Safety, Permanence, Well-Being

Many of you know I am working on my MSW and specializing in child welfare, working to empower parents and families to ensure that children are protected and nurtured. In the US, the consensus in child welfare is that adults need to provide children with safety, permanence, and well-being in order for them to grow into healthy, strong individuals. Sometimes we do well, sometimes we don't. The same is true for our children in Russia.

The orphanage is a strong attempt at providing safety for a child, and Sovietsk does as well or better than any orphanage we've seen at keeping children safe--thanks to staff like Vovo, above with the guys, or Sveta, below with the girls . We are so thankful for that. But, when you have 18 year old boys living with young women, or older children who have experienced abuse or violence living with younger vulnerable children, and there are only so many adults to go around, there are special considerations. We've visited an orphanage of over 100 children where boys and girls shared rooms and where there was 1 night staff. It's hard to imagine that each of those children is safe.

The biggest challenge at Sovietsk may be establishing permanence. Permanence, for a child, is inextricably linked to psychological stability--it is hard for a child to flourish when he or she is always wondering what is next. In my practicum working with kinship families (relatives, often older grandparents, who are caring for children as their own), I came across this extremely relevant statement:

A child who is orphaned loses his parents once, and it is permanent and tragic. A child whose parents are in jail, in rehab, on the street or just missing, harbors a hope of returning to them but in the meantime loses them over and over again as they wander in and out of the child's life. Strange as it may seem, a sudden death may be easier for a child to handle than months or even years of not knowing. It is the difference between a clean break and prolonged uncertainty, and certainty is extremely important to children.*

Ben and I have witnessed firsthand the heartbreak of this repeated loss. Of the 29 children at Sovietsk, I believe only 3 have parents who are deceased--the rest have parents either unwilling, unable, or ill-equipped to care for them. On our last visit, we spent time with a young man who was expecting to spend the summer with his mother. She didn't come through, and he stayed at the orphanage while his friends were at camp. We sat with a sweet girl who receive a letter from her mother informing her that another baby was on the way. She responded as outwardly dismissive, saying she had negative feelings toward her mother for drinking too much and leaving her at the orphanage. It can be hard for those who have never experienced this to understand, but even with those negative feelings, there is a yearning for the acceptance and love that only a mother can give. She has to wonder--will my mother keep this child, but not me? Will I know my brother or sister? Will we ever be a family? Each time another hope is crushed, the child loses the parent all over again.

This is why the nature of what Sovietsk Supporters do is so important. Material gifts cannot bring love and acceptance, or well-being, to hurting children. We can never fill the void left by missing parents, but we can be a stable source of acceptance and love for children who have no understanding of what that means. We can do our part to ensure their well-being, even in the turbulence and impermanence of an orphanage. They did nothing to deserve a life without a family, and we who have so much love to give do everything we can to show them that love is possible.

*de Toldedo, S. & Brown, D. E. (1995). Grandparents as Parents. New York: The Guilford Press.