The Action Enfance Foundation has just opened a village in Sablons (Gironde) which welcomes children in care, generally in a situation of abuse - Mickaël Bosredon / 20Minutes

  • This village, made up of nine prefabricated modules, will make way by 2021 for nine real houses built in Sablons, near Libourne.
  • While waiting for the final version of the project, this new structure allows the department to count on 54 additional places at the start of the school year.
  • The children placed here, aged 0 to 18, are victims of neglect or abuse by their parents.

Containers stacked on prefabricated huts, all placed on land still fallow. We are still far from the final “village” project, but it doesn't matter. "The important thing for us was to be able to open our structure for the start of the school year, and this was not obvious with the coronavirus epidemic" insists Nathalie Agamis, director of the modular village of Sablons, near Libourne (Gironde) .

The nine modules assembled in Sablons will give way by the end of 2021 to a solid village. - Mickaël Bosredon / 20 Minutes

For a few days now, this new facility has been welcoming the beginnings of the future children's village of the Action Enfance Foundation. The nine prefabricated modules, assembled on site since June, will make room by the end of 2021 to nine real houses, but in the meantime they offer all the necessary comfort to the 43 children placed here by the social assistance service in childhood of the Gironde department, after a judge's decision. A small oxygen buoy for the department, whose capacity is far below demand: it will be able to count on 54 places - the maximum capacity of the village - additional in this return.

"Child victims, not children who have committed acts of delinquency"

The particularity of this village, and of the Action Enfance Foundation, is that they offer sites exclusively reserved for welcoming siblings. "In Gironde, we had no structure dedicated to growing siblings together," explains Emmanuelle Ajon, vice-president of the department in charge of child protection. Elsewhere, siblings in care can see each other, but they do not live together on a daily basis. This is not always in the best interests of the child, but it is often what keeps family ties together. "

Some siblings, scattered in other centers or host families in the four corners of the Gironde, thus met in Sablons a few days ago. “It was just magical” assures Nathalie Agamis.

A second establishment of this type "will surely be in the next departmental plan", anticipates Emmanuelle Ajon, "knowing that it takes five years to bring such a project out of the ground. "" It is not necessarily easy to find a territory that is willing to welcome it, she admits, because 50 children from child protection who arrive like that, it can be scary. Yet they are child victims, they have not committed any act of delinquency. "

The house is the heart of the project to recompose a family unit

They are victims of parents "who are not able to take care of their children - we speak of educational negligence" or more serious who have committed "acts of violence, physical or sexual abuse" explains Marc Chabant, Director of Foundation Development. “Our goal here is to remake an ordinary life, with affection, with care. "

The house represents the heart of the Action Enfance project. This is where the family structure will be recomposed, knowing that each module offers 200 m2 of individual rooms for one, two or three siblings.

All children attending school in nearby establishments

"Each house can accommodate six brothers and sisters, accompanied on a daily basis by four family educators, who take turns in pairs each week", explains Nathalie Agamis. “These educators live in the house for a full week,” she insists, “they try to supplement the parents by recreating an everyday environment, which is as close as possible to what one could live in a family. "

Each module offers over 200 m2 all the necessary comfort for six children - Mickaël Bosredon / 20 Minutes

Each “child-house group” lives in complete autonomy, with a budget allocated to it for shopping, organizing outings and even going on vacation. The educators, for their part, ensure the educational monitoring of the children, each of them being educated in the surrounding schools, colleges and high schools.

Connect with parents

The Sablons children's village has a total of 36 educators, as well as two professionals attached to the family reference. “Because we also have to build a link with the parents” insists Nathalie Agamis. “Even if a judge decided at some point to remove these children from the family unit, the parents in the vast majority retain parental authority, and we work with them, because there may be visitation rights. "

Recreating this link is not always easy, however. “For some parents, it's a positive shock when the placement decision falls, but others don't understand, or don't want to understand, and that's where we have a lot of work to explain to them. We really have all the scenarios and in some situations, we know from the start that the children will not return to their homes. "

More than 5,000 children placed in Gironde

On average, children placed in Action Enfance villages stay there between three and four years. “But that does not mean much, nuance Marc Chabant, because in reality we have two populations: those who will stay two or three years, and those who will stay more than five years. "

Some 150,000 children are placed in France, including 5,259 in Gironde, according to the last count of the Gironde department, which dates back to December 31, 2019. A figure that has increased by 15% in four years.

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