How to provide the best environment for children: what Ukrainians need to know – Views

By statistics project “Monitoring the needs and support of children in conditions of war” of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine there were more than 67 thousand orphans and children deprived of parental care.

Such a number indicates that society and the state should conduct a more active dialogue on the prevention of orphanhood, including social orphanhood, which often arises due to families falling into difficult life circumstances. It is also necessary to popularize family forms of education. After all, a child who is brought up in a foster family or in a family-type orphanage has more opportunities to be happy than one who grows up in institutions.

Boarding today – support or harm?

A child who is brought up in a boarding school, both on a personal and social level, does not get what he needs. Boarding school does not form a child’s idea of ​​the family and the functions of parents. Such children do not know what family care, support and faith are. A boarding school will never replace a reliable adult mentor who will help shape a child’s outlook and personality in the future.

Pupils of boarding schools often experience loneliness, isolation from society, condemnation, a constant lack of attention and sincere love. Such children may not only lag behind in emotional development and have difficulties in communication, but also experience violence, humiliation and leveling of the personality, may even become a victim of human trafficking and exploitation, get criminal experience, etc.

In accordance with research 76% of Ukrainians consider the existence of residential institutions a necessity. And would there be such a high rate among the respondents if the population knew about all available forms of family education? After all, 83% admitted that it is necessary to reform the institutional system.

European vector

EU countries have long understood that the best environment for a child’s growth and development is in the family. Since Ukraine has already become a candidate for membership of the European Union, this opens up opportunities for us to build a new foundation at the legislative level. That is, purposefully and gradually we have to create the basis for ensuring each child’s growth in the family.

According to the European Commission, in Ukraine, about 1.5% of all children grow up in residential institutions. This is one of the highest rates of institutionalization of children in the world. Such a situation requires permanent and comprehensive solutions. Therefore, currently in Ukraine, with the support of the European Commission, a new strategy for the care and support of children, or deinstitutionalization reform, is being developed.

This reform is of key importance for the preservation and development of human capital and ensuring the right of every child in Ukraine to grow up in a family environment. Young people who have had institutional experience, with whom the specialists of the IBO “BF “SOS Children’s Villages” work, emphasize that it is the family that helps them to socialize better, even when the child found parents already in adolescence.

If there are more Ukrainians willing to create a foster family, accept a child into their family, and the necessary services for families with children will be created in communities – the need for residential institutions will disappear in the country.

About different forms of family education

When a child cannot grow up in a biological family for various reasons, family forms of upbringing become an alternative for orphans and children deprived of parental care.

Forms of family arrangement include adoption, guardianship, foster family, and family-type orphanage. Each form has its own characteristics, which are often confusing. Therefore, let’s consider each in more detail.

• Adoption – when a child is adopted into a family with the rights of a native, when his parents have died or are deprived of their rights. She loses her orphan status and gets parents with the rights and responsibilities that exist between biological parents and children.
• Guardianship (up to 14 years) or guardianship (from 14 to 18 years): any adult capable person can become a guardian, but relatives have the preferential right to establish guardianship over a child.
• Foster family can have from 1 to 4 children, whom adoptive parents voluntarily accept for education and must provide them with a proper life until the age of 18 or until 23 (if the foster child receives an education). All state benefits and guarantees are kept for the child. The main goal of this form of education is to ensure proper conditions for living in a family environment for orphans and children deprived of parental care.
• Family-type orphanage – this is when from 5 to 10 children are brought up in the family. Parents-educators and pupils retain all the rights and obligations, just like the adoptive family. This form was created to ensure that large family groups of children have the opportunity to grow up together, so that siblings are not separated.
• Foster family is a temporary care service that provides for the education and rehabilitation of a child for a period of up to 3 months. Then the child is either returned to the biological parents, who had to solve their problems, or another permanent family is found for them. Foster carers receive financial support for child support and wages.

Who can become a foster father or mother?

Adoptive parents can be an able-bodied couple who have already created their own family, or an individual who is not married.

The foster family receives benefits and assistance from the state on a regular basis. Namely:

• the state provides funds for the maintenance of the child and pays financial support to one of the adoptive parents;
• adopted children retain the status of an orphan and all relevant benefits are provided for by law;
• the family receives support and assistance from the Children’s Service;
• previously assigned alimony, pensions, other payments, which are transferred to the children’s personal bank account, are kept;
• social support service at the Center for the provision of social services, etc.

Parents’ motivation

According to the observations of Anastasia Marynovych, specialist in the field on alternative forms of education of MBO “BF “SOS Children’s Town” Ukrainesince the full-scale invasion began, the number of people wanting to adopt children into their family has increased.

They are often driven by the desire to give warmth and love, care and give them a future. But there is no single portrait – people with different stories and, accordingly, with different motivations come to study candidates for family forms of education. Conditionally, they can be divided into several groups.

Guardians Due to life circumstances, when a child loses his parents, relatives take him under his care. In this case, their main motivation is that the child does not end up in an institutional facility, but remains in the family.

Adoptive parents. The motivation for most of them is the desire to give the child love and a complete family. Usually, such parents have their own children, and they are prompted by some incident or even just a meeting to become foster parents for another child.

For example, we know volunteers who constantly traveled to the East of Ukraine, saw children and the conditions in which they live, and this motivated them to help and adopt children into their families.

Adoptive parents Usually these are people who do not have or cannot have biological children of their own for some reason, but want to have a complete family (in their words) by adopting a child. Often they choose adoption, mainly focusing on young children. In general, this motivation is probably 60%.

There are cases when people who have lost everything sought to adopt a child. Once a woman from Mariupol came to our training. She was ready to accept up to five children into the family; said that she understands how much the child needs a family, and wants to give it to them.

There are candidates who themselves were brought up in foster families or family-type children’s homes and now also have a desire to help children, as they once helped them.

At the same time, we are now observing another motivation – “hidden”. In this case, the main impetus for adopting a child into the family is to receive armor from mobilization. This motivation worries us a lot. After all, when the war ends, the question may arise as to what will happen next to these children who have “fulfilled their function” – will they remain in their families or not.

It also sometimes happens that people come to us for training, but then refuse because they understand how difficult it will be for them. And it is very good when the realization of this happens in time.

In our practice, there was a mature couple who already have adult children and grandchildren. But already after the first day of training, they gave up on this idea – because of their certain tragic circumstances, which they have not yet managed to survive.

Another telling case is when people came as potential adopters and later decided to become adoptive parents. The motivation for them was the desire to give children a family, proper care, care and love. They wanted to adopt one child, but ended up taking three.

There are parents who are ready to accept a child with a disability and do everything to improve his adaptation in society. But these are isolated cases.

All these examples testify to the gradual transformations in our society regarding the readiness to take children into families, the awareness of the harm of the institutional system for children and the development of family forms of upbringing as an inseparable component in ensuring the right of every child to grow up in a family. And if you have long been considering the issue of adoption or creating a foster family, a family-type orphanage, you can get all the necessary information about the requirements for candidates in the chatbot of the IBO “BF “SOS Children’s Town” Ukraine at link.

Anastasia Marynovychspecialist in the field of alternative forms of education of MBO “BF “SOS Children’s Towns” Ukraine, especially for UP. Life

Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect exclusively the author’s point of view.