Congratulations to the leading researcher professor Elena Rozhdestvenskaya and her team on the RSF granted project 'Family on the Edge: Limitations and Opportunities of Socio-Technological Treatment in Social Orphanhood Prevention'

The project is aimed at analyzing the limits and possibilities of social and technological intervention in the prevention of social orphanhood with the prospect of developing effective methods and technologies to combat the problem of social orphanhood.

The problem of social orphanhood is one of the most acute social problems both in the world as a whole and in Russia. According to the Study of the Causes of Social Orphanhood – Life Situations That Lead to Children in Childcare Institutions, conducted by the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation at the request of the Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation, in Russia against the background of a growing child population (+ 10.4% in 2018 compared to 2013) note a decrease in the scale of the problem of social orphanhood during 2013–2018. Nevertheless, the problem remains relevant - in 2020, the number of orphans and children left without parental care amounted to at least 500 thousand people. Social orphanhood as a phenomenon has negative consequences both at the level of individuals (psychological and social problems associated with increased anxiety, self-doubt, difficulties in socialization and social adaptation, building stable social ties), and at the level of the state and society - the spread of social orphanhood increases the financial burden on the state, can lead to an increase in the level of crime (if measures for the social adaptation of orphans turn out to be ineffective, and they begin to look for alternative ways of “survival” in society). A lot of measures to work with social orphans are aimed at providing conditions for life, health, upbringing and education of already established orphans. Nevertheless, despite the variety of institutions working with orphans (education and health authorities, children's homes, orphanages, boarding schools, correctional boarding schools and other types of institutions), it is difficult to give preference to institutions at the slightest opportunity to leave a child in a family. where conditions are available for his safe life and minimizing the risks of abuse or inappropriate treatment. That is why the most valuable are the measures, methods, technologies that can save the family and not remove children from the family. The focus of the research is the already existing and implemented technology for working with cases in families (Innovative social  technologies introduced into the practice of the institutions "My Family Center"). The project involves evaluating its quality, evaluating the effectiveness of the available technology, studying the limitations and opportunities in the use of social technologies. The novelty of the project lies in the development of criteria for the quality and effectiveness of this social technology, in the assessment of the functioning of the social technology after its implementation. Evaluation of this technology and the most successful and widespread practices in the prevention of social orphanhood, contextually close to them, can make it possible to subsequently engage in their active dissemination and support, taking into account the importance of working with the problem of social orphanhood. Such technologies can help keep families in crisis situations alive by helping to overcome and cope with problems that interfere with the healthy life of families with children.

The leader of the project is professor Elena Rozhdestvenskaya, leading researcher of the IL SIR 

The participants of the project are: 

Maria Davidenko, PhD, dotsent at the Faculty of Social Sciences, HSE

Valeria Utkina, senior lecturer  at the Faculty of Social Sciences, HSE

Marina Aleksandrova, PhD student, research fellow at the IL SIR, HSE