As a result of the break-up of the former Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of children and youth in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other post-Soviet nations are being cared for in large state-run institutions, or are homeless and living on the streets. IHS has been involved in helping to build professional and organizational capacity in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan to serve these children and youth since 2004. 

Generally referred to as “social orphans,” these children frequently have living parents or relatives, but have no contact with them.  Most have been abandoned by families who are too poor or too dysfunctional to care for them. Some have been removed from their families as a result of child abuse, neglect, parental drug or alcohol abuse, and parental mental illness, or they have run away because of maltreatment or family conflict.  A sub-group of these children have developmental disabilities or are HIV positive.  Most of the children raised in orphanages are “emancipated” at age 14 or 15, with little or no preparation.  Many remain homeless, living with runaways and other youth on the city streets.

The serious detrimental consequences of being raised in orphanages have been repeatedly demonstrated over 50 years through research that compares the development of institutionalized children to that of children raised in families. A recent longitudinal study conducted in Romania (The Bucharest Study) confirmed that children raised in orphanages were permanently disabled in many respects. They commonly had significant growth retardation; incomplete brain development; chronic health problems; retarded cognitive, social, and emotional development; and ultimately, higher susceptibility to illness and premature death.  Children living on the streets in these nations are known to gravitate to prostitution and organized crime to support themselves, and they are more likely to die at a young age from disease or violence.

The governments of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, particularly, recognize these problems and have acknowledged their responsibility to deal with them.   Government agencies have decreed the development of foster care and adoption programs, and they are beginning to consider programs to support families to keep children in their own homes. Nongovernmental agencies have also begun to provide alternative, family-based care programs for previously institutionalized or street children.  However, these programs are few in number and in the very early stages of development, and there are few professionals with the knowledge or experience to guide their development.  More important, these countries lack the capacity and infrastructures to pursue large-scale system change on behalf of their children.  They are seeking assistance from abroad.

Ukraine President visits "Father's House"

On November 21, Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko visited “Father's House” located in Kyiv. During the visit President mentioned that in 2008 the issue of orphan children shall receive special attention. “I plan to issue an appropriate decree, to call up sense of responsibility in millions of people and to stimulate very bold, courageous and generous decisions about orphan children adoption” said V. Yushchenko.

Father's House, a local NGO located in Kyiv, is partnering with IHS to provide ongoing training to child welfare professionals throughout Ukraine, and to develop and sustain an International Leadership and Development Center to continue to build professional capacity in child welfare permanently.  Roman Korniyko, President and Founder, and Ruslan Malyuta, Vice President, of Father's House International Charity Foundation, visited with IHS and local county child welfare staff in Ohio in October, 2007.

See the news article on President Yushchenko's Visit to "Father's House" here.

Belarus Expresses Appreciation for Ohio's Generosity

IHS recently welcomed Ms. Irina Mironova, Country Director of the Christian Children's Fund (CCF) in Minsk, Belarus, and CCF-Belaurs' Program Director, Marina Ananenko, to Columbus.  Ms. Mironova and Ms. Ananenko spent a week consulting with IHS staff to help them develop a comprehensive service system for maltreated and disabled children throughout Belarus, and to promote deinstitutionalization of many thousands of children housed in congregate care facilities.  CCF-Belarus also plans to develop a national training center to prepare professionals from a variety of disciplines in the principles and practices of family-centered child protective services, and they met with representatives of the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program to gather information with which to replicate Ohio's training model.

During 2007, IHS provided both Core training and specialized training in substance abuse and multidisciplinary teams to groups of professionals in Minsk.  Additional training is planned for 2008.  Belarus has also adopted the Field Guide for Child Welfare as their primary resource textbook, and has contributed to IHS' multinational initiative to translate and disseminate the Field Guide in Russian.  CCF-Belarus has been working with the Belarus Ministry of Education to incorporate standards, policies, and best practice guidelines derived from Ohio, including Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO) standards, into a framework and model for child welfare practice in Belarus.

On November 29, Ms. Mironova, Ms. Ananenko, Dr. Ron Hughes, IHS Director, Dr. Judith Rycus, IHS Program Director, Ms. Sally Cooper, IHS Assistant Director, and Ms. Betsy Keefer, IHS Manager of Foster Care and Adoption, met with Governor Ted Strickland and several of his staff at the State House. The goal of the meeting was to communicate the impact that Ohio's child welfare system and training resources have made in Belarus, other countries in Eastern Europe and throughout the world, and to express appreciation for Ohio's generosity in enabling Belarus and other countries to benefit from the products of Ohio's 20+ years of leadership in the areas of child welfare training and practice.

 

Work Completed To Date by IHS

IHS has been involved in helping to build professional and organizational capacity in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.  As a 501-c-3, nonprofit corporation, IHS has financed this work largely with personal and organizational resources and in-kind contributions. 

Many of the products made available have been the result of 20 years of collaborative development among IHS and its North American State and provincial governments. Ohio has led the way as the laboratory for the development of many of the child welfare products and technologies identified by our Eastern European partners as "Best Practice" in child welfare. To date, IHS has:

• Provided Core training to several groups of social workers, psychologists, law enforcement personnel, doctors, nurses, and other child advocates in the fundamental concepts of working with abused, neglected, and sexually abused children and their families in Belarus.
  
  
• Provided Residential Care training to groups of administrators and direct care staff in orphanages throughout Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan to improve their care of children, to strengthen and preserve permanent attachments for children, and to promote children's healthy social and emotional development.
  
  
• Provided Life Skills training to groups of orphanage staff throughout Ukraine to prepare them to conduct ongoing individualized training with emancipating youth to prepare these youth to live independently.
  
  
• Graduated four groups of “adoption assessors” in Ukraine who participated in a standardized series of training workshops to prepare them to recruit, evaluate, and support families to adopt children in need of families.
  
  
• Prepared and trained several local trainers to independently present the Life Skills, Residential Care, and Adoption Assessor curricula for other groups of professionals in their own countries.
  
  
• Collaborated with Fathers’ House International Charity in Kiev to translate the Adoption Assessor training curricula into Russian.
  
  
• Collaborated with the Christian Broadcasting Network in Kiev, Ukraine, to publish Trainer Guides and workbooks for youth to support Life Skills training programs with emancipating youth, and to distribute the materials to participants in training workshops.
  
  
• Worked with colleagues from the Foundation for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Moscow and Christian Children's Fund in Minsk to translate the entire Ohio Core Curriculum for Child Welfare Caseworkers into Russian for use and distribution throughout the Region.
  
  
• Coordinated a collaborative effort between IHS and colleagues in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus to translate, publish, and distribute 5000 sets of IHS’ four volume resource textbook, the Field Guide to Child Welfare in Russian.
  
  
• Legally registered a new entity in Kiev, Ukraine, as an international charitable organization – a Leadership Development Center, to be managed on site by Fathers’ House in Kiev, to be a national and  regional center of excellence, to develop leaders and professionals to address the needs of abused, neglected, disabled, and homeless children.
  
  
• Entered into collaboration with other national organizations to translate and post relevant training resources on web sites through the Better Care Network of UNICEF to make them more easily available to professionals in Eastern Europe.
  

Plans for Continuing Work

In collaboration with local partners in the four participating countries (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan), IHS will continue to help build the capacity of local organizations and professionals to meet the needs of abused, neglected, disabled, and homeless children.

 

For more information, please contact:

Judith S. Rycus, Ph.D., MSW, Program Director
Institute for Human Services and North American Resource Center for Child Welfare
1706 E. Broad Street, Columbus, OH 43203
E-mail:   JSRycus@aol.com
Phone     614-251-6000 or 614-498-0148