Valentina is a girl of eleven years old and she comes from a broken family. Her parents got divorced two years ago. In their marriage of thirteen years, there was a lot of verbal violence and the mother was physically abused by her husband. She copied that attitude towards her children and started to beat them, especially Valentina. Even after she left her husband, she continued to hit her daughter with a broomstick or electricity wires. After a while, the abuse also became psychological and turned into negligence: she repeated over and over again that Valentina had to leave the house, because she reminded her too much of her ex-husband.
Finally, Valentina run away and went living with her father. He has a job as a parking guard and he earns just enough money to pay alimony for all his children. Valentina felt a lot better living with him, because he treated her nicely and accepted her. But bystanders had another opinion about the circumstances and they informed the Children’s Court. The father is known for his heavy drinking which makes him aggressive; that’s why the girl still lives in a high-risk situation.
Our center was contacted to do a background investigation and give recommendations on where the girl should live. Which resulted in therapies with the father, mother and of course Valentina. The girl is depressed because of the separation of her parents and the rejection by her mother. So we work on rebuilding her self-esteem and confidence. Both parents suffer from non resolved issues from the past, which is the reason why their relationship failed and why they cannot give the attention and love their children deserve. With a lot of patience and guidance from our side and with openness and cooperation from their side, at least one of them will be able to look after Valentine. And hopefully, somewhere in the future, both parents will be able to share the responsibility in the upbringing of Valentina.
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