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 FoundationMoscow

mftern@mail.ru www.pro-mama.ru

(499)-267-74-19

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

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Отделение для подростков ипостинтернатного сопровождения

Консультация длязамещающих семей

Методический центр

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 children’s 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 Assessments

Familysupport

Monitoring Family change

and progress

Temporal Removals and

TemporalFoster

placements

returninghome

permanent(long-term)

Fosterplacements

After-placementSupport

and supervision

Child- centered approach

4 family residential units in the orphanage itselfFirst –stop unit; Rehabilitation and preparation unit,

Adolescents Unit«Young mothers unit»

Child social workers Case management

Support Monitoring

All specialists – child psychologists, Educational specialists,

Medical doctors, neurologists- An on-going supervision and support

Birth family team Working with natural parents

Contact, reunification, etc

Foster families

Guardians

Adoptive families

Foster care teamRecruitment

Training Assessment

Of foster and adoptivefamilies

1

Case management

BirthFamilyteam

Rehabil.team

residen-tial workers

Fosteringteam

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 LawWhat 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 withBirth parents

Assessment and

preparationFor 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 child’s 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 child’s 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 Carer’s 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• + 100 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%)

70%

13%1%6%2%8%

сироты ОБПР подкидыши оставленные отказные бомжи

The Age of children at the time of their foster placement

Возраст помещения в семью

9

15

6

35

3129

26

2123

2624

19 19

25

15

11

24 3 2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

возраст при помещении в семю

кол

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Ряд1

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

jobThat 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 18• 28 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

Состав семьи

120; 25%

152; 32%

56; 12%

146; 31%

полных с детьми

полных без детей

неполных с детьми

неполных без детей

2-parents family with children

2 –parents family without children

Single mothers with children

Single women without children

Число приемных детей в семье

149 69%

37 17%

17 8%

6 3%

3 1%

4 2%

1 ребенок

2 детей

3 детей

4 детей

5 детей

6-11 детей

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 crisis1-3 months(honeymoon breackdown)

2 crisis:1 year (family adaptation and boundaries)

PubertyLeaving care crisis

Orphanage No 19 data, for 10 years of observation

Results:Child development progress

Распределение по совокупности показателей

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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At admission – low score – severe retardation

At present – normal development

Results for Economics – 37% of savings for budgets

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7000

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

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Стоимость содержания

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Стоимость содержания

ребенка в патр семье

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 child’s 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 familyPlacements governmental body

Local authority 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

assessmentsFamily preservation

TemporalFoster placements

Permanent fosterplacements.

Family reunification

Regional data base for children who need placement

Rehab.Residential

unit

Children not placed with families

Families in crisis

Families who want tofoster

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

orphanagesorphanages

Adoptee’s journey in an old model

ПМСЦ1ПМСЦ1

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ПМСЦ2ПМСЦ2ООП 1

Adoptee’s journey in a new model

Центр Семейногоустройства

ООП

A Model for a Region

Professional placement

Services- centres

Dissemination centreA working placement

service

Remainingorphanages

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…

How to restructure? A process of a real transformation of an orphanage into a placement service

Children are placed with families

1st

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 agency2. 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 concepts5. 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

Число детей в детских домах

-200000

-100000

0

100000

200000

300000

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21

годы

чи

сло

дет

ей

Без патроната

Патронат призаданныхпараметрах

Коэффициенты устраиваемости детей в семью : дети в возрасте 0-3 года устраиваются на 100%, дети 4-11 лет – на 70%, дети 12-15 лет – на 30%, подростки в возрасте 16-18 лет не устраиваются в семью и остаются в учреждениях (коэффициент = 0%).

Without

Foster services)

With foster

services

`

What’s 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 FoundationMoscow

mftern@mail.ru www.pro-mama.ru

(499)-267-74-19

Thank you!