Results of the Our Family experimental foster family placement activity Moscow, Russia Maria Ternovskaya, PhD, director & Olga Shalkouskaya, head of the foster care service The Orphanage No 19 The Foster Care Centre The Our Family Charitable Foundation Moscow (499)

Basic Facts for The Orphanage No 19 The Foster Care Centre Founded in 1994 ( full operation from 1996) As an orphanage boarding-out project operating as a family-placement and family support service in addition to a rehabilitation and preparation for family placement residential unit From 2000 – operates also as a first-stop unit for street children and children in need Since 2001 has developed agreements with local authorities child protection and family placements which allowed to exercise duties as a family placement service A new budgeting scheme was developed which allowed to pay foster carers as guardians but from the budget of the restructured orphanage Since 2007г – was moved under the responsibility of the Moscow Department for family and youth policy

The history of foster care in Russia Catherine the II XIX century After-revolution period Governmental decree of 1943г 1996г. – started again in Moscow 2008г. 42 regions involved Federal Law 48 has identified foster care as a form of guardianship which should be defined by the regional laws Foster care (Patronat) = 2 different types of activities -Fostering a child -Family preservation activity If to compare with what is Foster care in the world: From antiquity to now-days

Main principals used at the Our Family foster care project Case management and care planning. Child-centered and multidimensional approach – identifying and providing for all needs that child has (physical, intellectual, social and emotional) Multidisciplinary approach: all professionals are in place and they coordinate their work with the child and family in order to achieve better results for the child

The Orphanage No 19 Foster Care Centre structure

Main case management processes used at the Our Family orphanage No 19 Foster care project + a continuous intervention - care planning and on-going reviewing of cases + multidisciplinary team works with all kinds of childrens needs + the developed and well maintained contact of the family and this team (the family communicates with the same professionals of the same service at all the times) In-take Assess ments Family support Monitoring Family change and progress Temporal Removals and Temporal Foster placements returning home permanent (long-term) Foster placements After- placement Support and supervision

Child- centered approach

1 Case management Birth Family team Rehabil. team residen- tial workers Fostering team Child Social workers Rehabilitation team (all specialists and social workers) Track the case for as long as child and family need

Main work principals To find a family for a child Priority of birth family preservation Raising of an orphan child is a job Quality of contact between the family and the service – division of responsibilities among professionals with well organized internal communication An on-going foster family support From Permanency to Continuity and Resilience

Some questions answered Differences between foster care in our sense and other forms of family placements defined in the Russian Family Code? Legal aspects – the legal status of the child, of the service, of the local authority agencies? Which agreement is being signed? Who keeps a custody for a child or are these responsibilities shared? What is the division of rights and duties between the orphanage and the local authority agency. What does the Moscow law regulates and what should be approved at the federal level What about a professionalization for foster carers – how far is the Labor Code used here?

What to change in the Law What we have 10 definitions for children in need Parental rights cannot be shared Only administrators of the governments have the rights to do all the family placement work Types of family placements leave parents alone to cope with the needs of the children, after-placement support does not have a legal regulation No legal regulation for forms of family support What we need A unified definition for categories of the children looked after Parental rights should be shared Professional services are needed that will have the rights to do the work for family placements A new foster care should be approved in order to fix the rights of the parents, the rights of the services which should provide support at all stages of placement Family support work should be legally defined

Child should be prepared for family placement Working with Birth parents Assessment and preparation For foster family Matching process Child-family After- placement support by all specialists and social workers 5 basic parts of every family placement activity

Why do we need to prepare children for a family placement? 50-70% of children experiences severe abuse or neglect and require an extensive post-traumatic therapy: -To cope with implications of child abuse -To cope with a break of attachments or with an absence of attachments How to prepare a child: - To create a multidisciplinary team of specialists (psychologists, educators, doctors, neurologists, etc) - to use this multidisciplinary team which will make a thorough diagnostics and then work with the childs emotional conditions where she or he is: -At the rehabilitation units -At the special foster families who take such children in order to help with diagnostics and primary rehabilitation -To work thoroughly with the birth parents in order to do what possible in order to be sure if child could be returned back or not and then work with childs feelings about that before any family placements

Intake Registering of the case First assessments Further assessment and Safety plan Decisions Follow-up assessments Family change strategy developed Provision of services and family dynamics assessments Final assessment/ closing Local authority Commission for child protection How to work with Birth parents - general

Why to prepare foster and adoptive families Assessments Giving an information and elimination of myths Creating of a positive contact with the service – as a basis for a success of the after-placements assistance and supervision Identification and developing of competences Helping to make decisions Psychological support at the time of making a decision about fostering or adoption

Foster Carers Journey Receiving of an information First contact on the telephone or in person Group meeting Personal interview(s) Registration at training and psychological tests Training, homework and family assessment Approval Selection of a family for a child Waiting list Meeting the child Long-term fostering Short-term fostering After-placement support and further training, supervision

History of approaches to foster carers assessments training Who are they as people (personality assessment) What is their family (assessment of a family system) What they can provide to a child (competences)

Some statistics from Our Family 13-years long experience For Children: Provided Family preservation for 187 children 305 placed with the orphanage project. 250 children were placed with 203 families children from other orphanages were placed with 85 families trained by the project Only 6 % of children were not placed with a family and, at the age of 18, they graduated from residential units Moved to other institutions – 12 children (to other regions and circus school), (3 children were in temporal families) 53 care leavers 55 returned home (12 children were in temporal families) 12 foster families arranged guardianship (6 after long-term fostering) 25 foster parents adopted their foster children 6 intercountry adopted children 94% of children have been helped by the project activity

Foster children Legal background Parents are alcoholics – 40%, all birth family members have alcoholism – 29% Were severely abused (18,3 %), Were sexually abused (28,2%)

The Age of children at the time of their foster placement age

Selection process dynamics interviews training (58 groups) Fostered a child 183

Foster families Statistics 4000 telephone calls 867 interviewed 460 families were trained (58 groups) 435 families completed assessments process 280 families became foster families 72,5% fostered children from orphanage No19 27,5% fostered children elsewhere

Foster families statistics 250 children were fostered by 203 families 183 (90%) were successful fpster parents and kept the job That is 21,2% of all those who passed the interview и 7- 10% of those who telephoned the project 94 foster parents are working now 27 foster parents have left because children reached the age of became guardians and adoptive parents 12 foster families work as professional short-term carers 34 foster parents were successful short-term carers in addition to their long-tern fostering ( at least once)

More foster families statistics Average age – 43,6 years old, and 42,9 years old for those who are successful carers 58,3% have full families with 2 parents, 66% of all successful carers are married couples 44,8% have children of their own, 45,9% - is the proportion for successful carers 12% lost their birth children 16 семей = 26% of all childless children (due to medical reasons) gave birth to their kids after they fostered a child

Family structure 2-parents family with children 2 –parents family without children Single mothers with children Single women without children

Numbers of foster children in a foster families 1 child 2 children 3 children 4 children 5 children

Why are the after-placement support and supervision needed? The aim: prevention of removals, of child abuse and support the adaptation A unified system of assessment and after-placement support is needed For the child it gives: an on-going process of diagnostics, prognosis and planning, as well as support and control based on a good communication For the family it provides A direct in home help Legal support and social assistance Professional consultation and group or personal therapy after placement training Meeting other carers Who is involved in the after-placement work: Child social worker Psychologist Medical doctor Educational specialists Fostering social workers Birth family social workers

Dynamics of child adaptation in a new family 1 crisis 1-3 months (honeymoon breackdown) 2 crisis: 1 year (family adaptation and boundaries) Puberty Leaving care crisis Orphanage No 19 data, for 10 years of observation

Results: Child development progress At admission – low score – severe retardation At present – normal development

Results for Economics – 37% of savings for budgets

General results of Foster Care practice 95% of children in the orphanage are placed with families Good practice of family preservation Stable and safe placements with new foster families After-placement support has is legally protected (is a part of placement agreements) A working model to restructure of an orphanage into a system of social services for children So it is a working model for deinstitualization Ready to be duplicated anywhere in the contry

What do we want? For a child: All children should be brought up in the families: - in their biological families - or in the new families We also seek a quality for children: Their developmental needs should be met in the best possible way -health -attachments and emotional development -identity -Education and intellectual development -Behavioral development -Social adaptation Stability of placements Efficacy and resilience in the future How to do it?

Why was our experience so effective? Main results

Resume No1 A continuous child protection and placement process should be introduced Family preservation and family placements should be two parts of one unified decision-making process

Resume 2: Conditions for a successful child and family adaptation: 1.Quality of attachments and child-family relations 2. Quality of partnership between the family and the service 3. The rights and duties of the service (as well as of the local authority) are legally defined

Resume 3: Why is the present official system not so effective? No child protection case management (not-coordinated and broken child protection and family placements process) Administering of forms of family placements and not working with the childs needs Local authority dies not have any parental responsibility for a child after a placement is done and so they simply do not have duties to support Existed forms of family placements (guardianship and adoption) do not have any legal basis for any after-placement support as it is only the parents who become responsible for children and none else Absence of professional family placement services Myths in adoption

A New Model Should contain a professional service (which rights and duties for family placements should be defined)

A New system structure Child protection and family Placements governmental body Local authority body Organizations that are authorized to exercise duties to place children with foster families or to do family preservation

A new model approach Local authority child protection intake assessments Family preservation Temporal Foster placements Permanent foster placements. Family reunification Regional data base for children who need placement Rehab. Residential unit Children not placed with families Families in crisis Families who want to foster orphanages Intercountry adoptions Leaving care A professional service

An old model approach Local authority child protection (staff: few administrators) intake. Regional data base for children who need placements Families in crisis Families who want to foster orphanages Family placements Intercontry adoptions Child protection work Families who want to adopt or become guardians Family reunification orphanages

Adoptees journey in an old model ПМСЦ1 РБД ДД Суд ООП2 » ПМСЦ2 ООП 1

Adoptees journey in a new model Центр Семейного устройства ООП

A Model for a Region Professional placement Services- centres Dissemination centre A working placement service Remaining orphanages Other services support LA La One of the services could become a dissemination centre which could help The other services and provides a supervision

Selection Criteria for the orphanages which to restructure Motivation of the manager Values and beliefs Changes Readiness An ability of staff to be retrained An experience in placing children for adoption and guardianship A good access for general public …. And more…

H ow to restructure? A process of a real transformation of an orphanage into a placement service Children are placed with families 1 st group 2 nd group Orphanage budget 2 social workers + 1 psycholo- gist 8 foster carers To be given additionally Find and train families Released budget is used to pay for new foster carers and new staff

Developed materials 1.The operation of the local authority agency for child protection 2.The regulations : 1.For the LA child protection agency 2.For the professional service (a reformed orphanage) 3.For various professional teams operation at the professional service 3.For foster care finance 4.For foster carers competencies concepts 5.For staff of the services competencies

Methods of work developed For assessment of child's developmental needs For a preparation of the child for family placement For family preservation For family placement service operation For after-placement support and supervision For the orphanage restructuring process

Theory and programmes devreloped 4 stages of child adaptation process theory Factors and conditions for a good family adaptation Foster care as s new profession and job regulations

More developments: A Model for the regional law Regulations for the placements services and reformed orphanages Assessment and monitoring forms and methods Birth family assessment forms

Programmes development Training programme for foster and adoptive families After-placement training programmes Staff re-training programme The training programme has been approved by the Ministry of Education expert council in 2004

The evaluation system and assessment criteria for the services 1.Qualitative criteria 2.Quantitative criteria -For the child -For the family -For the service -For the local authority

Model calculations: the fall of numbers of children in orphanages with and without Foster services Коэффициенты устраиваемости детей в семью : дети в возрасте 0-3 года устраиваются на 100%, дети 4-11 лет – на 70%, дети лет – на 30%, подростки в возрасте лет не устраиваются в семью и остаются в учреждениях (коэффициент = 0%). Without Foster services) With foster services `

Whats next? How is this approach used in Russia at present and what are the perspectives for the future?

Maria Ternovskaya, PhD, director & Olga Shalkouskaya, head of foster care service The Orphanage No 19 The Foster Care Centre The Our family Charitable Foundation Moscow (499) Thank you!