OUR HISTORY
Our mission is to help build an open society where children with disabilities and special needs are included, integrated, supported, and have a loving family that helps them develop their intellectual, social, physical and emotional capacities.
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Our goal is to ensure that no child with living parents or caregivers ends up in an orphanage or children's home. Our efforts aim to avoid the abandonment of children with disabilities and special needs, and their placement in state institutions either at birth or at a young age, due to lack of support from the government or NGOs. The association aims to change the way people perceive disability, in order to improve the social integration of such children.
Many children with disabilities and special needs currently live in care centers. In most of these establishments, the standard of care is very poor. Many children are victims of abuse, neglect, and live in deep distress. Staff are not trained to deal with children with autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities, which often result in accidental deaths and may permanently harm the development of these children. Despite the child's ability, staying in institutions for a long period of time negatively and permanently affects any child. The harm that institutional care can cause to children has been widely documented since the beginning of the 20th century.
Most children living in so-called children's homes are not actually orphans. More than 70% of children placed in care centers still have one or two living parents, and 30% of children were placed in care homes at the request of parents in need of social services (parents who do not have been deprived of their parental rights) – these parents remain the legal guardians of their disabled child but do not even visit them. Poverty and exclusion are two of the main reasons why these children cannot live at home.
The fundamental importance of the family for children is recognized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Naked Heart France strives to combat the stigma of disability, so that no parent feels pressured to abandon a disabled child. And we work with families who have made the difficult and brave decision to keep their child with special needs at home, to provide them with free access to a range of services and support from specialists who are familiar with the best methods and modern technologies that are used internationally.