICE International held its 33rd Congress in Vienna, Austria. A youth exchange was organized in parallel with the Congress for 53 young adults from 15 countries ("Be the Change" project), co-funded by the Erasmus Programme of the European Commission. The participants were part of one week preparation phase immediately before the Congress. They came from national member organizations of FICE and shared the experience of living in alternative care and ageing out. Together the participants developed Declaration with 10 Standards for Care Leavers, which was presented to the professionals at the Congress.[11]
New Development - Regional Platforms
In order to represent residential care from all parts of the world, FICE is developing a new structure, composed of regional platforms. The first one is FICE European Network, regrouping countries from the European continent, that was established in 2001. The second is FICE African Network, regrouping professionals working in African countries. Efforts are made to create a North American network (including the USA and Canada) and first implementation of FICE in South America was made with the acceptance of FICE Brazil. Now that FICE Japan was created and accepted as full member in 2019, there would in the future be an attempt to create an active network of FICE members in Asia.
References
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- ↑ Brosse, Thérèse (1950) Homeless children: report of the proceedings of the conference of Directors of Children’s Communities, Trogen Switzerland Publication No 573 Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- ↑ UNESCO Courier (1949). French children help war orphans’ camp. UNESCO Courier, II(6):3.
- ↑ UNESCO Courier (1950). Europe’s orphans learn to live again — and to laugh. UNESCO Courier, III(9):10.
- ↑ UNESCO General Conference (1955) Records of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Eighth Session Montevideo 1954 Resolutions Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- ↑ Knöpfel Nobs, I. (1992). Von den Kindergemeinschaften zur ausserfamiliären Erziehung: Die Geschichte der Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives (FICE). FICE Verlag, Zürich
- ↑ Hüttenmoser, Marco and Baumgarten, Heinz Hermannbooktitle (1989) Privat geboren für öffentliches Leben: ein Vergleich familiärer und außerfamiliärer Lebensraume: Kongress 1988 St Gallen Zürich: FICE Verlag ISBN 3-905607-07-7 Search this book on ..
- ↑ Shaw, Robert (2008) Children, families and care: reflections on the first sixty years of FICE Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books ISBN 978 1 85856 445 6 1 85856 445 6 Search this book on . Chaps 11 & 13
- ↑ Shaw, Robert (2008) Children, families and care: reflections on the first sixty years of FICE Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books ISBN 978 1 85856 445 6 1 85856 445 6 Search this book on . pp. 128–131
- ↑ UNESCO Courier (1949). Teen-age ‘républicains’ plug for World Federation. UNESCO Courier, II(1):9, 11.
- ↑ https://www.ficeinter.net/about
- ↑ https://www.fice.at/be-the-change
