HVB-home Solsidan: This is how we treat abandoned children

In a typical residential area with wooden houses, on a leafy street in Skara in Västergötland is Solsidan. The treatment home, which with its alternative methods has ended up in the middle of the debate about children with resilience syndrome.

Solsidan's treatment methods have been described in a book from 2016, which describes the treatment of 30 children with abusive syndrome, who were cared for at home between 2005 and 2014.

Head of Unit Majlinda Bunjaku was there when the first child arrived, saying that at that time they did not know at all how it would do.

- This was extremely powerful and tangible, to see a living individual in a position of a lying corpse. The heart beat but it was a corpse I saw in front of me, and would attract back to life, and say that "you have a value", "you should be a part of us, you will continue to live," she says.

In its guidance to social services and health care staff, the National Board of Health describes the condition of abandonment syndrome as a reaction to trauma and severe stress, where the parents have not been able to give their child enough hope and safety.

The usual treatment method, which has been used in Sweden for the past ten years, is that the children are cared for at home by the parents, with support from home health care and psychiatry.

Solsidan, on the other hand, has developed a method that they describe as "intensive environmental therapy", a kind of everyday practice.

Children's days are scheduled from morning to evening. They are lifted up and seated at breakfast, even though they do not eat. Staff hold the child's hand when whispering sponge cake and scheduled calls are made, even if no answers are received.

Those responsible say that it could take a long time for the children to recover. Months before the first reaction came, and several months of tough training of the most basic before the child was finally allowed to leave Solsidan.

- Being able to print a person after a long, long time and see that the person goes, can eat himself, wave and say "thank you for the time here". It's a feeling that probably makes you work with it day in and day out, ”says Majlinda Bunjaku.

An important part of the treatment method is to separate children from parents, and to treat the children as if they were healthy. In an attempt to lift them from their difficult situation at home and out of the asylum process.

At times, this meant that parents were not allowed to visit the children, sometimes for several months.

"It is controversial, because mom and dad are always mom and dad, but it is important to release any concerns that may possibly be with the parents," says Katarina Ahlqvist, CEO of Gryning Care, who runs Solsidan.

Karl Sallin is a pediatrician and researcher at the Karolinska Institute. He has done studies on the specific abandonment syndrome among asylum seekers and has started researching on Solsidan's methods and results.

He says their method seems more effective than usual treatment, which often means very long treatment times, according to Sallin without any real improvement of the children's condition.

- It is not very fast anyway. It takes a very long time for patients to recover and it seems necessary to have a residence permit when using that treatment method. What Solsidan has done is that they appear to have cured 30 children, which they claim themselves, in a fairly short time without a residence permit, he says.

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But Karl Sallin's research results may be delayed. He has not yet received the medical records he needs.

- I try to have an unconditional input into this, and I want to review the results to see if they are as good as they claim. And if they are, then of course it is excellent, then we must use that treatment method.