Situations Change
Ukraine’s new orphan law
For well over a decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, no law or regulation permitted private orphanages or children’s shelters to exist. However, in December 2004 and as Ukraine’s Government was changing, a new orphan law was passed.
Just a few highlights ...
A child has a right to be raised in a family!
(page 5) Settling of a child into an establishment for orphan children and children deprived of parental care doesn’t release Organs of Guardianship and Care at the place of a child’s origin or a child’s place of residence from the responsibility to proceed actively concerning realization of this child’s right to be brought up in a family.
Adopters must take a course in child rearing!
(page 9) Before the moment they take children for upbringing and living together, potential adopters, guardians, adoptive parents, parents-educators, in case of necessity, must take a preparation course on challenges appearing in the process of rearing orphan children and children deprived of parental guardianship. The course or preparation must be in accordance with a program approved by the Central Body of the Executive Power in Family, Children and Youth affairs.
Orphanages limited to no more than 50 kids each!
(page 10) The total number of children in the establishments for orphan children and children deprived of parental guardianship must not be more than fifty persons.
Other things in it's seventeen pages of legislation, like an active search for gifted children, not marking institutions with titles that categorize the chidren to their hurt and defining the size and kind of foster homes which have the right to adopt children in their care, getting confiscated items from customs for children's care institutions and lots more, make great changes in Crimean child care now possible.
With guidance from other child care professionals we have developed a new alternative to state run childcare. The vision is for family-based care for homeless and orphaned children in a village community of foster families - with homes, a church, school rooms, a working farm, vegetable gardens, a cheese kitchen, and various assorted types of workshops. Both children and parents at River of Joy (ROJ) will also take on campground maintenance and operation responsibilities. As River of Joy is also a beautiful place, attractive for retreats, camps, and conferences it will also be a center for foster familys and future guardians to learn how to properly care for and teach responsibility to children who have had a difficult start. We had no idea that this would become necessary under law when we resolved to do so. Even yet it is not necessary to fulfill all requirements in one place, but we see this as the most efffective way to fulfill point two in the above law as it gives practical experience in guardianship at the time of learning how to do it.
Thus community childcare will prepare and place older orphans in foster families that we will train and equip for their guardianship responsibilities. The main emphases of the community will be the children's physical and psychological well-being and their education, in which they will be taught life skills as well as academic subjects, preparing them for entry into normal schools and a family oriented life style. After recent meetings with others starting similiar work across Ukraine we believe that from this example we will eventually be involved in creating a network of childcare communities across Crimea. These will take orphan children out of the institutions and off the streets, to give them a family, an education and a real chance in life.
The River of Joy community is located near a village with all the problems of post-soviet villages in Ukraine. It has enormous unemployment, rampant social ills including widespread alcoholism and drug addiction. But it is changing with the help of God and attention from ROJ personnel already. As this project helps children using local people, it has a very real possibility of becoming a model example for realizing village rehabilitation that is replicable on a wide scale.