The number of people living in orphanages in Moscow decreased 3.5 times. This was announced by the mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, during a visit to the educational and training hostel of the Center for Accompanied Residence for Young Disabled People with Mental Disabilities.
“We have been implementing a program to reduce orphanhood in the city for many years. And the most important part of the work is to keep the children in families and not end up in orphanages. But if one way or another the child ends up in an orphanage, then it is very important that he gets his family again. And the program of finding one's own families is also such a big, serious systemic program. All this together led to a 3.5-fold decrease in the number of children in orphanages,”Sobyanin said.
He noted that some of the children still remain in orphanages, and some of them have mental disorders. “After growing up, they end up in psycho-neurological boarding schools, many of them for life. Although some of them could adapt to normal conditions, lead a normal life. And we started such a project together at the beginning with public organizations and foundations. And here is the first project on the city site. This is such a training center, when children are taught for several years of independent life: to self-management, life planning. Moreover, they are not kept in isolation, but, on the contrary, they try to make them come out into life, communicate with other peers; worked at some enterprises, studied in our colleges,”said the mayor.
Sobyanin expressed gratitude to public, volunteer organizations that initiated this project.
According to the materials of the press service of the mayor and the government of Moscow, the first in the city Center for Accompanied Residence, created by the city government, has the task of teaching young people over 18 the skills of independent life, mastering a profession, and preparing for integration into society.
The educational and training hostel of the center is located on the street. Musa Jalil. Previously, this two-story building housed the Center for Assistance to Family Education "Yuzhny", the need for which has completely disappeared due to a significant decrease in the number of orphans. After renovation, equipping with equipment and furniture, 10 apartments were created in the building, designed to accommodate 60 young people with mental disabilities.
Young people live in a hostel with the constant accompaniment of specialists - social workers, defectologists, psychologists, legal counsel and others. The guys are taught the skills of an independent life. Many of them attend college or workshops, undergo internships at enterprises with possible further employment. It is assumed that it will take three to five years for young people to develop and consolidate the basic skills of independent living. After that, they will be able to move to the apartments of the training residence, where the mentors will be with their charges only during the daytime.