Behind an ordinary front door in Żurrieq, six children under the age of six are being raised not by their birth families but by a rotating team of carers who, in the words of their home manager, must be "100 per cent there for them".
In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Jade Cardona, home manager of Dar Santa Tereża, spoke about what it takes to run a home for some of the country's youngest and most vulnerable children.
Dar Santa Tereża is one of four residential homes run by Fondazzjoni Sebħ, an NGO that provides community, residential and therapeutic services to vulnerable children and families. The home, which cares exclusively for children under six years old, is part of a wider network in which the foundation currently looks after 42 children across seven apartments. According to the foundation, residents receive holistic care covering their physical health, social wellbeing and psychological needs, supported since 2023 by an in-house therapeutic service in which therapists work alongside home managers, residential social workers and care teams.
Cardona said the guiding principle behind the home was equity rather than equality: children of the same age, she explained, could have entirely different pasts and needs, so care had to be tailored individually rather than delivered identically to all. Cardona said this philosophy extended to the smallest details of daily life, including allowing children to choose which shoes to wear, a gesture she described as giving weight to a voice that had not always been listened to.
Balancing structure with flexibility is something the home gives ongoing importance to, Cardona said. She said the home operated on a "flexible structure" that gave children the predictability they needed while remaining responsive to individual circumstances. She gave the example of a child returning distressed from a family visit at mealtime: in that moment, she said, routine became secondary to supporting the child, and the team would step in to comfort rather than insist on the schedule. Every decision made at the home, she added, was approached through a trauma-informed lens.
Recreating a family environment, rather than an institutional one, was described by Cardona as central to the home's approach, even though she acknowledged its limits. Unlike a family home, she said, the home operates on shift patterns and involves several different carers, an element she said was beyond the team's control. What could be controlled, she said, was keeping to fixed shift patterns, informing the children in advance of who would be working when, and nurturing as much consistency and predictability within the team as possible. She said the physical environment was also within the team's control: bedrooms have recently been renovated so that children can personalise them, with each child keeping photographs of their choosing by their bed, and no two rooms decorated the same way.
Children are also involved in cooking and cleaning, which Cardona said helped them build everyday skills and independence. She stressed that the home never sought to replace a child's birth family, noting that parents sometimes send in personal clothing or a favourite toy to ease a child's transition, and that the family relationship was preserved wherever possible.
A child's first days at the home were described as never easy and never the same as any that came before. Cardona said reactions varied widely, from children visibly overwhelmed by simply seeing toys for the first time, to others separated from siblings, to children who remained quiet before their distress surfaced later. She said the priority in those early days was staying with the children and accompanying them through whatever they were experiencing, all of which she considered valid, while also managing the impact of a new admission on children already living at the home.
Cardona studied psychology at the University of Malta and has since qualified as a family therapist, with a Master's degree in Family Therapy and Systemic Practice. She has worked in residential settings for approximately nine years, including in homelessness and migration services, before joining Fondazzjoni Sebħ as assistant manager of Dar Santa Tereża and Dar Sagra Familja in 2022. She was promoted to home manager of Dar Santa Tereża the following year.
Asked what a home manager's role actually involves, as distinct from frontline carers, Cardona said day-to-day operations, including the progress of the children, fell under her responsibility, alongside a residential social worker who supervises daily care. She said any new admission begins with a referral from Child Protection Services, followed by an initial meeting involving herself, a senior manager, the social worker and an external professional assigned to the case.
Contact between children and parents, she said, is usually coordinated through the child's own social worker, with supervised visits typically overseen by a supervisor from FSWS. Cardona was quick to credit her staff, describing her team as "a godsend" and saying no manager could do the job well without a strong team behind them, since carers are the ones present with the children on the floor every day. She said the wellbeing of her team directly shapes the quality of care the children receive, and that everyone at the home, whatever their role, deserved to be treated first and foremost as a person.
Cardona said what initially drew her to residential childcare was what she described as a "residential bug" - a calling that not everyone shares. She has worked in residential settings for approximately nine years, beginning in homelessness services, moving into work with the migrant community, and spending the last four years in alternative care. She said residential work was a particular privilege because, unlike other sectors where professionals might see a client once a week or once a fortnight, residential carers see children every day, witnessing their full routines, their milestones and what makes them excited. She said her academic background in psychology, together with her training as a family therapist, had shaped the client-centred approach she takes to the role, and that, in her view, a manager could not do the job well without being led by that same principle.
The hardest part of the job, Cardona said, was not necessarily the emotional weight of sitting with children through some of the most difficult moments of their lives, which she described as both the hardest and most privileged part of the work. Instead, she pointed to more systemic barriers as the harder, less visible battle: frustration when different entities and services fail to work together, and the impact that a lack of resources can have on the children, which she said should never be the reason a child goes without.
Communicating with children too young to always express themselves verbally, Cardona said, required carers to look beyond spoken language. Play, she said, was one of the team's most valuable tools, often revealing what a child was feeling even when they could not say so directly, with some children opening up during play in ways they would not during conversation.
Cardona said the home's trauma-informed approach is embedded in a project she created specifically for Dar Santa Tereża, known as "me/we time", which targets children's attachment needs and nurtures both individual and group connection. Under the project, each child is allocated a specific one-to-one care worker responsible primarily for their day-to-day care. She said this gave children consistency and individual attention while also giving carers a greater sense of ownership over the children they work with. Describing herself as a "safeguarding fanatic", Cardona said nothing was considered too small to overlook, and that a culture of safeguarding had to run through even the smallest everyday moments, for the sake of both the children and the staff.
On what happens once a child leaves Dar Santa Tereża, whether through reunification, fostering or adoption, Cardona said her team remains closely involved throughout the transition planning process and continues to be a point of contact afterwards, though the primary professional relationship shifts to whichever setting the child moves into. She said some contact is maintained on a case-by-case basis, with some families sending updates or requesting visits years later, though once a child has resettled, contact is generally reduced. Children who have transitioned out are not brought back to visit the home's flats, a safeguard Cardona said is in place both to support their own transition process and to protect the children still living there.
The rising cost of residential childcare, reported to be between €64,000 and €70,000 per child annually, was described by Cardona as an ongoing pressure. She said the home relied on support from the government and the Archdiocese of Malta, alongside fundraising, discounted rates from businesses and donations from the public, including items given away free on online marketplaces, adding that the foundation remained committed to ensuring children did not miss out on experiences enjoyed by their peers simply because of their circumstances.
Cardona said the shift in Malta from larger institutional settings towards smaller, family-style homes had allowed for more individualised attention, with fewer children per flat but more staff on hand. She said this also reduced the risk of one child's distress affecting a larger group, allowing for calmer, more private moments and a more preventative approach to care.
Supervision and support for staff, Cardona said, were treated as essential given the emotional demands of the work, with regular individual supervision, team meetings and an open-door policy she operates even outside office hours. She said she took a reflective approach to supervision, and that this again came back to seeing colleagues as people first, rather than simply the roles they fulfil.
On what people misunderstand about children's residential homes, Cardona said the public perception of an institutional atmosphere was often overstated, adding that the children in her care were, in her words, no different from any other child, having simply lived through situations they did not deserve.
Asked what she hoped for the children who pass through Dar Santa Tereża, Cardona said she hoped they left with the tools and memories to help them heal, describing the process of watching a child transform from admission to departure as one of the most rewarding parts of the job.