V.O. Volchanskaya’s scientific contributions

p>The article examines the established practice of legal regulation of the institution of a substitute family. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities and differences in the forms of placement of orphaned children, and their stimulation. Within the framework of the study, legal conflicts in the development of the institution of adoption have been identified, promising directions for eliminating the noted legal problems have been proposed. The influence of current state directions is analyzed: preservation of the blood family, prevention of social orphanhood, support for adoption. In the course of the study, a survey was conducted of employees of guardianship and guardianship authorities, specialists of organizations for orphans and children left without parental care, candidates for substitute parents, parents and adoptive parents. The aim is to study support measures that contribute to the increase in the number of adoptions, with an emphasis on legal regulation, ensuring the child's right to a family, maintaining family ties, including socio-psychological aspects. The results obtained make it possible to take into account specific law enforcement difficulties in the implementation of activities to choose the form of placement of a child and ensure his right to a family. Proposals have been formulated on measures to support the institution of adoption of difficult-to-accommodate categories of children.</p

p>This article describes the experience of implementing the corporate mentoring program of the Guardians of Childhood Foundation during training and work internships of adolescents and young adults with disabilities. Corporate mentoring is presented as a universal model of career guidance for adolescents in the context of working relationships in existing companies, where there is an intensive transfer of experience and knowledge, the formation of skills, competencies, metacompetences and values of work activity, and the formation of work motivation. The study involved 82 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years (26 hard of hearing and deaf, 56 with mental disabilities), who were temporarily employed in 34 companies in Moscow and the Rostov Region. As a result of participating in the program, adolescents with disabilities significantly expanded their understanding of available professions, mastered the basics of the profession, learning to work in a team, gained practical work experience during internships under the guidance of mentors — company employees, and realized the prospects of their work in the future.</p

p>The article is devoted to the analysis of educational needs of specialists in the field of protection of children's rights and interests. The purpose of the study is to identify the general and specific educational needs of specialists in the guardianship and guardianship of minors, the offices of the commissioners for children's rights, organizations for orphans and children left without parental care. The research methodology includes the analysis of data from the opinions of 446 respondents using frequency analysis and the Kraskel–Wallis criterion. The educational needs common to the groups were identified: knowledge about the forms of child rights protection, methods of identifying children's opinions, preventive work to prevent suicide and the psychology of deviant behavior. The similarity in the development of professional competencies is also shown: the ability to flexibly adapt to changing situations, the ability to interact with representatives of various departments and apply legal and psychological technologies in working with children and their families. The results of the study demonstrate the potential for developing a unified program that can effectively meet the needs of specialists in the context of legislative changes and social transformations.</p

p>The review article presents a discussion of some topical issues of standardization of activities to prepare orphans and children without parental care for independent living and their support after graduation from various forms of education. The focus is on children of the normotypical category and children with “special needs” – with limited health and (or) disabilities, with mental development disorders, with socially significant diseases, who need to develop adherence to taking medication. The structure and content of the standards are considered, the forms and methods of preparing students for independent life and accompanying graduates are illustrated, including an analysis of organizational resources and evaluation criteria. The speakers noted the need to focus on developing skills that will be in demand in a new place of life after adulthood, as well as developing independence in performing daily life activities for special categories of graduates. The results of testing the tools for socio-psychological examination of pupils and graduates in various forms of living conditions, and certain effective practices (mentoring, training apartments, project activities, etc.) that contribute to the implementation of the provisions of the standard were presented.</p

p style="text-align: justify;"> The article describes the experience of using the case method in training specialists from guardianship and guardianship authorities and specialists from the Office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Russian Federation as part of the implementation of the supervision webinar cycle. Supervisory support of specialists in the field is organized in the format of online meetings, during which case studies from the practice of students were analyzed. The article offers an overview of the topics highlighted in the analysis of cases received from students, describes the key points in the discussion of the proposed cases from the standpoint of competence-based and practice-oriented approaches to adult learning. Supervision, built on the basis of real cases, contributed to the improvement and acquisition of new professional competencies within the framework of the qualifications of specialists in the field of child protection. The analysis of the received cases made it possible to identify the main deficits and educational needs of specialists, which can be used in further training of specialists. </p

The process of social adaptation in graduates of orphan organizations occurs simultaneously with their socialization: as adolescents become involved in various life situations, they acquire new repertoires of social behavior or employ the ones they already have. Special attention should be paid to the specifics of development in adolescents brought up in socially deprived conditions since they tend to demonstrate asocial motivation, communicative deficits and try to avoid performing social roles. The article focuses on the problematic issues of socialization of orphans and children without parental care. To explore life situations typical for the period of independent living of graduates of orphan organizations, we used a special methodological tool: cases of life scenarios. We carried out the analysis of 452 cases of life scenarios in graduates aged 18—23 years, 262 male and 190 female. The analysis revealed the following problems of socialization and social adaptation of orphans and graduates of organizations for orphans and foster families: insufficient level of knowledge in matters of education, vocational education and employment, low goal-setting skills. We highlight the facts that are prototypical in the description of a life scenario, and these events are at the same time typical for graduates of various forms of foster care and orphan organizations.

The problem of assessing the readiness of graduates of various forms of guardianship for independent life is associated with the lack of regulatory regulation of activities for the support of orphans and persons from among them in federal legislation and in the legislation of a number of regions of the Russian Federation. There is neither a unified approach to assessing readiness for independent living, nor a unified terminology base, which significantly complicates the development and improvement of assessment methods. The article presents the results of monitoring programs for the preparation of pupils of organizations for orphans for independent life, conducting an assessment of readiness in the subjects of the Russian Federation and describes the current state of the problem of readiness of graduates of organizations for orphans and graduates of substitute families in different regions, provided by the Department of State Policy in the field of Protection of Children’s Rights of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Specialists from 78 regions participated in the study, for which a special questionnaire was developed. The analysis of the obtained data showed that there are several approaches used in the practice of assessing the readiness of graduates by regions: a psychodiagnostic approach, a behavioral and competence approach. In the analysis, we relied on the understanding of the assessment of readiness for independent life through the correlation of the formed life competencies with the requirements that are imposed on graduates and with those indicators that determine the ability to apply the relevant competencies in the right situations. If educational programs, readiness criteria have been developed in organizations for orphans and work is being carried out, then in relation to teenagers who are in substitute families, it is assumed that they will naturally prepare for life in the post-international period in the family or they will undergo career guidance at school. According to the results of monitoring, such a statement of the question is questionable. The prospects of the study are related to the development of a system for assessing the readiness of graduates for independent living, the standard for preparing graduates of organizations for orphans and substitute families to live independently.

The article presents an analysis of the results of monitoring to determine the need to increase the level of competence of specialists of guardianship and guardianship (OOP) (2020), provided by the Department of State Policy in the field of Protection of Children’s Rights of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. In the context of the constant expansion of the powers of PLO specialists, the importance of special professional and methodological training of specialists of guardianship and guardianship authorities in relation to minors in accordance with the requirements of the professional standard and interdisciplinary competencies is evident. 406 specialists of guardianship and guardianship authorities of 85 subjects of the Russian Federation took part in the study. The analysis of 406 questionnaires of PLO specialists with different work experience in the guardianship and guardianship authorities was carried out. The average age of the PLO specialists who took part in the survey is 40 years. The gender composition of respondents is mainly represented by female specialists (92.2% of women with less than 1 year of work experience and 98.3% with more than 5 years of work experience). Representatives of executive authorities in the field of guardianship and guardianship note the need to update the existing professional standard of a specialist of guardianship and guardianship authorities in accordance with changes in state policy in the field of protection of the rights of minors. The most popular forms of receiving methodological assistance are: participation in training seminars, conferences, round tables, webinars; online consultations with experts. PLO specialists prefer to receive methodological support through telephone consultations, through various Internet resources; in the form of methodological recommendations; supervisors, business games, trainings, advanced training courses. The problem area remains the modern content of training programs, a multidisciplinary approach, and the constant expansion of the competencies necessary for the work of specialists. It is shown that for specialists with different work experience, their own principle of building advanced training programs with different volume and content of training for these categories of specialists should be implemented with the obligatory reliance on the case study.