Школа приемных родителей Во Владивостоке 2020 -Юрий Степанченко

For more than ten years, the School of Foster Parents has been operating in Vladivostok, which was opened at the initiative of the Public Organization “For Social and Psychological Support of Families in Primorsky Krai”. For 2009, this was a real breakthrough - the school became the first and at that time the only organization in the region helping to prepare people for accepting a step-child into their family. To some extent, the creation of this organization was ahead of its time - after all, literally three years later, a federal law was adopted, according to which, in order to accept a child into your family, you must first undergo special psychological training. Lyudmila Mirgorodskaya - the permanent head of the public organization "For social and psychological support of families of Primorsky Krai" spoke about the work of this School, as well as about

Yuri Vasilievich Stepanchenko

- Lyudmila Konstantinovna, what are the main tasks of the School for adoptive parents?

- The most important goal of the School is to prepare people for accepting a child into their family. Before finding a new family member, candidates for foster families must undergo compulsory training in special services for psychological, pedagogical and social support of foster families. Now in Primorye there are twenty such institutions. The public organization for the social and psychological support of the families of the Primorsky Territory was one of the first who thought about training future adoptive fathers and mothers. Our organization began its activities back in 2006 and was created by foster parents with the support of Yuri and Madina Stepanchenko. Then they came to classes voluntarily: someone understood the significance of the decision to take a child from an orphanage and wanted to prepare for the pitfalls, someone on himself wanted to feel the "secret of adoption" and was looking for answers to internal questions, and someone went to solve problems with adopted children. There were not many such people, but even this small group of conscientious citizens was a big breakthrough - the problem of overcrowding in children's state institutions was very acute, including due to the high percentage of secondary returns.

The fact is that in April 2006 the region adopted a law “On the provision of measures of social support to foster families in the Primorsky Territory and remuneration for foster parents”. Now, if a family entered into an agreement on the creation of a foster family and took two, three or more children from the orphanage, then on top of the allowance for each ward they were entitled to additional payments for work. It was not without a fly in the ointment: when promoting to take children into families, they forgot to tell parents that daughters and sons would not rush into their arms with a cry "Mom!" and they certainly will not behave obediently out of gratitude that they were given a home.

- It turns out that the realization literally hit the foster parents on the head during the household grinding with children?

- Exactly. Someone passed the test by the "not such" behavior of children and saved the family, and someone eventually returned the child to the institution, causing a terrible mental trauma to both. To help cope with the problems, we decided to organize an out-of-town foster school for foster parents, where access to specialists and information is limited due to remoteness. Noticing that those who are just thinking of taking a child are also showing interest in the classes, they launched a pilot service to prepare for this serious step.

- What do you first tell the candidates about in the classroom?

- That the upbringing of children is, in principle, not an easy matter, and foster children have many specific moments. Sometimes people who have successfully raised their children find it more difficult to cope with their wards than childless. Traditional experience is applied to children, to whom parent-child attachment was formed in all family members, and children, who, due to life circumstances, got into the system, develop in a completely different way and their behavioral psychology is different. How should you behave if your child got mad and ran away to another room? Experienced parents will say: in no case run after him, and even less persuade him to return, so as not to reinforce his behavior. In a normal situation, I would praise them for such an approach, but we are talking about adopted children, and in this situation, the parents have no other choice but to go after the offended child.

The blood child is absolutely sure of our love, with his screams and tantrums, he may be manipulating us. Foster children do not have such confidence - where is the guarantee that you will not leave them, as their parents once did? These children will silently, non-verbally ask you: "Do you need me?" Until you dispel their worries with tenderness, care and patience. Each parent should be aware of these nuances before reaching out to a lonely child, so as not to unknowingly make a fatal mistake out of a fateful meeting. It is clear that in a 42-hour program it is impossible to convey all the knowledge about this, but we can fully help people change their pedagogical views, rethink their own childhood problems and understand the full extent of responsibility for an adopted child.

- And what is taught at the School of Foster Parents?

- Training is divided into several blocks - medical, legal. And the most extensive block is psychological and pedagogical.
We start with motivation, because the success of accepting a child into a family largely depends on the motive - why the parents need it. There are always a lot of motives, and we study, including the pitfalls of motivation. Why do people sometimes bring their children back to institutions? The main reason that all the others boil down to is the mismatch of expectations with reality. This is the task of the School of Foster Parents - to show and discuss all these realities in advance. Of course, preparation is not a panacea for returning a child. But when in reality the adoptive family faces difficulties, everything that we took in the course starts to work. We also give the listeners an understanding of what kind of children they are, how they differ from others. After all, the early separation from the parents, naturally, will affect the development of the child, there are a number of behavioral features. These children can react to many things differently, behave in an unusual way, and it is very important to understand these nuances and reasons. We are talking about how the child's adaptation in the family proceeds, this is an extremely important stage.

- What are the difficulties in adaptation?

- During this period, anything can happen. A child who wants affection and warmth may start to push people away. He can start stealing, hiding, running away. Any deviation from normal behavior can be associated precisely with adaptation. And it is important for adoptive parents to understand this and be prepared for many things.

- Is your work limited to a course for adoptive parents or can such families in the future count on your support and advice?

- Of course, they can always come to us or call us to discuss emerging issues. Many do well on their own. But some part of people continues to contact us. They often ask for advice during the adaptation of the child to the family. For some families, this period is rather difficult, and they can be closely accompanied by us. There are situations when we put families on the so-called "hot phone" and allow them to call specialists until late at night in case of emergency.
Some foster families contact us in times of crisis - we are ready to answer questions. We maintain contact with almost everyone.

- Have you noticed that recently the society has paid attention to children with disabilities?

- It is difficult not to notice the questionnaires of not only healthy but also children with disabilities disappearing from the Data Bank. I remember the first time in my practice a woman approached me about to take an HIV-positive girl into care. The baby really sunk into the soul of the future adoptive mother, but she was able to take her home only after the child was 1.5 years old - the doctors said to wait until the diagnosis was confirmed or removed. A few years later, the same woman took under her wing a little boy with the same disease - the brother of her adopted daughter. Even ten years ago, such stories were considered out of the ordinary.

Many of these children live in my "ward" families, the quality and duration of their life is on a par with children without status with proper care. How, in essence, is an HIV-positive child different from a healthy one? Only by strictly taking pills at the same time. Otherwise, they are golden children who, due to constant antiviral therapy, rarely get viral colds. For those wishing to accept special children with HIV, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, etc., we hold individual meetings with a psychotherapist.

- How big is the team of the School of Foster Parents? Who works for you? How financially burdensome is it?

- There are three of us. Two psychologists and a psychotherapist. Sometimes we involve a lawyer. Fortunately, representatives of Primorye business help us organize many events. For example, in Vladivostok, the construction businessman Yuri Stepanchenko, in addition to being one of the founders of our Public Organization, has provided us with office space for free use, helps with the organization of annual balls for foster parents and their children, which we hold at the hotel " Versailles ". More than a hundred people gather at this big event - our employees, foster mothers and fathers and their children. Our team has a thorough approach to the ball - we ourselves come up with a festive program, make a menu and buy gifts for our little guests. This event is also a kind of support for foster parents. We see how children grow up, how relationships develop in families, we answer parents' questions in an informal, almost family environment. If we feel tension in the eyes of our parents, then we certainly offer them our help and invite them to "tea".

In general, without the support of business, it would be very difficult to carry out, for example, the new charity program "Traveling Summer School". Parents and children from all over Primorye are invited to the recreation center for five days, and each family lives in a separate house for four people on the seashore. Judging by the feedback from families, our idea allowed them not only to get to know and share experiences with other foster parents, but also to “patch up” their family relations with the help of our specialists, parents and children receive qualified psychological and pedagogical assistance. And, most importantly, the goal of the project is successfully achieved - the prevention of secondary refusals and emotional burnout of foster parents.

- With what motivation do people most often decide to take someone else's child under their wing?

- In fact, there is no specific motive. It happens so - "fell in love", a chance meeting, and a person begins to understand that he cannot leave this particular child in an orphanage. This decision can not be influenced by age, gender, appearance, or even the health of the child. It's so simple, no matter what you did before - you lay with your blood child in the hospital, went to the orphanage for work, walked in the park, picked up your daughter from the children's camp, the outcome will be the same - you suddenly met your child, who is terrible life mistake lives in an orphanage. “I looked into his eyes and realized that I can’t live without him,” such stories are told to me by adoptive parents.

There is also motivation - who, if not me. These people consciously take on the mission to help children find themselves in this life, who will definitely not be taken into families: deeply disabled children, correctional children with mental retardation, older adolescents, "children's families" of four people, etc.

In general, parents have a lot of motivations, but all of them are united by one thing - a sincere desire to give warmth, a family, to bring up and not allow the mistakes of biological parents to be repeated.

- Lyudmila Konstantinovna, what advice can you give to people who are thinking about accepting a child, but have not yet made a specific decision?

- First, read about it on the Internet or in specialized books - to diversify the available information. And, of course, you can come to the School of Foster Parents. Coming to School does not oblige you to become an adoptive parent. There are often people in groups who have not made a decision and are not sure they will. They want to listen to information and work on themselves. Often, potential adoptive parents or guardians do not realize the full measure of responsibility that falls on them, do not understand what problems they will have to face when raising adopted children. And as a result - fear, panic and, as the most extreme case, abandonment of the child. Psychological preparation allows you to avoid this, facilitate adaptation, make the process of creating a new family faster and more effective and get real pleasure from communicating with your child.