Charity Foundation for Orphans «Here and Now»
Online Support for Foster Families in Russia's Regions
CSS contribution, rubles
Total budget, rubles
Implementation period, months
Project idea
The idea of the project is that regional foster families with children with special developmental and behavioral needs will be able to get professional help to solve their problems in an accessible format.
The aim of this project is to provide foster parents with new knowledge and skills necessary for raising a child, as well as for safe and comfortable interaction within the family.
The main goal of all project activities is to reduce the percentage of orphans returning to state institutions, overcome crises in foster families and improve child-parent relations. There will also be lectures to prevent emotional burnout in caregivers.
The project intends to organize online consultations for foster parents.
There are also plans to prepare a set of books for family reading with children. The books will address topics about the behavioral difficulties of a foster child and provide suggestions for dealing with these types of problems.
Relevance
According to the 2019 State Report "On the Situation of Children and Families with Children in the Russian Federation," there were 423,047 orphans, with 378,450 of them being cared for in foster families, accounting for 89.5% of the total number of orphans.
Regarding the health of all these children, the percentages are as follows:
- Practically healthy: 13.9%;
- Have functional disorders: 54.9%;
- Have chronic diseases: 24.5%;
- Have diseases leading to disability: 1%;
- Children with disabilities: 4.2%.
Families with a foster child with developmental, health and behavioral disabilities are in dire need of comprehensive professional individual assistance.
The fact is that problems in the child-parent relationship provoke intra-family difficulties. This leads to a decrease in the psychological stability of foster moms and dads and, as a consequence, may result in the return of the child back to the orphanage.
In 2018, 5,368 decisions to transfer an orphanage pupil to a family were canceled in Russia. However, 7.2% of the total number of children taken in by foster parents were returned to orphanages.
The reason for this state of affairs is that foster families lack social, psychological and pedagogical support.
What is needed is a comprehensive approach that encompasses the health, development, and behavior of foster children. It is necessary to structure the support program in such a way that members of foster families have the opportunity to receive comprehensive assistance, to practice new ways of behavior and to interact in groups to gain experience.
Social effect
Preventing child abandonment in Russian regions by improving parental competencies of guardians
KPI
KPI
Project Results
There are positive results after completing the project even for those who have fully completed at least one online activity.
The participants note overcoming the crisis in child-parent relations, activation of support for a foster child who has experienced a traumatic situation, increased knowledge about the peculiarities of such children, increased parental competence, and decreased percentage of emotional burnout. Consequently, this reduces the incidence of secondary orphanhood.
Individuals who underwent one-on-one consultations with specialized experts reported reduced anxiety and a return to a normal psychological state while raising a foster child with developmental, health, and behavioral challenges.
Foster parents who independently study informational resources, such as a family reading book, also report enhanced interactions with their child.
Project progress after CSS funding
The financial base of the organization is stable: there is a pool of regular donors of individuals and business companies. Some partners offer consistent in-kind support and pro bono services.
Nearly all intellectual creations can be reproduced in the future at a negligible cost, and the value of the information is quite significant.
