MANIFESTO - - - - - - - -   

                        Child Placement must include a mental health care component ...

When protective placement is unavoidable, children need a surrogate family system that will provide a caring environment :
Caring in terms of taking care of the children (preventive) so that they develop to the full extent of their capacity; and in term of providing the necessary care (curative) so that the children can overcome early onset disorders.

  This concept regroups professionals from various disciplines, child protective services, health care providers, mental care providers, foster care providers.  These practitioners all have become convinced that :
-         separation and integration in a foster family are not sufficient in and of themselves because of the lasting consequences of any severe disturbances in early relationships
-         the protective placement must therefore, not only allow for the treatment of the bond which will continue to exist between the children and their parents, but also the sustaining of a relationship with their foster family.

These professionals have now come together in a network, the RIAFET, founded on some 40 years of practical experience and the resulting theoretical knowledge to bring a hands-on response to the needs in the field.

The RIAFET fits within the current constellation of associations that exists in this domain (ANPF, GREPFA, IFCO, etc.) with the specific goal of promoting, developing and defending the practice of therapeutic Child Foster Care.

The RIAFET aims to create and facilitate a rapport between the numerous teams working with the same principles and for whom an exchange of information and experience can provide an enriching and rewarding support.

The RIAFET  means to encourage  and facilitate information transfer regarding :
-         Conditions necessary for the proper development of children;
-         Parenting disorders, their origin and consequences;
-         The concept of foster parenting;
-         Disorders of early bonding , their consequences and potential cures;
and to examine the relationship between this accumulated knowledge and the means and objectives of current systems for child protection and treatment.        

Further, the RIAFET aims to assemble and organize all data that could illuminate and quantify the therapeutic impact of Child Foster Care and its underlying mechanisms (research and evaluation)

Finally, the RIAFET will undertake to contact the various organizations and services whose support is indispensable to the promotion and defense of this practice.

July 2005

Founders of the Network RIAFET - Mr Christian ALLARD (Joinville-le Pont), Dr Cathy FOURES (Paris), Dr Jean-Louis NOUVEL (Poitiers), Dr Martin PAVELKA (Sainte Geneviève-des-Bois), Dr Pascal RICHARD (Paris), Dr Hana ROTTMAN (Paris).