Lviv-Belova spoke about the reform of the system of prevention of social orphanage
By September 1, the All-Russian Service for Assistance to the Family will work in Russia, the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child Maria Lvova-Belova said. The main task of the new organization is to reduce the number of children withdrawn from families and located in orphanages. As part of the upcoming reform, it is planned to create a network of rehabilitation and crisis centers in the regions that will help to preserve families without placing a child in special institutions and deprivation of parental rights. Mrs. Lvova-Belova believes that this will reduce the « population » of orphanages from 60 thousand to 30 thousand children by 2030.
On Wednesday, June 4, the Commissioner for Child Rights, Maria Lvov-Belova, during a press conference, spoke about the upcoming reform of the system of preventing social orphanage (we are talking about situations where the children were in a shelter or orphanage with living biological parents). In 2024, President Vladimir Putin instructed Mrs. Lvov-Belova to conduct an audit throughout the country and find out how to reduce the scale of this phenomenon. At the previous meeting with the head of state, the Children’s Ombudsman spoke about the results of the inspection (See “Kommersant” from June 3): Having visited all regions and studying personal affairs of 7 thousand minors in orphanages and shelters, Maria Lvova-Belova came to the conclusion that 25% of children are “unreasonably” there. In other words, the help of the family could be provided in alternative ways, for example, having given the children to the custody of relatives, etc.
The main problem is that most of the decisions on the seizure of a child from the family are made by minors and police commission, Maria Lvova-Belova believes, but they have no task to save their family.
In the course of the upcoming reform, social services, curators for working with family, rehabilitation and special crisis centers, whose work is aimed at ensuring that children remain in families should come to the fore. In some regions, such centers earned directly during the audit, which led to a reduction in the number of children in special institutions by 10.2% (from 60 thousand to 53.9 thousand) in 2024–2025.
According to the results of the meeting with the president, it was decided to create a new organization to reduce social orphanhood – the All -Russian service to the family, which will work by September 1. In each region there will be commissions to verify the validity of the premises of children in orphanages and shelters, they will be an integral part of the new service, Maria Lvova-Belova said yesterday. Members of the commissions will find out whether all measures of assistance to the family are provided or is the removal of a child from the family the only way to help him. Employees of the new service will also help citizens in restoring parental rights. The new organization will involve NPOs engaged in the prevention of social orphanage. Also, Maria Lvova-Belova said, in the near future, on behalf of the president, the Federal Interdepartmental Working Group on Surveillance and Prevention of Social Orphanage will be created: it will include employees of the Presidential Administration, the Prosecutor General, the FSB, the SCD, the Supreme Court and other departments.
Separately, the children’s Ombudsman spoke about the financing problem: the budget of orphanages and shelters is formed according to the number of beds, as a result, the institutions are interested in being filled.
“It is very important, preserving the personnel potential, so that we leave dependence with the bed fund and re-profile these institutions into crisis centers for mothers with children,” explained Mrs. Lvov-Belova. According to her forecasts, by 2030 the number of children in orphanages and shelters will be reduced to 30 thousand children. “And it will not be just a figure, it will be a built work with families,” Mrs. Lvov-Belyova is sure. “That is, we will not just return it, but create normal conditions for each child in a family environment.”
“The creation of the All -Russian Assisting Assisting Service for families will be a significant step towards the systematic support of regional NPOs working in the field of the prevention of social orphanage,” the director of the Nizhny Novgorod charity foundation Alice (works with families who find themselves in a difficult life situation with the risk of removal or refusal of children), “this initiative will allow you to combine the efforts of various organizations and provide more Effective local cooperation. A systematic approach to helping families in a difficult situation is the key to successfully preventing social orphanhood. We hope that the new service will create the necessary conditions for protecting the rights of children and parents, and will also contribute to the development of regional models of assistance and support. ”
