Tragic! Left Behind

[Kollyvas]

http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2005-41-1

Left Behind
By Antonina Frolenkova The Moscow News
Fewer Muscovites are opting to adopt Russian children with each passing year

Changing Children's Lives
According to the Moscow ZAGS (Citizens Status Registration Department) statistics, 1,034 children were adopted in the past 8 months, which is 200 kids less than in the same period of the previous year. This annual reduction in the number of adoptions has been a tendency for the past ten years.

Some believe that Russians don't want to take children into their families due to financial difficulties, while experts say this reason is important but not decisive. After all, the most active adoption period in the city's latest history was in the mid 1980s, when Muscovites were definitely poorer than today. "People's reluctance to help orphans is a myth from which some officials profit," Maria Ternovskaya, director of Children's Home |19, asserts.

The process of adopting a Russian child by a Russian adult usually takes up to two years, and when the child finally comes to a new family, the new parents are left alone with their inevitable problems. Nobody guarantees even psychological help. So it is not surprising that 13 out of 100 adopted kids are sent back to the orphanages.

Ten years ago, the foster system (which was widespread in this country after World War II) was reestablished first in Moscow and then in 30 more Russian regions. The system was recognized as an alternative to adoption because of its relative transparency and simplicity. Under the Russian foster care model, a parent is employed by the orphanage as a child's educator. The orphan thus gets a real home while retaining the status of a children's home ward, which grants the child some benefits like getting a municipal apartment on attaining majority. On their part, the children's home specialists provide psychological, medical and educational support to the family.

Foster care is not supposed to last forever but until a child's parents or some relative can take care of him or her properly. The experience of Moscow shows, however, that most blood mothers and fathers, having got rid of the 'objectionable burden', don't return to a proper life style, and children stay with their foster family till coming of age.

Natalya Zobova is one of the first new foster mothers in the city. She found out in a local church that a neighboring children's home needed help. At the time Zobova didn't think of foster care as she had two kids of her own, aged 7 and 8. She came just to assist in routine activities. After a while she received foster training, passed the necessary tests, and met little Dima. "He was very small for 4, a thin boy with reddish hair. Dima's diagnosis was dystrophy, and he had difficulty speaking. I convinced my husband to take the child," Zobova recalls. "When he came to our family he eagerly tried to become understandable and repeated every word several times."

When Dima started to call Natalya "mama" she found out that he had a brother, Sasha, 11. Sasha had been separated from his alcohol-addicted mother some time before. The family decided to take care of both siblings. Natalya left her job and became a professional mother with a salary of about $80 paid by the children's home and a cash benefit of $70 for each child from the state budget. Dima, 13, currently gets on (not brilliantly, but well) at school, while Sasha, 20, lives independently in his own apartment and is studying to be an electrician.

"Their upbringing was definitely a hard job. No doubt, I paid less attention to my 'first' kids. Who knows what would be better though. My daughter, 18, studies in the Moscow State University; my son, 17, is also a student at a prestigious college," Zobova says.

Children's Home | 19 has been helping abandoned kids in finding foster families for ten years now. According to its statistics, 97% of the children have found new parents. Fosterage organizations were initially planned to appear in each of 10 Moscow districts, but the plans haven't materialized. The unique children's home has received about 7,000 telephone calls from Muscovites willing to foster a child. Over 600 prospective foster parents have attended special training courses, while only 300 kids have been fostered so far.

Currently, 16 children are still waiting for new parents in the children's home; eight of them are teenagers, another eight are very sick, including three mentally disabled. Needless to say, their chances for a speedy placement into a family are very low, which can be theoretically explained: "Traumatic break of attachment" is a common diagnosis among teenage children's home wards. Due to a long experience of negative relationships they forget how to trust people, they don't perceive a new family as a family and need a long-term psychological rehabilitation before starting to live with foster parents.

"Just five years ago kids of all ages came to our place directly from wardship organizations. These days, however, all information about the children separated from their parents is first directed to the Regional Data Bank, where kids are 'assorted'. For some incomprehensible reasons they fail to deliver young children to the place where they can more rapidly find families," Ternovskaya says.

Meanwhile, 3,000 kids are kept in Moscow orphanages. Founders of the foster system suppose the main reason for such an absurdity is a lack of professionalism in the wardship sphere. "Nobody will tell you what was done for a certain child, whether his blood family was restored or - if it didn't work - new parents were found," foster parents stress. "What we have are careless administrators choosing kids for 'profitable' adults although according to common sense, professional educators must seek compatible parents for every child. Only a revision of the whole system can change the situation."

[Kollyvas]

http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2005-41-30

Changing Children's Lives
By Antonina Frolenkova The Moscow News
Why do Muscovites adopt less and less kids each year?

According to the Moscow ZAGS (Citizens Status Registration Department) statistics, 1,034 children were adopted in the past 8 months, which is 200 kids less than in the same period of the previous year. This annual reduction in the number of adoptions has been a tendency for the past ten years.
Some believe that Russians don't want to take children into their families due to financial difficulties, while experts say this reason is important but not decisive. After all, the most active adoption period in the city's latest history was in the mid 1980s, when Muscovites were definitely poorer than today. "People's reluctance to help orphans is a myth from which some officials profit," Maria Ternovskaya, director of Children's Home |19, asserts.

The process of adopting a Russian child by a Russian adult usually takes up to two years, and when the child finally comes to a new family, the new parents are left alone with their inevitable problems. Nobody guarantees even psychological help. So it is not surprising that 13 out of 100 adopted kids are sent back to the orphanages.

Ten years ago, the foster system (which was widespread in this country after World War II) was reestablished first in Moscow and then in 30 more Russian regions. The system was recognized as an alternative to adoption because of its relative transparency and simplicity. Under the Russian foster care model, a parent is employed by the orphanage as a child's educator. The orphan thus gets a real home while retaining the status of a children's home ward, which grants the child some benefits like getting a municipal apartment on attaining majority. On their part, the children's home specialists provide psychological, medical and educational support to the family.

Foster care is not supposed to last forever but until a child's parents or some relative can take care of him or her properly. The experience of Moscow shows, however, that most blood mothers and fathers, having got rid of the 'objectionable burden', don't return to a proper life style, and children stay with their foster family till coming of age.

Natalya Zobova is one of the first new foster mothers in the city. She found out in a local church that a neighboring children's home needed help. At the time Zobova didn't think of foster care as she had two kids of her own, aged 7 and 8. She came just to assist in routine activities. After a while she received foster training, passed the necessary tests, and met little Dima. "He was very small for 4, a thin boy with reddish hair. Dima's diagnosis was dystrophy, and he had difficulty speaking. I convinced my husband to take the child," Zobova recalls. "When he came to our family he eagerly tried to become understandable and repeated every word several times."

When Dima started to call Natalya "mama" she found out that he had a brother, Sasha, 11. Sasha had been separated from his alcohol-addicted mother some time before. The family decided to take care of both siblings. Natalya left her job and became a professional mother with a salary of about $80 paid by the children's home and a cash benefit of $70 for each child from the state budget. Dima, 13, currently gets on (not brilliantly, but well) at school, while Sasha, 20, lives independently in his own apartment and is studying to be an electrician.

"Their upbringing was definitely a hard job. No doubt, I paid less attention to my 'first' kids. Who knows what would be better though. My daughter, 18, studies in the Moscow State University; my son, 17, is also a student at a prestigious college," Zobova says.

Children's Home | 19 has been helping abandoned kids in finding foster families for ten years now. According to its statistics, 97% of the children have found new parents. Fosterage organizations were initially planned to appear in each of 10 Moscow districts, but the plans haven't materialized. The unique children's home has received about 7,000 telephone calls from Muscovites willing to foster a child. Over 600 prospective foster parents have attended special training courses, while only 300 kids have been fostered so far.

Currently, 16 children are still waiting for new parents in the children's home; eight of them are teenagers, another eight are very sick, including three mentally disabled. Needless to say, their chances for a speedy placement into a family are very low, which can be theoretically explained: "Traumatic break of attachment" is a common diagnosis among teenage children's home wards. Due to a long experience of negative relationships they forget how to trust people, they don't perceive a new family as a family and need a long-term psychological rehabilitation before starting to live with foster parents.

"Just five years ago kids of all ages came to our place directly from wardship organizations. These days, however, all information about the children separated from their parents is first directed to the Regional Data Bank, where kids are 'assorted'. For some incomprehensible reasons they fail to deliver young children to the place where they can more rapidly find families," Ternovskaya says.

Meanwhile, 3,000 kids are kept in Moscow orphanages. Founders of the foster system suppose the main reason for such an absurdity is a lack of professionalism in the wardship sphere. "Nobody will tell you what was done for a certain child, whether his blood family was restored or - if it didn't work - new parents were found," foster parents stress. "What we have are careless administrators choosing kids for 'profitable' adults although according to common sense, professional educators must seek compatible parents for every child. Only a revision of the whole system can change the situation."

[Грешник]

Personally I wish they would not prevent the adotion of Russian children to American parents. In the event that I can/do not have children of my own that is the first thing I would do. I would love ot adopt a whole bunch of children... but then again I am one of 15 adopted children so that answers that question....

[Kollyvas]

Christ is in our midst!
We are in contact with a woman from Tucson who coordinates adoptions from Russia & China--China has recently imposed severe restrictions. Costs currently for adopting a loving Russian child run around $25,000.00. We have the literature for interested parties. There is a Yahoo group called "ukrainian orphans" --I believe--where some people celebrate how they have westernized and "derussified" children as if they are civilizing barbarians. Concerned Orthodox Christians who can should please step in. Let us not forget Orthodox children in the successor states as well as Romania and especially Coptic orphans who are at peril of being lost to exploitation and islam. Please offer your prayers as best you can.
Holy Heirarch John of San Francisco, pray for these precious children and intercede on their behalf!
R M Malleev-Pokrovsky

http://www.copticorphans.org/
Security, Privacy, and Dignity
Since 1988, Coptic Orphans has utilized the standard practice of charitable organizations to use graphical means to depict their services. Coptic Orphans has always used pictures in a very dignified manner and will continue to use them so that those who care about the disadvantaged children of Egypt will not forget the conditions that their brothers and sisters in Christ live in. Through these pictures, our donors are able to tangibly see the immense and direct impact their charitable donations have on those in need and the necessity for them to continue their support. You may call our office for our privacy policy with regard to the use of pictures, or read below.

Furthermore, Coptic Orphans does not just exist to serve the poor. Its mission includes raising awareness about poverty in Egypt. Raising awareness is our service to the public, because we believe it is our responsibility to share what we know about poverty in Egypt in the most effective ways possible. Pictures and other media are all parts of the effective carrying out of this second part of our mission. “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

Above all, please rest assured that whether it is with assistance to the children, fundraising, presentations or publications, Coptic Orphans takes extreme precautions to preserve the dignity and privacy of our children. Our mission is first and foremost to ensure that our children enjoy their rights of education, freedom and justice and become self dependent, productive members of society. As a Christian organization, we would never act in a manner that would be displeasing to God and we always proceed in everything we do in prayer, spiritual guidance from the many fathers of our church, and continual seeking of His will. Please pray for us that we continue to serve God's children through your loving support.

Coptic Orphans Comprehensive Privacy Policy
The children being served by Coptic Orphans are held in the utmost regard, particularly when it comes to their dignity and their privacy.

Sponsorship Program

Photographs of individual children are sent only to the sponsors as a way to foster the new friendship that is developing. Likewise, the sponsors are asked to send their own pictures so that the children too know who they are writing letters to. Throughout this process, Coptic Orphans carefully safeguards the children’s privacy from the possibility of any infringement. If a sponsor wishes to visit his or her child, the visit must be coordinated through the Coptic Orphans office and the sponsor must be accompanied by the child’s Rep and the area program manager. Furthermore, no one but the sponsor and his or her immediate family can visit the child—no friends or extended family members. All these measures are taken to ensure both a successful child-sponsor visit, and the privacy and dignity of the child, the mother, and the home.

The sponsorship process is contingent upon your agreement, as sponsor, that you will NOT attempt to contact a sponsored child, his or her family or community members, in any manner other than that prescribed and permitted in advance in writing by Coptic Orphans. In particular, telephone calls, email or unplanned visits to the child's residence and community are forbidden without written permission and oversight by Coptic Orphans. In addition, all postal mail and packages sent must conform to Coptic Orphans’ policy that will be stated in materials mailed to each sponsor at the start of the sponsorship.

Coptic Orphans does not post child information on its website for potential sponsors to search and “choose” a child. Sponsorship through our website consists strictly of filling out a form, not by going through pictures and biographies and picking a child.

Publications and Presentations

We use photographs in our publications and presentations to fulfill our mission of raising awareness about poverty in Egypt. We take careful measures in our publications and presentations to protect the identities of the individuals depicted. If names are used, they are either fictionalized or the last names are omitted. In many cases, photos are several years old, and the individual can no longer be recognized by the photograph. We do not disclose the specific geographic locations of any photographed individuals, both for the protection of their identities, and for their security.

Child Privacy

Children and their families must be assured that Coptic Orphans is protecting the integrity of information, including photographs, that is shared about them with the public. We take potential abuse of child photographs on the web and in our publications very seriously. It is for this reason that we do not distribute any of our multimedia presentations to the public, unless they are in an inalterable format that protects their contents from being used out of context or abusively. Privacy also demands that children, their families and communities be shielded from any potential inappropriate contact from sponsors or others.

Child Dignity

The lives of children, their families, and members of their community should be portrayed with accuracy and dignity. The children we work with are not objects to be pitied, but are partners with us in the process of bringing holistic (spiritual, physical, psychological and social) transformation to communities in poverty and in transforming the hearts of beneficiaries and donors alike. We are committed to portraying the life situation of the children, families and communities we serve with accuracy and dignity. We seek the full, informed consent of parents, guardians, and/or community leaders for a child’s participation in our child sponsorship programs.

rev. August 25, 2004