ADOPTED RUSSIAN BOY REJECTED, IN SELF DEFENSE

Because foster care is so much more expensive, and difficult, than placing children in institutions, it probably won't become a wide-spread practice in Russia. An alternative would be to place children in small group home settings which would also be preferable to large orphanages.

Because foster care is so much more expensive, and difficult, than placing children in institutions, it probably won't become a wide-spread practice in Russia. An alternative would be to place children in small group home settings which would also be preferable to large orphanages.

Russia has always tended toward institutions for children. They never claimed otherwise. They are now trying to promote foster homes, to try to keep more of these children in Russia.

The Russian boy celebrated his 8th birthday in a Moscow hospital
http://abcnews.go.com/International/returned-russian-adoptee-artyom-saveliev-celebrates-8th-birthday/story?id=10393446

He is expected to go into a foster home next week. After all this commotion, they really could not put him back into an orphanage. I hope that he will remain in a stable home situation now. He will retain his U.S. citizenship.

Foster care and adoption are relatively rare in Ukraine, although public education programs are underway to promote these options. For the interim, there is great need for family-type small group homes. Small group homes should consist of small enough groups of children to approximate a more intimate, supportive family-type environment. According to Every Child’s research, the few small group homes that already exist have about twenty children per home. Having worked in a group home in the US, I believe that is too many children for one setting. Ten should be the maximum number, with full-time childcare workers or foster parents in each home. Facilities or land might be provided by local governments, making use of some of the larger vacant buildings in most cities in Ukraine. Otherwise, it is necessary to build new homes.
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There are at this time, for example, numerous institutions across Ukraine where children die on a daily basis from little more than lack of knowledge about how to help them. The actual cost of helping them immediately is nothing more than one-day workshops for existing staff, to demonstrate basic, simple medical interventions common in the West. These institutions are generally closed to the outside world, difficult to access due to imposed secrecy, and are mostly in very rural areas where even the closest neighbors have no idea of the reality of these facilities.
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Care for children in new family type homes will be about the same is in existing orphanages. New homes are a one-time cost " a cost insignificant in comparison with giving each child a family type of home environment.

There is no substitute for a loving family environment for growing children. Existing state care institutions do not and cannot possibly provide this " despite occasional, lingering claims that state care is the best care for children. This attitude is a holdover from Soviet times when the state was idealized as the best possible caretaker for all, including children. Stark reality does not support that notion.
http://people-centered.org/Projects/Ukraine/Marshall_Plan.aspx

Every Child estimates a state cost of current equivalent of 575 hrivnia, or about $115, per child per month.

Due to economic and general health conditions, more and more children are being put up for adoption. Thousands of abandoned children is nothing unique to Russia, though. The problem centers around the substandard conditions of most of Russia's orphanages and other institutions where these unwanted children live. The main culprit is, once again, money. As in the U.S., you will find unscrupulous people whose business it is to profit from the misfortunes of these children. Much of the physical, mental and emotional disabilities suffered by Russian orphans could be avoided if there was adequate funding for orphanage upkeep, staffing, food, medical care and some of the comforts of life.

Regardless of what percentage of Russian adoptions fail, the fact still remains that an overwhelming percentage of Russia's children are leaving their homeland. There will always be orphans in the world; this is something we will never be able to totally do away with. However, instead of exporting so many, why not help Russia improve its orphanages or, better yet, the economic circumstances of parents so that they can keep their children in Russia and with their families. This is not a simple problem by far. But, it is one which receives little active attention.
http://www.russianlife.com/article.cfm?Number=149

Abstract
This article describes a unique study that attempts to promote positive social-emotional relationships and attachment between caregivers and children in orphanages in St. Petersburg, Russia. The children who reside in these orphanages are typically between birth and 48 months of age; approximately 50% are diagnosed with disabilities, and approximately 60% leave through foreign adoption. Initially, their orphanage caregivers showed a high level of current anxiety and depression and were detached from and communicated little with the children. Likewise, during baseline observations, the children demonstrated poor attachment behaviors such as indiscriminant friendliness, lack of eye contact with adults, aggression, and impulsive behavior. Two interventions were used in a quasiexperimental design: (a) training of caregivers to promote warm, responsive caregiving and (b) staffing and structural alterations to support relationship building, especially increasing the consistency of caregivers. The methodology required that both the training and staffing interventions be provided to one orphanage, only the training to a second, and neither to a third. (At any one time, ns = 80-120 in each condition.) Initial informal observations reveal positive behaviors for both the caregivers and the children, such as increased two-way conversations, animated and enthusiastic emotional responses, and positive social and language interactions. Early data analyses show an increase in the consistency and stability of caregivers and increased scores for caregivers on every subscale of the HOME Scales. Children showed improvements in physical growth, cognition, language, motor, personal-social, and affect, with children having severe disabilities improving the most. The implications of these findings suggest that training staff with modest educational backgrounds and structural changes are effective, can increase socially responsive caregiving behaviors, and improves social interactions of children, at least temporarily. ©2005 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

He certainly looks happier than he did when he got off the plane.
Poor child, he has had a rotten life. I wonder if he understands why he is back in Russia,
and why people are making such a fuss about him.


Artyom Savelyev in a children's hospital in Moscow celebrating his eighth birthday Photo: EPA

Maybe Artyom's purpose in this whole thing is to put a face to this issue because that's a real kid with a real smile- reading about him you'd think he'd have had dead and flat eyes- there's real light in those eyes and something to salvage.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Alcohol (wine, beer, or liquor) is the leading known preventable cause of mental and physical birth defects in the United States.

When a woman drinks alcohol during pregnancy, she risks giving birth to a child who will pay the price " in mental and physical deficiencies " for his or her entire life.

Yet many pregnant women do drink alcohol. It's estimated that each year in the United States, 1 in every 750 infants is born with a pattern of physical, developmental, and functional problems referred to as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), while another 40,000 are born with fetal alcohol effects (FAE).

Signs and Symptoms
If you adopted a child or consumed alcohol during pregnancy and are concerned that your child may have FAS, watch for characteristics of the syndrome, which include:

•low birth weight
•small head circumference
•failure to thrive
•developmental delay
•organ dysfunction
•facial abnormalities, including smaller eye openings, flattened cheekbones, and indistinct philtrum (an underdeveloped groove between the nose and the upper lip)
•epilepsy
•poor coordination/fine motor skills
•poor socialization skills, such as difficulty building and maintaining friendships and relating to groups
•lack of imagination or curiosity
•learning difficulties, including poor memory, inability to understand concepts such as time and money, poor language comprehension, poor problem-solving skills
•behavioral problems, including hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, social withdrawal, stubbornness, impulsiveness, and anxiety
Children with FAE display the same symptoms, but to a lesser degree.

Diagnosis and Long-Term Effects
Problems associated with FAS tend to intensify as children move into adulthood. These can include mental health problems, troubles with the law, and the inability to live independently.

Kids with FAE are frequently undiagnosed. This also applies to those with alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND), a recently recognized category of prenatal damage that refers to children who exhibit only the behavioral and emotional problems of FAS/FAE without any signs of developmental delay or physical growth deficiencies.
Often, in kids with FAE or ARND, the behavior can appear as mere belligerence or stubbornness. They may score well on intelligence tests, but their behavioral deficits often interfere with their ability to succeed. Extensive education and training for the parents, health care professionals, and teachers who care for these kids are essential.

How Much Alcohol Is Too Much?
It's clear that abusing alcohol during pregnancy is dangerous, but what about the occasional drink? How much alcohol constitutes too much during pregnancy?

No evidence exists that can determine exactly how much alcohol ingestion will produce birth defects. Individual women process alcohol differently. Other factors vary the results, too, such as the age of the mother, the timing and regularity of the alcohol ingestion, and whether the mother has eaten any food while drinking.

Although full-blown FAS is the result of chronic alcohol use during pregnancy, FAE and ARND may occur with only occasional or binge drinking.

Because alcohol easily passes the placental barrier and the fetus is less equipped to eliminate alcohol than its mother, the fetus tends to receive a high concentration of alcohol, which lingers longer than it would in the mother's system.

Mothers who drink during the first trimester of pregnancy have kids with the most severe problems because that is when the brain is developing. The connections in the baby's brain don't get made properly when alcohol is present. Of course, in the early months, many women don't even know they're pregnant.

It's important for women who are thinking about becoming pregnant to adopt healthy behaviors before they get pregnant.

Women who abstain from alcohol in early pregnancy may feel comfortable drinking in the final months. But some of the most complex developmental stages in the brain occur in the second and third trimesters, a time when the nervous system can be greatly affected by alcohol. Even moderate alcohol intake, and especially periodic binge drinking, can seriously damage a developing nervous system.

Prevention Is the Key
FAS can be completely prevented by not drinking any alcohol during pregnancy.

Reviewed by: Linda Nicholson, MS, MC
Date reviewed: June 2008
http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/fas.html

These protective factors have been found to benefit people who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders:


Early Diagnosis
Children who are diagnosed early have more positive outcomes that those who are not. The earlier a FAS child is placed in appropriate educational classes and given essential social services, the more improved the prognosis.
Early diagnosis also helps family members and teachers understand the reactions and behavior of the FAS child, which can differ widely from other children in the same situations.


Special Education and Social Services
Research has found that fetal alcohol syndrome children who receive special education designed for their specific needs and learning ability are more likely to achieve their developmental and educational potential. Because FAS children can exhibit a wide range of severity of symptoms, individualized educational programs are important.
It is also helpful if FAS children and their family receive social services -- such as respite care, stress management training or behavioral management training -- have more positive outcomes compared with families who do not receive those kinds of services.


Nurturing Environment
All children benefit from a loving, nurturing and stable home life. But children with fetal alcohol syndrome have been found to be more sensitive to disruptions, transient lifestyles and harmful relationships. To prevent the secondary conditions associated with FAS, children who have fetal alcohol syndrome need support from family and the community.

Absence of Violence
Violence in the lives of children with fetal alcohol syndrome can have significant influence on their likelihood of developing behavior, legal and living problems later in life. Studies have found that FAS children who live in stable and non-abusive homes are much less likely to develop secondary conditions.

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/fas/a/fas_treatment.htm