Family upbringing is the best for any child. Therefore, in 2017, the government started the “deinstitutionalization” reform (DI reform). Its main goal is to gradually reduce/close boarding schools, creating conditions under which orphans and children deprived of parental care would grow up not in the state system, but in the family.
There are family forms of upbringing, such as FTCH (family-type children’s home), foster/guardian family, foster family and adoption.
- In 2018, the government approved regulations on a small group home for children deprived of parental care. Local executive authorities were recommended to create such institutions in case of liquidation or reorganization of boarding schools.
A small group home is a social protection institution designed for long-term (inpatient) residence of orphans, children deprived of parental care, including children with disabilities, and persons from their number in conditions close to family.
A small group house is designed for the simultaneous residence of no more than ten people, in the event that there are children with disabilities, – eight people who live in separate rooms, no more than one – two people in one room, taking into account family ties, age, gender , disability, personal preferences and specifics of each child’s development, health status.
Over time, the children of a small group home will either be able to return to their parents, or a new families will be found for them.
Such houses began to open in 2021, and in June 2023 a new group house was opened in the city of Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region.
«The main task of this program is to move away from residential forms of education and create conditions for children as close as possible to family ones. Cozy rooms, areas for study and relaxation. However, the main thing is socialization, support, an individual approach to each child. Former boarding schools could not provide all this“, said the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council, Mykola Lukashuk.
In general, the institution can accept 10 pupils. 6 educators, social pedagogues work with the children.
«In the institution, the children will be looked after, but they will also accustom them to life. So that they feel what a family circle is, and not get lost in life– said Serhiy Lysak, head of the Dnipropetrovsk RMA.
——–
Information about children who can be adopted is available on the official website of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine at the link.
