The Ryazan Region is participating in a project focused on preventing child abandonment for children under four. The initiative aims to provide timely support to families in crisis, thereby reducing the number of infants and toddlers entering institutional care.
The Commissioner reported that since the project’s launch, the number of children permanently living in institutions in the region has fallen by 36 percent. This success is supported by active regional and municipal councils, which are dedicated to issues concerning children in care and operate under the oversight of a Deputy Prime Minister. Newly established Children in the Family services are currently providing support to 211 families, and a network of Sustainable Family clubs is expanding. Furthermore, the conversion of the local Children’s Home from an orphanage into a treatment and rehabilitation facility is in its final stages.
During a meeting with the Commissioner, Governor Pavel Malkov confirmed that her office’s recommendations are being actively implemented. Regional services are addressing the situation of every family in difficulty and every child without parental care. The trend is positive across the board, and the number of such families and children requiring assistance is declining, the Governor emphasised.
As part of her visit, Maria Lvova-Belova took part in a session of the regional interdepartmental council on child placement in institutional care and held a working meeting with organisations involved in the child abandonment prevention system.
The Commissioner also toured several key facilities, including the Children’s Home treatment and rehabilitation centre, a social development centre, the Sosnovy Bor multipurpose social rehabilitation centre, and a crisis response centre for families with children.
Her itinerary also included a meeting with participants of ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ rehabilitation programme, recently launched in the region. The session, hosted at the Zarnitsa children’s centre with the support of Russian Railways, is supporting 100 children from families of participants in the special military operation. In a separate event, Maria Lvova-Belova joined a ceremony, via videoconference, to inaugurate a new development space in Stakhanov, LPR.
The visit concluded with a cultural outing to the Konstantinovo State Museum-Reserve, where the Children’s Rights Commissioner, alongside members of the public council, activists from the Movement of the First, and the Children’s Rights Commissioner for the Ryazan Region, Anzhelika Yevdokimova, laid flowers at the monument to poet Sergei Yesenin.