“You Too Can Take an Orphaned Child into Your Family”

A poster encourages taking an orphaned child into a family. Chausy - November 12, 2008. Fyodor, 13, and his sister Raya, 16, were both taken from their family by government authorities after their mother had been denied parental rights for problems related to alcohol and child neglect.  Had it happened even a year ago, both teenagers would have ended up in a state institution.  Thanks to USAID’s Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children project, Fyodor and Raya are now living in a foster family.   According to the Ministry of Education, over 30,000 orphans and children in Belarus live outside of parental care.  About 80% of them are ‘social orphans,’ - children whose parents are unable or unwilling to care for them.  Despite all efforts of the government to place them in foster care, over 50% of these children still reside in government-run institutions, such as boarding schools and orphanages.  USAID’s Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children project is developing alternative care models in the country to increase the number of children brought up by their natural families or in a family-like environment.   Until recently in Chausy, a small town in the western part of Belarus with a population of slightly over 25,000 people, nearly all orphaned children were routinely placed in the local orphanage, and very few of them had chances to be adopted or taken in a foster family.  Today, as a result of the project, the situation is quite different.   In July 2007, the Chausy State Child Protection Service, with financial and technical support from the USAID project, launched a public awareness campaign on alternative care and a training program for foster and adoptive families based on a model called PRIDE.  The goal of the campaign was to raise citizens’ motivation to adopt orphaned children or to consider foster care.  The main slogan of the campaign was - “You too can take an orphan in your family.” Local media, state services and business companies provided broad support to the campaign. Local child protection specialists, who administered the program, admit that the PRIDE model better prepares prospective foster or adoptive parents than other programs that had been tried out in Belarus.  They note that parents trained in the PRIDE program understand the principle “I am there for a child, not a child for me.” They understand the importance of a child’s contacts with his/her biological parents, and they are more willing to work as a team instead of coping with their problems in isolation.  Another important difference is that after the PRIDE training the parents are better able to overcome a stereotype common for Belarus that “it is better to take in a child at a very young age.” Fyodor and Raya are a good example of that. This comprehensive approach has proved to be very effective – the number of inquiries from citizens about adoption and foster care increased six times since the campaign began.  Encouraged, many families decided to enroll into a training program.  Thirty-seven parents completed the training, and 15 of them became adoptive or foster parents.  As an overall result of the project ‘s work in Chausy, the number of orphaned children in alternative care has increased by 75%, and there is a waiting list of families who have completed the training and are willing to take a child left without parental care.  Today in Chausy the children whose parents have been denied parental rights are no longer placed in state institutions, they have a choice: adoption or foster family care.   The Chausy example is still unique for Belarus, but it proves that if the best international experience is used, and the local community is actively involved, positive changes are possible even for the most difficult-to-solve social issues.  Currently, the USAID project is working on disseminating the successful experience of Chausy to other project targeted communities across the country.

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