Reforming Child Welfare in the Post-Soviet Space

9.11.2020
Society & economy
News
Author Niina Into
Empty playground

Online event on 17 November

Towards a Child’s Right to a Family? Discussing Child Welfare Reform in Russia

What has the reform changed in Russia? Does every child’s right to a family realize? How do the developments in Russia look like in the international perspective or when reflected to the Finnish child welfare system? 

Welcome to follow the presentation of the book and a panel discussion gathered around it on Tuesday 17 November from 1 pm to 3 pm (UTC + 2)!

Program:

13.00-13.30 Opening words and presentation of the book: Towards a Child’s Right to a Family in Russia? Meri Kulmala (in English)

13.30-14.00 Three video commentaries from Russia (in Russian with English subtitles)

14.00-15.00 Panel discussion with Eveliina Heino (University of Helsinki), Enni Hyrri (University of Helsinki), Katja Selkimäki-Gray (Save the Children) ja Elizabeth Wolff (Association “Time to Participate”), moderated by Maija Jäppinen (in Finnish).

 

In 2010, a major child welfare reform was launched in Russia. The reform was based on the idea of every child’s right to grow up in a family. Thus it aimed at dismantling the massive system of children homes by promoting domestic adoptions, developing foster family system and creating support services for families. How did it go? The concluding volume of an Aleksanteri Institute based research project sheds light to many of the complicated questions.

A Child's Right to a Family: Deinstitutionalization of Child Welfare in Putin's Russia is an international and interdisciplinary research project led by Docent Meri Kulmala. The project found its form under the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Russian Studies: Choices of Russian Modernization, and received funding from the KONE foundation, Academy of Finland and University of Helsinki.

The five year project is now coming to an end, with a concluding volume being published in the series "Routledge Advances in Social Work" and an online discussion event streamed live from the University of Helsinki Think Corner on Tuesday, 17th November.

The authors of the volume point out how the reform links to the global child’s rights and the deinstitutionalization trend in child welfare. The eleven chapters of the book provide new and empirically grounded research-based knowledge and insights into the current transformation of the Russian child welfare system.

Read more about the concluding volume on the publishers site.
Learn more about the project on the project site.

 

 

 

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