Hevitra ato Anatiny
This case is one of many: after several years in a foster family, the children again ended up in an orphanage. Spouses Romanchuk with 7 adopted children moved to Moscow from Kaliningrad, but, having not received capital allowances, they returned the children to the care of the state. We do not try to look for right and wrong. Our goal is to understand why this is happening. We talked to several experts about this.
This story began four years ago: a couple from Kaliningrad adopted a second-grader, a year later — his little brother. Then — two more children in Kaliningrad and three, brothers and sisters, in Petrozavodsk.
A year and a half ago, the family moved to Moscow, but they failed to obtain the status of a metropolitan foster family and increased payments per child (85 rubles instead of regional 000 rubles). Having received a refusal, the couple returned the children to the care of the state.
So the children ended up in a Moscow orphanage. Four of them will be taken back to the Kaliningrad orphanage, and the children from Petrozavodsk may be adopted in the near future.
«BRING AND LEAVE THE CHILDREN LATE AT EVENING — THIS SAYS A LOT»
Vadim Menshov, director of the Nash Dom Family Education Assistance Center:
The situation in Russia itself has become explosive. The mass transfer of children in large groups to families is a problem. Often people are driven by mercantile interests. Not all of them, of course, but in this case it happened exactly like that, and the children ended up in our orphanage. I am very good with professional foster families. But the key word here is «professional».
Everything is different here. Judge for yourself: a family from Kaliningrad takes children from their region, but travels with them to Moscow. For children they give an allowance: in the amount of 150 rubles. per month — but this is not enough for the family, because they rent a large mansion. The court makes a decision not in favor of the guardians — and they bring the children to the Moscow orphanage. Guardianship authorities offer to visit children, take them home for the weekend so that they do not feel abandoned, and after some time take them away for good. But the caregivers refuse to do so.
The guys are well-groomed, well-mannered, but the kids did not cry and did not shout: “Mom!” It says a lot
The children were brought to our orphanage and left late in the evening. I talked with them, the guys are wonderful: well-groomed, well-mannered, but the kids did not cry and did not shout: “Mom!” This speaks volumes. Although the eldest boy — he is twelve — is very worried. A psychologist works with him. We often talk about the problem of children from orphanages: they do not have a sense of affection. But these particular children grew up in a foster family…
«THE MAIN REASON FOR RETURNS OF CHILDREN IS EMOTIONAL BURNOUT»
Olena Tseplik, head of the Find a Family Charitable Foundation:
Why are foster children being returned? Most often, parents encounter serious behavioral deviations in a child, do not know what to do about it, and do not receive any help. Severe fatigue, emotional outbursts begin. Your own unresolved injuries and other problems may come up.
In addition, it cannot be said that foster parenting is approved by society. The foster family finds itself in social isolation: at school, the adopted child is pressed, relatives and friends release critical remarks. Parents inevitably experience burnout, they cannot do anything themselves, and there is nowhere to get help from. And the result is a return.
An infrastructure is needed that will help foster families in the rehabilitation of the child. We need accessible support services with social curators of families, psychologists, lawyers, teachers who will be ready to “pick up” any problem, support mom and dad, explain to them that their problems are normal and solvable, and help with the solution.
There is another «systemic failure»: any state structure inevitably becomes not a supporting environment, but a controlling authority. It is clear that to accompany the family, maximum delicacy is needed, which is very difficult to achieve at the state level.
If they returned the adoptive, then this is, in principle, a possible scenario — the blood child thinks
It must be understood that the return of a foster child to an orphanage causes tremendous trauma to all family members. For the child himself, the return is another reason to lose trust in an adult, close and survive alone. Behavioral deviations in adopted children are not caused by their poor genetics, as we usually think, but by the traumas that the child received in an asocial birth family, during its loss and during collective upbringing in an orphanage. Therefore, bad behavior is a demonstration of great inner pain. The child is looking for a way to convey to adults how bad and difficult it is, in the hope of being understood and cured. And if there is a return, for the child it is actually a recognition that no one will ever be able to hear and help him.
There are also social consequences: a child who has been returned to an orphanage has much less chance of finding a family again. Candidates for foster parents see a return mark in the child’s personal file and imagine the most negative scenario.
For failed adoptive parents, the return of a child to an orphanage is also a huge stress. First, an adult signs his own insolvency. Secondly, he understands that he is betraying the child, and he develops a stable sense of guilt. As a rule, those who went through the return of an adopted child then require a long rehabilitation.
Of course, there are other stories when parents, defending themselves, shift the blame for the return to the child himself (he behaved badly, did not want to live with us, did not love us, did not obey), but this is just a defense, and the trauma from his own insolvency doesn’t disappear.
And, of course, it is extremely difficult for blood children to experience such situations if their guardians have them. If the foster child was returned, then this is, in principle, a possible scenario — this is how a natural child thinks when his yesterday’s «brother» or «sister» disappears from the life of the family and returns to the orphanage.
«THE MATTER IS IN THE IMPERFECTION OF THE SYSTEM ITSELF»
Elena Alshanskaya, head of the Charitable Foundation «Volunteers to help orphans»:
Unfortunately, the return of children to orphanages is not isolated: there are more than 5 of them a year. This is a complex problem. There is no consistency in the family device system, sorry for the tautology. From the very beginning, all options for restoring the birth family or kinship care are not sufficiently worked out, the stage of selecting parents for each specific child, with all its characteristics, temperament, problems, is not laid down, there is no assessment of family resources based on the needs of the child.
No one works with a specific child, with his injuries, with determining the trajectory of life that he needs: is it better for him to return home, to an extended family or to a new one, and what kind of it should be in order to suit him. A child is often not prepared to move to a family, and the family itself is not prepared to meet this particular child.
The support of the family by specialists is important, but it is not available. There is control, but the way it is arranged is meaningless. With normal support, the family would not suddenly move, in a situation of uncertainty, where and on what it will live with foster children in another region.
Obligations are not only for the foster family in relation to the child, but also for the state in relation to children
Even if it is decided that, for example, due to the medical needs of the child, he needs to be transferred to another region where there is a suitable clinic, the family must be transferred from hand to hand to the escort authorities in the territory, all movements must be agreed in advance.
Another issue is payments. The spread is too great: in some regions, the remuneration of a foster family can be in the amount of 2-000 rubles, in others — 3 rubles. And this, of course, provokes families to move. It is necessary to create a system in which payments will be more or less equal — of course, taking into account the characteristics of the regions.
Naturally, there should be guaranteed payments in the territory where the family arrives. Obligations are not only for the foster family in relation to the child, but also for the state in relation to children whom it itself has transferred to education. Even if the family moves from region to region, these obligations cannot be removed from the state.
«CHILDREN SURVIVED A SERIOUS INJURY»
Irina Mlodik, psychologist, gestalt therapist:
In this story, we are likely to see only the tip of the iceberg. And, seeing only her, it is easy to accuse parents of greed and the desire to make money on children (although raising foster children is not the easiest way to earn money). Due to the lack of information, one can only put forward versions. I have three.
— Selfish intent, building a complex combination, the pawns of which are children and the Moscow government.
— Inability to play the role of parents. With all the stress and hardships, this resulted in psychosis and abandonment of children.
— Painful parting with children and breaking of attachment — perhaps the guardians understood that they could not take care of the children, and hoped that another family would do better.
You can tell children that these adults were not ready to become their parents. They tried but they didn’t succeed
In the first case, it is important to conduct an investigation so that there are no more such precedents. In the second and third, the couple’s work with a psychologist or psychotherapist could help.
If, nevertheless, the guardians refused only out of selfish motives, one can tell the children that these adults were not ready to become their parents. They tried, but they didn’t succeed.
In any case, the children were seriously traumatized, experienced a life-changing rejection, the severing of meaningful ties, a loss of trust in the adult world. It is very important to understand what really happened. Because it’s one thing to live with the experience of “you were used by scammers,” and quite another to live with the experience of “your parents failed” or “your parents tried to give you everything, but they failed and thought that other adults would do it better.”
Text: Dina Babaeva, Marina Velikanova, Yulia Tarasenko.