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Program Overview
IREX and its partners Kidsave International and Firefly Children’s Network currently implement the USAID-funded Community Support for Orphans (CSO) program in the Russian Far East (RFE). CSO initiates a comprehensive child welfare program aimed at reducing abandonment of children with disabilities and promoting foster care and domestic adoption as a community-based response to the growing number of orphans and abandoned children in local orphanages.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in the deterioration of Russia’s social infrastructure, adversely affecting the lives of its entire population. The demise resulted in economic turmoil, which in turn led to severe decreases in government spending on education and the child welfare system. Moreover, there has been an unprecedented rise in the level of child mortality, in part due to recent rising levels of HIV/AIDS. High mortality rates, coupled with unhealthy behaviors, high unemployment and poor economic conditions have resulted in the breakdown of traditional family structure. These conditions have overburdened the child welfare system and produced unparalleled numbers of institutionalized children.
IREX and its partners currently implements the Community Support for Orphans (CSO) program in the Russian Far East (RFE). CSO initiates a comprehensive child welfare program aimed at reducing abandonment of children with disabilities and promoting foster care and domestic adoption as a community-based response to the growing number of orphans and abandoned children in local orphanages.
Project Activities
- Developing and testing social marketing messages and materials which will create changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward orphaned children;
- Refining and testing training-of-trainer (“TOT”) materials to build local capacity through which professionals can provide training and support to children, their host families, mentors, and adoptive families to increase the chance for successful and permanent relationships;
- Refining the Short-Stay Plus Mentoring Model that enables older children ages 5-15 to find permanent families and long-term mentors;
- Delivering early diagnosis and treatment of disabilities critical to minimizing the effects of disabilities;
- Improving access to information in medical rehabilitation for specialists working with children with disabilities;
- Providing information and psychological support to parents to strengthen families, and;
- Promoting children’s integration into society, and to reduce the rate of abandonment.
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