Книга побудована на основі моніторингового дослідження 24 дитячих будинків сімейного типу України, що складає близько 20% від загальної кількості дбст по всій країні, у яких знаходяться на утриманні І вихованні 191 дитина-сирота.

Вид материала

Concept and legal status
Norms for care and education, social standards
Incentives and obligations of teachers
Social guidance and control
Informational exchange
Overcoming stereotypes

Подобный материал:

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SUMMARY

In 2004 Kharkiv organisation “Zhinocha hromada” completed the project “Human rights monitoring in family-type orphanages in Ukraine”, with the financial support of International “Renaissance” Foundation. The principal goal was to reveal how orphans’ and foster parent teachers’ rights are observed in family-type orphanages in Ukraine, so that mechanisms for upholding international standards in human rights could be developed and implemented.

This research was initiated by the fact that the declared priority for family-type forms for orphan care is not practically implemented. Thus, over the last 5 years the number of orphans at state boarding schools increased by 50 per cent, to 50,000 children. At the same time, only 129 family-type orphanages exist at the moment, even though, according to the state Program for developing family-type forms for the care of orphans and children left without parental care, the number of such establishments should have reached 230 by the end of 2004. If foster families are taken into account, the total number of orphans that are cared for by the system of state family-type care is 1,176, that is, only about 2% of the total number of children in state care. Human rights research conducted in 2002 at state care establishments in Kharkiv and Kharkiv region confirmed that family-type forms of state care for orphans is much more advanced and has significant potential. However, the existing structure of family-type orphanages is deficient, social guidance and control are carried out only formally, and this leads to cases of abuse and violation of human rights both of the children and the foster parent teachers.

The human rights monitoring research at Ukrainian family-type orphanages was conducted at 24 such establishments, which constitutes around 20 per cent of the total number of FTO in the country, caring for 191 orphans. In order to obtain reliable and complete results, the monitoring was conducted in four Ukrainian regions, with the cooperation of the partner non-governmental organisations in Lviv (“Resonance” Regional charitable foundation), Ternopil (Women’s club “Nation’s Renaissance”), Dnipropetrovsk (International human rights community, Ukrainian section, Dnipropetrovsk division) and Sebastopol (Youth centre for women’s initiatives).

The legal framework was analysed, the national legal foundation was tested against the international standards. In practical terms, the research looked at observing the following rights: the right to education, the right to know one’s rights, the right to information access, the freedom for expressing beliefs, prohibition of degrading treatment and punishment, protection against intrusion into private life, healthcare and social security, recreation and leisure. Also, observing labour rights of the teachers was evaluated.

The vast majority of officials working at Centres for Social Services for Youth, Departments in Family and Youth Issues, Departments for education and science, and most doctors and teachers with whom the monitoring group members were in contact, gave all possible assistance and facilitated our work in every manner. Also, there were no problems in establishing contacts with foster parent teachers and orphans, who willingly told about their problems and concerns.

Concerning the abovementioned rights, the monitoring data have revealed the following picture.

Right to education

The choice of school is made by foster teacher parents; in most cases the child’s opinion has no real weight.
Not all orphans have 100% of the necessary textbooks, 4 out of 24 family-type orphanages do not supply enough textbooks.
Stationery supply is adequate, however this is not guaranteed by the existing Statute on Family-Type Orphanages.
Assistance to pupils falling behind in their studies is organised by the school, older orphans, foster parent teachers, or by assigning an individual tutor.
7 family-type orphanages do not provide individual space for doing homework.
Not every child has the possibility to attend clubs and sports activities according to their wishes. The obstacles include lack of money (though orphans can normally attend such clubs free of charge), conflict with religious beliefs of foster parent teachers, absence of the desired club in the local area.
The issue of paying for orphans to attend preparatory courses for entering universities and colleges has not been settled: this is not included into the budgets of family-type orphanages, the law does not provide for free attendance of such courses by orphans, and not all educational officials in charge of the courses take into account orphans’ interests and allow them free attendance.
In 5 family-type orphanages children cannot use the home library and only have access to the school library. However, we did not encounter a situation of children having adequate access to reading materials neither at home, nor at school.
Only 21 per cent of the orphans (out of 86) has regular access to a computer. There are no computers in 13 family-type orphanages. In most cases a computer is viewed as a recreational device rather than a source of new information and knowledge.
The mechanism for preferential access of orphans to further education is not working. Teachers and children do not obtain information concerning the changes in preferential acceptance of orphans to universities and technical colleges. There is no effective coordination between family-type orphanages, social workers, officials at Departments for education and administrative personnel at educational establishments for solving this issue.
Social guidance is not used to its full potential in planning independent life for each of the orphans, and in particular in the choice of a further educational establishment.

Right to know one’s rights

Laws and regulations display imbalance between rights and obligations of foster parent teachers. Most of the teachers could not name their rights.
Foster parent teachers are well informed concerning the social rights of the orphans, that is, part of their obligations. The most well known are the right to education, healthcare and medical provision, the right to leisure. The importance for observing personal rights of the orphans is not appreciated by foster parent teachers.
Foster parent teachers are not well informed on the existence and contents of the basic human rights documents. The most well-known of these is Convention on Children’s rights; however, the source of information is often its contracted poster version.
Foster parent teachers and orphans do not fully understand the essence of human rights. The Convention posters often in fact hinder serious attitude to human rights and children’s rights in particular.
18 foster parent teachers and 18 orphans referred to internal rules as the source of their rights; however our own observations show that internal rules are only concerned with orphans’ obligations.
50% orphans (of 86) cannot name the source of their rights.
Part of the orphans confuses their rights and obligations.
The list of rights, formed on the basis of orphans’ replies, is generally with the spirit of children’s rights. Orphans pay much attention to their personal rights.
Almost 100% of the orphans name as their main obligation assistance to their foster parent teachers with house chores.

Right to information access

Foster parent teachers are the main source of all types of information to the orphans.
The orphans do not understand well their procedural rights; do not know who to turn to if their rights are violated, especially if the perpetrators are the teachers. 21 per cent of the orphans (of 86) have some knowledge of grievance procedures.
There is no mechanism for appealing against foster parent teachers’ actions.
In 14 family-type orphanages, the orphans know about the activity of state and non-governmental organisations for protecting orphans’ rights.
27 per cent of children (of 86) do not have information concerning their legal status. 56 per cent of children (of 191) do not have papers confirming their status; of these 90 children have been at the family-type orphanage for 3 or more years.
In 6 FTO the children know nothing of their benefits.
77 per cent of the children who completed the questionnaire (of 86) have some information on their relatives. 25 per cent of all orphans (of 191) have official information. Foster parent teachers often keep back the information.
Access to information on legal status and biological relatives is often restricted depending on the age of the orphans.
Almost 60 per cent of orphans (of 86) have regular access to information on healthy lifestyle, safe behaviour, safe sex, choice of future profession.
When choosing the future profession, foster parent teachers take into account their personal experience, physical and mental ability of the child, and only rarely child’s own preferences.
Informational work on healthy lifestyle and choosing profession is mostly conducted with older children, and in case of safe behaviour and safe sex, with older girls.
7 family-type orphanages do not conduct work on planning children’s future independent lives.
Only in 3 family-type orphanages orphans decide, on par with teachers, which printed media to buy and subscribe to.
7 orphans have no access to viewing TV programs, and 17 have restricted access.
Restricting access to TV is carried out on the basis of time and content of the programs, children’s age, religious beliefs of the foster parent teachers, economy of electricity.

Freedom of expressing beliefs

Foster parent teachers implement restrictions on the form of expression of though. It is forbidden to swear, use bad language, to express abusive thoughts. There are also restrictions related to the child’s age.
Orphans place more weight on the possibility to freely express their thoughts than the teachers.
Children often see no difference between freedom of thought and freedom of speech.
29 per cent of orphans (of 86) think that they can express their disagreement with teachers’ decision; however, their opinion will not be taken into account.
In 4 family-type orphanages foster parent teachers treat disagreement with their decisions as misbehaviour. In 2 of these this will entail punishment and enforced action.
In 23 family-type orphanages foster parent teachers are interested in the opinion of the orphans concerning their personal rights.
In half of cases children have some influence over the final decision of teachers. Child’s opinion is taken into account by the teachers, depending on its “sensibility” and the child’s age.
62 per cent of the orphans (of 86) believe that their relationship with teachers is based on mutual respect and collaboration, 6 per cent name subordination and force, 5 per cent say it is mutual indifference.

Prohibition of degrading treatment and punishment

The most common forms of punishment are “scolding”, “putting in the corner”, “not to let outside”, and “restrict TV viewing”.
Orphans having various forms of addiction are subjected to punishment instead of referring them to professional consultants, whose services foster parent teachers use very rarely. Such children have almost no access to professional help.
4 family-type orphanages use withdrawing meals as punishment.
6 family-type orphanages use additional chores as punishment.
10 family-type orphanages use various kinds of physical punishment, in 5 of these they can be quite severe (beating with belt, flogging for theft, push-ups with counting to 100).
In one case, children had to eat cigarettes so that they wouldn’t smoke again.
There was one case of degrading “symbolic tying to a disgrace pole”, and also “withdrawing name”, which is clearly violating the provisions of all documents concerned with children’s rights.
25 per cent of orphans (of 86) believe that in their family-type orphanages there are cases of degrading treatment.
In 11 family-type orphanages the children are punished for low grades.
One of the family-type orphanages uses a system of fines.
The main reasons for punishments are misbehaviour of the children, ignoring instructions of the foster parent teachers.
The rewards are mostly sweets and fruit.
4 family-type orphanages use financial rewards.
In 6 family-type orphanages the teachers use as rewards distribution of benefits that are provided by state, such as going to summer camps, purchasing new clothing, footwear etc..
In 14 family-type orphanages praise is actively used as reward.
The teachers place the highest value on assistance with household chores and success at school.
7 family-type orphanages can be considered as having a system of punishments and rewards. However, even these systems lack precision, logic and consistency, and have a degree of arbitrariness.

Protection against intrusion into private life

Only 3 per cent of the total number of orphans have individual bedrooms. 7 per cent of orphans have bedrooms for 5 and more persons.
Family-type orphanages are not allocated enough money to buy individual furniture for the children.
3 family-type orphanages do not provide for privacy while using the toilet and bathroom facilities.
99 per cent of the children (of 86) claimed that they have personal belongings.
There were 2 cases when children had to share clothes or clothes were handed down from older children to the younger.
The children store their personal things in their rooms on shelves, wardrobes and cupboards.
12 per cent of children (of 86) think that the place for storing their personal belongings is accessible to anyone. 24 per cent of children believe that no one can access their personal belongings, 55 per cent claimed that this can be done by foster parent teachers.
The main reasons for accessing personal belongings are theft, disorderly cupboard, washing and general cleaning-up.
Most of the procedures used in family-type orphanages for locating stolen things are degrading for children.
75 per cent of the children (of 86) can freely choose their clothes and hair style. Any restrictions are due to the child’s age. Foster parent teachers use subjective criteria for evaluating children’s hairstyles: tidiness, modesty, convenience.
In 3 family-type orphanages the choice of clothing is the exclusive privilege of the teachers.

Healthcare and social security

17 per cent of the children (of 86) pointed out that they have medical examination once a year or less; the insufficient number of medical examinations was confirmed by teachers in 2 FTO.
19 per cent of the children said that they have only received medical treatment from foster parent teachers. None of the teachers has had medical training.
Most of the teachers only call for a doctor in difficult cases.
15 family-type orphanages have children requiring specialised medical attention.
Teachers in 10 family-type orphanages did not have complete information on the state of children’s health when they were admitted.
3 of the family-type orphanages do not provide the possibility for annual retreat for all children.
91 per cent of the children (of 86) believe they have adequate nutrition.
22 family-type orphanages offer additional food between regular meals. 4 of these offer special snacks.
Depending on the particular family-type orphanage, the cost of feeding one child per day can be between 5.00 and 11.02 Ukrainian hryvnyas.
The menu is planned and prepared by the foster parent teachers, with the help of the children. Almost all the children can cook.
In 10 of the family-type orphanages the children play no role in planning the budget, in 10 others they are occasionally asked for their opinion.
In 4 of the family-type orphanages foster parent teachers have limited ability to plan the budget: everything is done according to a fixed schedule. 3 of these orphanages are financed by direct electronic transfer, with no access to cash.
The amount of pocket money varies between 25 kopecks to several hryvnyas a month.
25 per cent of children (of 86) do not have any pocket money at all.
4 children claimed that they earn money themselves.
All children have to perform lots of chores. When allocating tasks, the factors taken into account are age, skills, child’s inclinations, gender, physical ability, health restrictions. In one case, children complained of compulsion.
In 3 family-type orphanages one child is responsible for more than 0.5 hectares of the kitchen garden; the situation requires additional investigation and control.
The provision for clothing and footwear is insufficient for covering the real needs of the children. The problem with footwear is especially acute.
Older children have priority in acquiring better clothing and footwear.
97 per cent of the children (of 86) believe they have adequate supplies for personal hygiene.
5 of the family-type orphanages do not supply girls with sanitary towels.
The main problem for graduates is getting their own accommodation and the first job.
The graduates of family-type orphanages are not always given a supply of clothing, footwear and other personal items, as provided for by regulations of Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers.

The premises of 15 family-type orphanages require repairs; there are certain doubts as to whether they are adequate from the health and safety point of view.
Around 40 per cent of the family-type orphanages have an area allocated to each resident that is less than the norms stated by the Residential Code.
12 family-type orphanages have certain problems with obtaining furniture, 4 have difficulties with acquiring household appliances, and 7 do not have their own transport.

In most of the family-type orphanages social guidance is implemented only as a formality. The reason for this is insufficient staffing of Centres for Social services for youth and significant fluidity.

Recreation and leisure

64 of children (of 86) can have their breakfast on Sunday at their chosen time.
20 of the family-type orphanages provide possibility for active recreation, 16 provide TV watching, 15 offer out-of-doors activities, 15 encourage reading.
56 per cent of children have a say in organising leisure activities.
Activities over school holidays mostly concern sending children to recreational facilities. 80 per cent of the children (of 86) go to summer camps and health centres, at discounted price or free of charge. One of the family-type orphanages sends their children for summer recreation to Italy, as part of a program for humanitarian aid.
8 per cent of the children (of 86) can only occasionally celebrate their birthdays, 16 per cent do not always get presents on these occasions.
9 of the family-type orphanages allow for inviting friends to celebrate birthdays.
In 2 of the family-type orphanages there are no birthday presents, and one celebrates a general “Birthday party” instead of individual birthdays.

Apart from the abovementioned issues, there were certain problems caused by insufficient control and social guidance offered to family-type orphanages that have significant influence on the rights of children and foster parent teachers:

For people continue obtaining benefits in the capacity of orphans cared for by a family-type orphanage, even though they no longer have the entitlement; 13 of the children get double financing: as graduates continuing their residence in a family-type orphanage while studying at a university, and also as students, graduates of a family-type orphanage.
Three of the 24 family-type orphanages investigated admitted new children after April 2002, even though they already held 10 and more children.
10 of the children are not being paid alimony, even though there is the relevant court ruling in place.

Also, there is significant violation of labour rights of foster parent teachers, who, regardless of the definition stating that “family-type orphanage constitutes an autonomous family”, are in fact employees of local educational authorities:

Foster parent teachers work around the clock, without weekends and holidays. This is clearly against Ukrainian Code of Laws “On Labour”. Foster parent teachers get no extra pay for overtime work, and for working weekends and holidays.
Foster parent teachers do not have wages but subsistence, for which there is no definition in laws or regulations.
Holiday allowance of foster parent teachers does not let them go away from their charges, that is, their main job.
There is no opportunity for career growth and financial motivation for working as foster parent teachers. It is only possible to increase personal income by admitting more children.
The issue of counting the time working as foster parent teacher towards the general working length of service has not yet been solved for the family-type orphanages created before 2002. This is due to the fact that according to an old set of regulations there were no pension deductions from foster parent teachers’ subsistence payments. There are cases when foster parent teachers have to pay up to 32 per cent of their income as pension deductions (instead of the normal 1 to 2 per cent) to compensate the underpayment in the previous years. In one case, a foster mother who had to take early retirement due to health problems was offered only minimum pension, which is provided for people who have never worked.

Our monitoring data have shown that in order to ensure observing human rights in family-type orphanages, the while functioning system of such establishments has to be changed: the concept and definition of their legal status, accountability and financing, incentives and requirements for the teachers, the principles for admitting children and provision of benefits for graduates, control and social guidance. Solving these issues requires changes in laws and regulations for family-type orphanages, introduction of new mechanisms for enforcing the rights and benefits for the orphans and teachers, facilitating the flow of information, overcoming the negative stereotypes in the society concerning orphans and family-type orphanages.

Concept and legal status

On the one hand, family-type orphanages have certain features of families; on the other hand, they can be viewed as establishments, and this leads to multiple contradictions and hence violations of human rights of both teachers and children. At the state level, there is a tendency to lean towards the concept of family-type orphanages as a kind of family. However, we believe that it is better to remove the contradictions in another way. A family-type orphanage has to be treated as a form of family-type state care for orphans and children left without parental care, which is a family-type care establishment, created by either a married couple or one person (teacher). Such concept can be legally enforced by taking out family-type orphanages from documents and relevant sections dealing with family issues, and, if necessary, putting them into documents and sections regulating the activity of state care establishments. As appropriate, the term “separate family” has to be taken out of the definition for family-type orphanages, and term “foster parent teachers” replace with just “teachers”.

Accountability and financing

Family-type orphanages needs to be accountable to the authority that has taken the decision (decree) on its creation. This body must ensure their effective functioning and organise financing; implement control over the living conditions and care for the orphans, coordinate the activities of all bodies and establishments, relevant to the work of family-type orphanages. We believe this function has to be taken on by Departments in family and youth issues. Accordingly, Departments for education and science have to be freed from their financing and control functions. The order of accountability needs to be established by the law.

Financing of family-type orphanages has to come from regional budgets, the budgets of Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the cities of Kyiv and Sebastopol. This is necessary for levelling the circumstances of the family-type orphanages across the country, their protection against unfounded decisions of local governments concerning their financing and will also facilitate the transparency of their financial accountability. Financing FTO from regional budget will enable the implementation of the principle “money goes after the child”, when a child is transferred from a state boarding orphans’ school to a family-type orphanage (or, in exceptional circumstances, the other way round). In order to address the contradictions, it is necessary to amend the Budget Code, according to which family-type orphanages are financed from local budgets.

The financing has to be mixed: the facility bills, repairs and maintenance need to be paid by direct transfer, and there have to be cash payments, such as teachers’ wages and orphans’ allowances. The budget must also contain an item for “incidental expenses”, to satisfy the various urgent needs of family-type orphanages.

Norms for care and education, social standards

It is necessary to develop legal norms for care and education that will be founded on respecting children’s rights and protecting their interests, the rights of their biological parents and preserving family ties. Life in family-type orphanage must be in strict accordance to the norms of care and upbringing, that will ensure the best possible conditions for obtaining education, development of individual abilities, forming healthy lifestyle habits, compensating for developmental problems, preparation to independent life.

In order to ensure individual approach to the upbringing of the orphans, there has to be an individual work plan for each child. The plan has to be created and implemented with the participation of professionals responsible for social guidance, the teachers and the child. The items of the individual plan have to include preparation for independent life, choice of future profession, studies at a college or university, provision of accommodation, finding a job. The progress in implementing the individual plan by teachers and the social worker needs to be properly documented.

It is clearly necessary to create minimum social standards for services that need to be provided to family-type orphanages and to reflect these standards in the legislative base. These standards must not only guarantee the norms for catering and provision of clothing, footwear, other essentials, medicines, personal hygiene items, toys and books, but also provide for children’s needs in stationery, textbooks, pocket money, free access to food and drink. The cash subsistence for the children has to be determined taking these standards into account.

Another part of social standards has to be concerned with material and technical supply of family-type orphanages. When choosing a place for such establishment, it is necessary to take into account the availability of local schools, the possibility for providing advanced education to talented children and appropriate schooling for children with special needs. Our data suggest that it is best to found family-type orphanages in detached houses in private residential areas in cities and towns. There have to be norms for the premises, such as area per resident, appropriate number of rooms. Bedrooms, preferably individual, have to be equipped with a bed, wardrobe and cupboard for each child, playrooms must have comfortable furniture (tables, chairs, armchairs or sofas), a TV set, toys, books. Each child has to have an individual place for study. Bathrooms and toilets have to conform to the hygienic requirements and provide for privacy. As for the dining area, its table needs to be big enough to accommodate all the residents at the same time. Family-type orphanages need adequate washing facilities, fridges and other necessary household appliances. Each establishment must be provided with a minivan and a kitchen garden (with the area of at least 0.5 hectares).

Incentives and obligations of teachers

In order to increase the attraction of the occupation of a teacher at family-type orphanage, recruiting new staff and prevention of the abuse of orphans, the following incentives are proposed:

The possibility of early retirement after 20 years of service as foster parent teachers at a family-type orphanage, or upon graduation of all the children, whichever is the later.
The teachers have to receive at least minimum wage, and extra payment for overtime, work during weekends and holidays.
For the teachers of the family-type orphanages created under the old Regulations, who did not pay, for a certain time, any retirement deductions, the regional budget must gradually compensate their indebtedness to the Retirement Fund.
The teachers have the right to spend their holiday without their charges. For the time of the holiday they have to be covered for by a person appointed jointly by the teachers and the social workers. This person will receive the normal foster parent teacher’s wages.
The teachers, after 20 years of service in this capacity, can claim the premises allocated for the family-type orphanage, as their property.
The teachers have the right to access the budged of their family-type orphanage and take part in its planning, both in person and using the social worker as an intermediary.
Each establishment must have two teachers. In cases when family-type orphanage is established by a single person and not a married couple, this person needs to appoint a second teacher, either a relative or another eligible person, for instance, a former graduate, who will permanently reside at the establishment.

The last item is at the same time a kind of requirement to the teachers. Other requirements, that need to be regulated by the legislation, include the following items:

A person who has had his/her parental rights permanently or temporarily withdrawn, either in full or partially, cannot be a foster parent teacher.
The teachers must have at least secondary education (preferable specialisations are pedagogy, psychology or social worker), and also complete appropriate specialised training.
Teachers wishing to care for orphans with mental health problems must have specialised education and/or experience of working with such children.
The teachers have to regularly (once every two years) attend courses for improving their pedagogical and foster parent skills.
According to the budget of the family-type orphanage the teachers must submit monthly financial reports.

Principles for taking a child into state care

It is necessary to adopt legislatively the principles for taking an orphaned child into a state care establishment, which are in accordance with international standards, but are at the moment absent in the acting legislation:

A child can be taken into a family-type orphanage only if he or she cannot stay in the natural family (remain with biological parents, taken into the care of other relatives, guardians, or a foster family). A child can only go to an orphanage when all possibilities for family care have been exhausted.
While taking a child into a family-type orphanage it is necessary to take into account the age difference between the child and the teachers, so that the child would graduate before one of the teachers reaches retirement age.

The child must retain the possibility to return to the biological parents, to be adopted, or taken to a foster family, since these are better and preferred forms of family care.
Teachers, the child and, should this be reasonable, their biological parents, have the right to take part in the process of deciding the child’s future, in particular taking the child into a family-type orphanage, transfer to another care establishment, or to a foster family.
New children can only accepted to a family-type orphanage if they can be provided with an adequate living area.

Benefits for graduates

In addition to the existing benefits to graduates, there have to be others provided by the legislation:

Free attendance of preparatory courses for entering universities and technical colleges.
Guaranteed first job, by creating a register of persons who have priority for employment, and listing graduates of family-type orphanages (along with graduates of state boarding orphanages) in one of its top positions.
To remain living with their teachers, if they take their retirement for long service, have their own home or have claimed their right to the family-type orphanage premises after 20 years of working as foster parent teachers, and also if they do not object to living with the graduates.

Also it is necessary to create working mechanisms for family-type orphanage graduates to enter technical colleges and universities, protecting their allocated homes while they stay in the care of the family-type orphanage, prioritised allocation of homes.

Social guidance and control

It is necessary to draw a clear line between control and social guidance and do not burden the latter with control functions. In the framework of social guidance, the following professionals need to be allocated to each family-type orphanage: social worker (responsible for contacts and work with the child’s natural family, liaison with the establishments with which a family-type orphanage has to stay in contact, such as state registry offices, courts, educational establishments etc.), psychologist or social pedagogue (child’s individual diagnostics, therapy for children and teachers, psychological and pedagogical consulting for teachers), legal advisor (consulting children and teachers concerning their rights, obligations and benefits). Professionals for social guidance can be appointed competitively, supervised by NGO representatives, according to the Law On social work. Foster parent teachers have the right to propose their own candidates for conducting social guidance.

Should there be a conflict between child’s wishes to attend certain clubs and religious beliefs of foster parent teachers the social worker needs to find a mutually acceptable solution. A special emphasis on social guidance has to be for FTO’s in which one or more children are being educated individually. The services of pedagogues, who are external professionals, need to be employed in such cases. The same approach can be used should it be necessary to prepare young children for school, assist children with problem study areas and prepare prospective university students.

When there is a need to supply the establishment with furniture, household appliances, maintenance services or other unplanned provisions, the social worker, based on the information from foster parent teachers, has to complete a budget proposal to the executive body that is financing the family-type orphanage, so that this is taken into account while planning the next year’s budget.

The institution of family doctors can start its development on the basis of family-type orphanages. The norms for material and technical supply of a family doctor, in particular, provision with transportation, medicines, have to be in accordance with the concept of family medical provision. Upon the submission of budget proposal by the social worker, it is necessary to allocate funding for commercial medical services for orphans, should this be necessary.

In order to ensure effective control over the activities of family-type orphanages, there has to be an appropriate professional working at Services in minor’s issues. Such person will need to look at the situation of the child’s relatives and the possibility of returning the child into their care, evaluate the individual plan of child’s development, document its implementation, check the standards of upbringing and care, observing the minimum social standards, requirements to foster parent teachers’ qualifications. On the basis of the evaluation as described above this professional has to give a periodic assessment of each child’s circumstances and give a summary of conditions of child’s stay at the establishment and whether it is appropriate to continue it. The main criterion for situation assessment has to be observing the child’s rights.

It is possible to attract volunteers to work at family-type orphanages, for instance, students specialising in social pedagogy and psychology, so that they obtain on-the-job training and assist the teacher (in one case, such work is already taking place).

NGO’s have to be able to contribute to the training of teachers and professionals responsible for social guidance and control. This contribution can take the form of trainings and seminars in human rights for various target groups. Our monitoring data suggest the necessity for improving the level of teachers’ awareness of basics in human rights and particularly children’s rights, the existing mechanisms for implementing procedural rights and planning the internal budget of the establishment. Other possible kinds of training that will improve the effectiveness of family-type orphanage functioning are as follows: basics of conflict resolution, development of communication skills, aggression reduction program (ART) and some others. NGO experts can be used for social guidance or as volunteers working with both teachers and children.

Informational exchange

For supplying regular information to teachers at family-type orphanages, professionals responsible for social guidance and control of observing human rights, and also for improving their professionalism, Ministry in Family in Youth Issues has to publish a regular informational bulletin (3 to 4 times a year), which will reflect current changes in legislation concerning orphans and their teachers, legal consultations, accounting advice, working experience of various family-type orphanages. The bulletin has to be distributed to all family-type orphanages, Departments for social services for youth, Services for minors’ issues, Departments of education. There have to be regular conferences for foster parent teachers, as well as training seminars that can be conducted, for instance, while teachers go to summer camps with their orphan charges.

Overcoming stereotypes

Undoubtedly, family-type orphanages are one of the most advanced forms of state care for orphaned children. However, to ensure their further development it is necessary not only to reform the legislation and propose effective mechanisms for its implementation. It is equally important to overcome the social stereotypes concerning orphans and family forms of their care. This is especially important among young people. They have to be tolerant to orphans and children left without parental care. Such children need a positive image, so that they wouldn’t be perceived by the community at large as social misfits. The media must promote the awareness of family-type orphanages, and give coverage of their positive experience. This will improve the attitude of the society towards such establishments and thus increase the number of families who will want to become founders of family-type orphanages and take care of orphaned children.

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