Reform of boarding schools on time. And precisely because of the war

Oksana Zholnovich, has a chance to prove this pattern again, first of all in the field of protection of the rights of the child. The reform of post -Soviet boarding schools declared in 2017 into a family arrangement system (coordinated by the Ministry of Social Policy) was just slowly, that is. Neither the number of these collective institutions nor the number of children in them has practically reduced all these years, despite the statements of officials about "our family values".

Numerous studies show that for the sake of filling the states and "budgeting", boarding schools were artificially filled with children, unnecessarily divorced with their parents and devoid of growth in foster care. Video of the day with (deliberately) the confusing and contradictory statistics of many agencies that kept these establishments and managed the relevant state budgets, it turns out that about 100,000 children were listed in seven hundred of these institutions.

Of these, about half grew there constantly, without parental care and social adaptation, then entering adulthood helpless, emotionally injured, economically dependent on the state. Only one of the ten graduates of boarding schools adapts in society - the rest live an unhappy life, problematic for themselves and for the community. The testimony of tragic and shameful results of the work of this system is contained in dozens of research and investigations, easily accessible but stubborn.

Only 8% of children in institutions are really orphans - the rest have parents who need only a little support in their communities. Those who really do not have parents could and should have been taken care of if the reform had been carried out.

But - no! About fifty thousand children in the roundabout in barracks are more than half a percent of all children of Ukraine! The huge factory for the production of children's grief has worked constantly for all three decades of independence, based on any attempts by humanistic reforms. And she protected only now, from the blow of war.

But unlike the rest of the social and state structures, which we all - each in our place - we keep and restore, this system of institutional institutions of keeping children deserves a decisive dismantling and replacement of family forms of education of children. But, in fact, is this question on the background of war? Yes, it is in time and because of the war.

Non-governmental organizations, united in the Ukrainian network for the rights of the child, in November-December 2021 officially appealed to the governmental bodies to begin or prepare the evacuation of "state" children from the territories under threat-but unanswered. For example, the SOS of the children's towns by itself took out its wards from Luhansk and Kyiv region. But only two hundred families of tens of thousands.

In the early days of the Russian invasion, boarding schools simply sent the vast majority of their pets to the door - go, say, for homes, let their parents be responsible for you. And what are the parents in what conditions they live and are they still at home when half the country rushed to run away and battles boiled near their homes? No grades and support were carried out. No more than one tenth of boarding schools were evacuated.

About two thousand children in the institutions remained in the occupied territories, and are now exported by the occupiers in the Russian Federation, where they are illegally adopted, change documents and identity. The bulk of children were in parents who were in difficult circumstances before the war, and during the war and even the wages could not create safety and care for children. And for the most part we do not know what these children are now.

So: in a relatively calm time, the boarding schools swore, that "we love them as relatives," and that "do not let them go to non-lethal parents"? But in the first threat, all love and responsibility disappeared, and the children were thrown to the present. It is important that at first this happened during the first Kovid Lockdaun in March 2020, when 42 thousand boarding schools were sent to homes one night. That irresponsibility was not punished.

And, of course, in February-March 2022, it was repeated, apparently demonstrating that the system of collective institutions is not capable and does not want to protect children that in peacetime it is harmful to children, and in the crisis it is dangerous. If this mass official negligence is ignored once again, it will call into question the desire of the state to protect the legal rights of its minor citizens.

And trust in the state is a fundamental condition for the unity of society in the struggle. This is our image in the eyes of Europe in this war close connection with the European Union is a means and purpose for us. Europe is the rear of our front and the EU accession is one of the components of the desired victory. But this also imposes on us.

We really need to rebuild the state on a European basis, both in the judicial sphere and in the sphere of self -government, deregulation of economy, energy saving, etc. , and in the field of state care for children too. Pragmatic, devoid of emotions from international institutional funds are surprised to raise eyebrows to boarding budgets.

For example, in 2019, the state spent about 11 thousand children in boarding schools about 11 billion hryvnias ("Monitoring institutions of institutional care and upbringing ). That is, one child per month accounted for more than 10 thousand hryvnias (with a minimum of 4200 UAH at the time), with zero and even the negative effect of these costs for the state.

"And with such wastefulness, those Ukrainians ask for financial assistance?" But more important money is the emotional impression that we make to European societies. After all, the attitude towards children is a fundamental marker that observers evaluate any society. The image of a offended child is a trigger for both media scandal and for complications at international sites that may already have legal consequences.

For example, in September, Ukraine should report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the State of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and this will not be a pleasant conversation. Europe-also painful and difficult-has already gone the way from boarding to family forms of one or two generation. Ten years ago, our neighbors - Moldova and Georgia - completed this reform.

We remain a reserve of an outdated collective education system, which in its essence necessarily generates neglect and pedagogical neglect by the staff, and the grandfather and harassment between children. This could not be hidden before, and now, because of the evacuation of some establishments in Europe, it came out and shocked Europeans. We have transported and arranged in Europe another 1,240 foster children and parents of family-type orphanages.

So here, there, Ukrainian educators report unpleasant issues from local social services: why so many children per mom-educator? Why do children fall behind the school program? Why didn't this child with a disability have passed the adequate course of abylitation? Is it not time for the social service to move Ukrainian children to a local foster care to save from neglect? We have to interfere, in a hurry to help, to defend the caregivers-but those Europeans are right, and their reproaches are right! To look in Europe by Europeans to cause sympathy and sympathy (which is the driver of political solidarity), we simply must take care of providing children with real care: without any collective forms of keeping, and with a small number of children in the foster family.

This issue of strategic investment in the future of the generation is known that the boarding system emerged in the XVIII-XIX centuries, along with the mass industrialization and for it. And semi -hunger orphans in miners and aristocratic Boarding Schools in English castles were based on one principle and one purpose: rupture of family ties and impersonal education by force discipline for the formation of an obedient unanimous personality - a worker, a soldier, an administrator.

Humility, emotionality, efficiency in a given function. The totalitarian empires of the XX century-the III Reich and the USSR-have picked up and developed this tool for education of the screw, leaving it inheritance. And the USSR is gone - but the boarding schools are left and continue to stamp the people.

Although only those half a percent of children living in institutions suffer from it, but the very existence of this form, it is this one that imposed in my teeth the phrase "you will not obey - I will give in the kindergarten!" It has a harmful effect on a much wider circle of people: frightening children, corrupting officials, demotivating parents. Modern economy, public administration - and defense! - They are based on a strong and creative personality.

On its innovation, ingenuity, flexibility, enterprise, courage to try and experiment, find non -linear solutions. And also at the ability to negotiate, understand each other, establish networks of like -minded people and partners, create a miserable atmosphere in the team. For the modern economy, a person is versatile and emotionally stable, which a collective institution simply cannot form by its essence, how much money does not pay for educators and how many laptops do not give to the pupils.

Braw and creativity in adulthood requires love and support in childhood, and this is possible only in the family - native or foster. Today, the system of collective institutions is ineffective for the state and detrimental to children. Children and staff - who where, buildings are damaged. But she is already trying to recover because employees want to have salaries and budgets, and large warm plasma buildings, and volunteer caravans with gifts, and high guests at children's concerts.

To do this, they lobby for state officials and foreign donors, pointing to a truly growing number of vulnerable families with children (and now half of families are vulnerable) and children whose parents have died through war. But the political will of officials and the human responsibility of citizens must say strongly: “No.

From now on, children of Ukraine will only grow in family care ”:-A wide information campaign is needed to attract users-parents and professional educators, both state and informal, through stars and leaders; - A moratorium on investment in large institutions is needed - the resource should be strengthening the ability of territorial communities to provide social services to vulnerable families and professional foster care.

This should be directed by state budget subsidies and international grants. - A single system of accounting of children and a powerful responsible body that ensures the protection of their rights - and the adoption of the law on the formation of the Civil Service for Children is an important step towards it. Of course, there is a lot more - but as they say, the eyes are afraid and their hands do.