FOSTER FAMILY AS A FORM OF UNITS FOR ORPHANS AND CHILDREN WITHOUT PARENTAL CARE (CASE STUDY OF SARATOV AND BELGOROD REGIONS)

• Main Author: Oksana Vladimirovna Besschetnova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Science and Innovation Center Publishing House 2013-09-01
• Series: Sovremennye Issledovaniâ Socialʹnyh Problem
• Subjects: orphanhood, children without parental care; foster family; social adaptation of foster children; regional social policy
• Online Access: http://journal-s.org/index.php/sisp/article/view/922

<p>This paper discusses the development and functioning of foster families, one of the priority interventions for children without parental care in Russia and abroad. The paper analyzes the current official statistics on the problem of child abandonment in Russia as a whole and in the Saratov and Belgorod regions of Russia in particular. The mechanism of social adaptation of children in foster care is based on the qualitative and quantitative methods (surveys and interviews) of foster parents and foster children. The author identifies obstacles to the development of social institutions in the regions and the necessity of its active implementation in domestic social practices. The study found that foster care has been successful in areas where accepted legal basis allowed the recruiting, selecting candidates for adoptive parents, and foster care maintenance are carried out by social services. In addition, in order to reduce risk factors such as the secondary abandonment of foster children it is necessarily to increase assistance from the social guardianship bodies and professionals as well as building trusting parent-child relationships that use the democratic parenting style by foster parents.</p><p><strong>DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-8-8">http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-8-8</a></strong></p>