Идеальная организация заботы о детях, оставшихся без попечения родителей: реформа системы защиты детей как борьба за ресурсы и признание

Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований. 2019. Т. 11. № 1. С. 57–81.

Chernova Z. V., Shpakovskaya L. L., Кулмала М.

Russia is undergoing a reform of its child welfare system. The general aim of the reform  is  deinstitutionalization.  This  implies  fundamental  changes  at  the  ideological  and  institutional  levels  to  redesign  the  system  of  residential  care  for  children  left  without parental care and to develop a system of family placement. Based on expert interviews, the article examines the institutional logic of the reform implementation, presenting expert opinions on how care should be organized for children left without parental care in terms of ideals of care, as well as institutional structure (location of care, agents involved in care, and resources available to those agents). As a theoretical framework we use the neoinstitutional approach, in particular, the theory of social learning and the strategic interaction approach. The article identifies main players in the reform arena (state residentialinstitutions, NGOs, and foster families), as well as the  discursive  strategies  they  use  to  legitimize  their  role,  action  strategies,  their  ideas about children’s well-being, and ideas about how childcare should ideally be arranged.  We  identify  three  competing  ideal  care  models:  paternalistic,  quasi-liberal,  and familial. These models present paradigmatic directions of deinstitutionalization of care for children left without parental care, resulting from the current reforms the child welfare system.

Keywords: социальная политика, social policy, забота, дети-сироты, деинституционализация сиротства, care, orphanages, deinstitualization