If you go out with a friend...

Today, due to the placement of children in foster families, a lot of orphanages are being disbanded. This is very cool, but along with this, there is another serious problem that is not usually talked about: it is associated with the return of children (secondary orphanhood) - this is when new parents cannot cope and return the child back to the orphanage. Often this happens not in the first year, but after 7-10 years, when the children grow up and the problems of adolescence begin, for which the parents were not ready.

It is terrible to imagine the horror through which children go through losing their parents again. It is unlikely that later they will be able to trust adults and harmoniously socialize in society. In 2014, 5,412 children were returned to orphanages.

The Love for Children program of the Amway Charitable Foundation is engaged in the prevention of secondary orphanhood, implementing a large grant program that helps to solve this particular problem throughout Russia. Grants are received by charitable organizations both in large cities and in villages and villages that work directly with foster families.

The program also organizes webinars for parents with the participation of well-known psychologists. For more information, see in-answer-for-the-future.rf.

In 2013 and 2014, more than 3,300 children and 2,200 families were assisted.

The public organization "Hand in Hand" is one of the fund's grant recipients. It is based in the village of Melnikovo, Tomsk Region, and provides psychological support and assistance to families with foster children. The organization's specialists travel to nine settlements of the region to conduct "Schools for Responsible Parenting", now even remote villages can receive their help. The Foster Parents' Club helps foster children through teenage volunteer support "Thank you, Clown!", in which teenage orphans take part as volunteers. Participation in this program gives children the opportunity to learn how to communicate with other people and not feel lonely.

Photos: Maria Plotnikova

(Total 27 photos)

We managed to attend one of the organization's monthly sessions.

The event is attended by both parents and their adopted children. In the photo - Galina Akimovna Saltykova. She raised two children of her own, 13 went through a foster family. Today she is raising five teenagers. Mentor-curator in the projects "Hand in Hand".

The theme of this meeting was the “family bouquet”: the day before, parents and children made bouquets from improvised materials and brought them to class. In the photo: Tatyana Mel with her adopted daughter Polina. The family has three adopted children.

By tradition, after classes, everyone can drink tea with pies.

At the lesson, children and adults are in different rooms: urgent problems are discussed with parents, and volunteers from the Melnyk industrial and commercial school play with children in the assembly hall. In the photo: Lyubov Mikhailovna Gorbunova, head of the Hand in Hand organization, and Tatyana Vasilievna Grigorieva, head of the guardianship and guardianship department of the Shegarsky District Administration. They are doing the work.

Pictured: Hand in Hand volunteers. To the left, Tatyana Vladimirovna Zinovieva, deputy director for methodological work at the Shegar Industrial and Commercial College. Most of the volunteers - orphans, graduates of orphanages - are from this technical school.

While parents are discussing family values, children are playing in the assembly hall. The process is led by college volunteers.

Among the volunteers, two young men in clown costumes stand out in particular: these are difficult teenagers who are registered with the police. Volunteer work greatly changed them internally.

At the lesson, parents discuss conflicts with children and possible ways out of difficult situations.

An hour later, parents and children unite in the assembly hall. Volunteers offer to participate in a kind of game - everyone writes their most cherished desire on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope.

An envelope with "magic wishes" is collectively launched into the sky. Such seemingly simple and unpretentious things strongly unite parents and children.

In the photo: Anna Pavlovna Dyachkova is a guardian (there is one ward child in the family).

Frida Fridrikhovna Ivanova (guardian) - with her 13-year-old daughter Natasha.