What is the Guideline?
The Guideline for the Transformation of Care and Deinstitutionalization is an institutional instrument for planning, coordination, technical guidance and monitoring of the ICBF. Its purpose is to prevent unnecessary, prolonged or structural institutionalization; promote the progressive transition from institutional services to family- and community-based services; and foster intersystem coordination to ensure the sustainability of deinstitutionalization.
Purposes of the Guideline
- Prevent unnecessary, prolonged or structural institutionalization
- Promote the transition toward family- and community-based services
- Strengthen family and community care alternatives
- Ensure the sustainability of deinstitutionalization and prevent reinstitutionalization
Key definitions
The Resolution adopts three definitions that guide the entire care transformation policy.
Deinstitutionalization
A continuous, progressive process to reduce and overcome the structural, prolonged or unnecessary use of institutionalization, guaranteeing the right to live independently and be included in the community.
Institutionalization
A care approach where people live or remain in settings that, due to their organization and practices, generate isolation, segregation or unjustified restriction of the exercise of rights.
Institutionalizing practices
Practices that seek to homogenize and exercise disproportionate control during care, limiting decision-making, participation and performance in natural settings.
Four lines of action
Prevention of family separation and institutionalization
Transformation of the protection system toward models that favor life in family and community
Promotion and participation to build inclusive and deinstitutionalizing cultures
Intersystem coordination for the sustainability of deinstitutionalization and social inclusion
What does the Resolution establish?
The Resolution defines the actions to implement the Guideline progressively and with monitoring across the ICBF.
National technical committee
The General Subdirectorate will create, within 30 days, a national technical committee for care transformation and deinstitutionalization, linked to the Differential Rights Approach Model (MEDD).
National and regional annual plan
The actions will be incorporated into the national and regional annual action plan of the MEDD, with defined goals, responsible parties and deliverables.
Follow-up every four months
The General Subdirectorate, with support from the Planning and Management Control Directorate, will monitor implementation every four months.
Participation
The implementation of the Guideline must guarantee effective and inclusive participation mechanisms for children, adolescents, young people, families, care leavers, social organizations and actors of the National Family Welfare System (SNBF), during socialization, follow-up and adjustment phases.
What does it mean for ASCEP?
Deinstitutionalization is the horizon of ASCEP's work: leaving the protection system is not an event, it is a process. This Guideline strengthens the path toward family- and community-based care models and validates the advocacy we have driven for years to transform the alternative care system.
Join the care transformation
Learn how to participate in building inclusive and deinstitutionalizing cultures in Colombia.
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