“No need to take children away from normal people, we need to help”: Moscow Children's Ombudsman - on guardianship authorities and families

- Before the interview, you talked about a

child

- This particular case is on the conscience of journalists.

Nobody was selling anyone.

The woman left her child with her brother on the playground and went to the store.

The guys played hide and seek, the kid ran to hide in a pawnshop, where they decided that the child was lost and called the police.

He was frightened and silent - he is afraid that his brother will get hit and he will fly in from his mother.

As a result, the media write: the boy does not speak Russian.

Of course, more often it happens differently - the media find out about truly critical situations in parallel with me, and even earlier.

And thanks to them for their patience and the ability to check the facts.

That is, there are emergencies, there are not so many of them, and they are all under my control.

There are planned things that need to be worked on with legislators, NGOs, and city structures.

You take a program for working with children of each department - it is perfectly written, everything works for them.

But as soon as this department has to interact with another, disconnect occurs.

I am a communicator in such interagency situations.

Wherever there are children, this is my job.

In addition to departments, NGOs do a lot with children, with which I also cooperate.

Example: a woman who does not have Russian citizenship addresses me.

She works, pays taxes.

But she also has a child and problems.

Our city system is designed for Muscovites.

What is this woman to do?

NPOs help to solve many troubles, and she could turn to them if she knew about such organizations.

This information is not enough.

There are also no social billboards where it says “if you feel bad, call there”.

Pregnant and afraid to give birth, were you kicked out of the house?

Go to the NGO.

And not Muscovites, and not Russian women will be accepted there, given the necessary things, fed.

And mom will be taught, if necessary, given a profession for free.

Anyone can find themselves in a difficult situation.

- If we talk about emergency cases - who is most often underperforming?

Custody?

- The Commissioner for the Rights of the Child of the Russian Federation Anna Kuznetsova said in her report to the President that the guardianship and guardianship authorities require a comprehensive upgrade.

A special working group has been created where we are discussing this work.

Legislators are proposing amendments to laws.

"Don't miss your family"

- Several years ago, it was said that custody increased in the nineties, when many families lived poorly and could not cope with raising children.

Now the situation has improved, but the powers of the guardianship remain.

Allegedly, to justify their existence, officials actively intervene ...

- There is a very thin line here, so as not to go into the control of the family and interference in the life of the family - this cannot be allowed.

And at the same time - do not miss a family where the child is bad.

- And how to do it?

- In order not to miss?

Look, a woman gave birth in Moscow, she was discharged and the next day a doctor comes to check the child's condition.

The system works automatically.

But there is no system that would allow identifying the problems of a family with a child in the early stages.

Or it could be the same: I became a large family, I automatically get an allowance, and then a social worker comes with the question: "How can I help?"

Not to check what my children are eating, but to help.

- So now the mother should go for help herself?

- Yes, we have a declarative nature of assistance.

Let's take an unfortunate woman with five children, who left them at home alone and went to the dacha to make repairs.

Young, creative, active - a normal woman.

She is a non-drinker, it can be seen, taking care of children.

She has a small business, sometimes there are force majeure circumstances at work, she turns around to feed everyone.

And then the dacha was on fire.

I went to solve the issue with its repair, and left the children.

I met with her, asked why she didn’t turn to friends, relatives or city services for help.

She says: for whom did I give birth to children?

I myself.

Her philosophy in life is not to ask for help.

And this is her right.

But if she were included in the orbit of aid, since she receives benefits, she would be “under the lamp” by the guardianship and guardianship authorities.

You have three schoolchildren who go on distance (hereinafter, we mean distance learning in connection with the pandemic -

), but how many gadgets?

Not enough - the school would be connected.

If I had to leave, I would have been given a social nanny.

But no one has yet this individual program.

- Were there any cases with a shortage of computers during the pandemic?

- Of course, but we kept the situation under control.

Schools went to meet families, gave out gadgets.

Moreover, laptops with downloaded programs in each school were chosen at will.

Difficulties during a pandemic

- Was it difficult after taking office to face a pandemic almost immediately?

- I joined in January, and it started in March.

The difficulty is that I could not go to my family or to institutions due to difficult cases.

When we started the story with a distance, I understood that the organization of the process must be kept under control.

In the end, everything went well, but each educational institution had its own path to this.

There were also days when the MES (Moscow Electronic School.

) system could not stand it and froze.

We are, of course, grateful to the manufacturers of commercial educational platforms that provided access for free during the pandemic.

But there was a mess with the platforms, unwanted content popped up.

Both teachers and children were a little lost.

And we formed proposals to the Moscow education system regarding the organization of distance education, which also included the development of a single platform based on Russian software.

How do I see?

When a child goes to school physically, he puts a card at the entrance and understands: in this school you will go to the right - a physics room, to the left - a chemistry room, there is a gym, there is a cafeteria, there the director sits.

The distance should be organized according to the same principle: one password and an understandable design.

- How do you feel about the discussions that separation is coming: distance learning is for the poor, and elite schools will never learn remotely? 

- It never will.

In our country, training will always be offline - even the president has already spoken about this.

Distance learning, of course, has a right to exist.

Some people need it.

My son is a professional athlete.

Now, if in his school years there was distance education, he would be able to study normally, and not in fits and starts.

There are children who decided professionally very early on.

These are young athletes and musicians.

For them, a general education course at a distance is enough, which will in no way affect either the sports schedule or the tour.

It also became clear that the distance student is completely unsuitable for children with disabilities.

For example, with autistic spectrum disorders, which work only eye to eye with defectologists, speech therapists, psychologists.

These children were left alone with their parents.

They are not only socialized at school, but they are introduced into the work system.

Now we are thinking about how to solve this problem.

- Does the rest work?

- The rest works.

Many parents simply did not understand how to properly live according to the regime.

Usually how?

Wake up, the child was fed to school - here he is and the regime.

It doesn't work remotely.

The rise is needed regardless of the fact that the lesson starts at nine.

It is necessary to get up at seven-thirty, exercise, breakfast, homework ... On the one hand, the pandemic is bad, on the other hand, it revealed the role of the school and the teacher in the everyday life of the family.

Made parents respect teachers and their work more.

The forced quarantine not only highlighted the problems, but also humanized us.

We realized that we have a rear, our family, which we began to forget in the hustle and bustle.

- In connection with the current wave of covid, not all parents managed to get their children to be vaccinated and are now afraid of sanctions.

What do you advise?

- There are no sanctions in the law.

On the other hand, there is a social responsibility of all people in a pandemic.

Based on these postulates, you need to act.

- Today they are discussing the regulation of parental chats (only in certain messengers and only with the participation of school psychologists).

How relevant is this measure and will it help improve communication in schools?

- Parental chats are parents' business.

They should be moderated by the parents themselves, possibly by the parent committee.

As for the participation of representatives of the educational organization in them, this is a matter of corporate policy and ethics of the organization.

The regulations, in my opinion, are simple and straightforward: the interaction of the participants should take place within the framework of the law.

On the powers of guardianship

- How did the situation with domestic violence develop?

Everyone is in the same square, around the clock, everyone is furious, the parents of the children are being punished.

Have there been any cases of contacting you?

Or shelters? 

- We are in touch with the Investigative Committee on a daily basis.

I did not notice that the situation became more tense than before the quarantine.

And crime statistics show that this did not happen.

There is a crisis center in Dubki, where women with children who have been subjected to violence are taken.

And it was not full.

In fact, I received several requests when people, due to lack of work, could not rent an apartment - they went to Dubki.

It wasn't about violence, it was about a crisis.

I follow up on cases of alleged violence.

When the police or the Investigative Committee find out about the problem, the guardianship authorities go there, the information comes to me, I also go to the place.

It is very important to see families with your own eyes.

This was the case with my mother and five children.

I immediately went to see the children - they are friendly, they call my mother all the time, they are good ones ... And then it becomes clear that the situation must be resolved manually - by the guardianship authorities and the Investigative Committee.

There is no need to take children away from normal people, you need to help.

- And in what cases should children be selected?

- When a child's life is in danger.

Now a bill has been proposed that provides for such a possibility.

We still need to work on it.

To clarify in what situation emergency measures should be taken.

In all other cases, it was proposed to seize the children through the courts.

This will exclude mistakes and abuse by the guardianship authorities.

- How to understand one hundred percent that there is a danger to a child?

- We arrive at the address, both parents are intoxicated, the child has not been fed for three days.

Threat to his life.

Only a court can deprive parental rights, but it is necessary to remove the child from the family and place him in a safe place.

I urge neighbors to be vigilant all the time.

A small child cries when he is in trouble.

Listen, call the police.

As a rule, neighbors report about trouble while the child is not attending preschool.

This is the most difficult period, not tracked by anyone.

Somewhere from a year to three, until the baby goes to kindergarten.

- And if you don't go to kindergarten?

- Guardianship keeps track of children who must attend kindergarten.

There may be control here.

It's not that simple, though.

Sometimes dysfunctional families with children, when the guardianship authorities take care of them, are removed from one region, from Moscow, for example, and move to the Moscow region.

They live in peace until the neighbors complain and custody comes again.

For example, in the summer, together with the Ombudsman (for the rights of the child in the Moscow.

) region, we were looking for one family for a long time.

There was a signal about trouble: children are not fed, parents are intoxicated.

On the day when the signal was received, custody went to the address (this is done immediately) - there is no family.

They began to question the neighbors - "moved out".

Therefore, when we say that the law on guardianship bodies requires changes, we are talking about this with you.

There should be a tool that will allow you not to lose children in a difficult situation for them.

Where does the school look

- Where could the child go in a difficult situation in the family?

Some kind of shelters?

- We have such shelters.

In Altufevo, for example.

Big, very nice shelter.

- And how do children get there?

- Every child is surrounded by important adults.

And it's not just his parents.

The child spends most of his time in an educational institution.

And, as a rule, we learn about a difficult life situation in which a child finds himself through an important adult from the field of education.

It can be not only a class teacher, but also a school psychologist, social teacher.

Or a teacher of additional education.

- Does the work of the homeroom teacher include some kind of control over the family situation?

- It includes a lot, but there is no uniform regulation for the interaction of all class teachers with the guardianship and guardianship authorities, the Commission for Minors and the Protection of Their Rights -

), and other social institutions.

Usually, teachers just take responsibility and deal with the child as their experience dictates.

- Or maybe it's good that there are no regulations, that everything is decided in a human way?

- It's one thing when it's your duty, and another thing is your desire.

I will give one example.

On the first of September, children come to the preschool for the first time.

Children are four years old - a boy and a girl.

This is their first day in kindergarten.

The garden is open until seven.

At eight in the evening the person in charge of the children calls me and says: “Olga Vladimirovna, two children were not taken away.

Mom won't pick up the phone, what should I do?

Regulations?

There is.

Call the police, hand over the children and take them to the orphanage!

Four-year-old children.

The first day they went to the garden.

We took the kids home and started looking for their mother.

She was found at half past three in the morning.

Not drunk, but clearly drinking.

And the children, by the way, were not even worried when they were brought to someone else's house, they just ate and went to bed.

This means that they are often in such a situation.

We need a regulation that would allow the school to inform the social system of the city that a child is in trouble.

- Why were there no regulations before that?

Hands did not reach?

- We have many social institutions that work with children.

But they each do their own thing.

There must be an assemblage point.

Can a child walk past a medical facility?

Do you think not?

And it happens very often.

For example, you have a family doctor, so you do not register your child at any clinic.

That's it, he walked past the state doctors.

And not a single child passes by education.

Even if you are on family education, you are required to come to school and write an application.

Therefore, the role of education is incredibly important.

The law says that you must send your child to school.

It does not say that you are obliged to vaccinate him, to attach it to the state clinic.

That's right.

And education is a duty.

Therefore, such a system is now being created on the basis of the Moscow Electronic School.

A special application "Cool Assistant" has appeared.

It is being tested in pilot schools.

Children during divorce

- There are still many difficult situations when parents, upon divorce, begin to literally divide their children, often through court.

It even comes to the abduction of a child by one parent from another.

How to be here?

- I, as an authorized person, receive a lot of requests when mom and dad share a child.

They steal children from each other.

And I have no right to interfere with the law.

There is a court that determines the order, with whom the child is, with whom he walks, when with whom he meets.

This court decision is binding.

But what happens next?

A child often becomes a reason for blackmail in such families, one parent does not allow another to communicate with him.

This is where the bailiffs come into play.

They go with you to the apartment.

Just think about it!

The bailiffs separate the child from the mother and give it to the father.

I always want to say: parents, wake up!

What are you doing with your children?

- And what do these parents expect from you, as an authorized representative?

- So I can solve their problems.

I would very much like to include mediators everywhere in my work with them.

It seems to me, as soon as the family wrote an application to the court during the divorce on determining the child's place of residence and on the differentiation of rights, a mediator should immediately turn on, who must work with the family as much as necessary before the court order until they agree.

And the child will never suffer, regardless of the court decision.

Now the mediation system exists, but it is paid.

And it is necessary that it became state and paid from the budget.

My task is to protect children from families that have broken up.

By the number of requests, I understand that this problem has not been resolved.

At the age of 10, the child will be able to express his opinion so that it will be taken into account by the court, but until that time the child is tortured.

About juvenile justice

- Juvenile justice operates abroad, when for non-execution of a court decision, a child is taken away from both parents.

As far as I know, you are against juvenile justice?

- Yes, absolutely.

- That is, you are an optimist, do you think that people can cope on their own?

“Some can, some can't.

Today, the entire legislative framework of both the Russian Federation and Moscow is designed in such a way that a woman has every opportunity to be helped.

The only question is whether she is able and wants to ask.

And second: when they say that they did it out of poverty with their child - this is a lie.

Poverty does not automatically lead to devaluation of parenting responsibilities.

Parents have the opportunity, if they find themselves in a difficult life situation, to temporarily place their child at a social center upon request.

Or in a hospital, if we are talking about the situation during a pandemic.

There are normal conditions, children will be under the supervision of either doctors or teachers.

Here the mother of five children needs to leave for a funeral in another city - she writes an application to the guardianship authorities and that's it.

She returned a week later, took the children, and live on.

We have a large project on which we will analyze just such cases, the most popular.

Provide links to the places where to run and in what situation how to act.

We will attract experts, call significant interesting people who can step by step all this is accessible, interesting and professional to tell.

- The State Duma is going to discuss a bill on the accelerated procedure for the removal of children from the family, according to which the court will have to make a decision on the removal within 24 hours.

How do you feel about the project?

- In general, I support the bill.

It is very important here that the decision on the removal of the child is made by the court, which makes it possible to exclude mistakes or prejudice of the social security authorities.

As for the provision that in special, exceptional situations, the administrative removal of a child from the family can be used as a measure of immediate response.

I believe that here it is necessary to very clearly prescribe what is "an immediate threat to the life or health of a child."

The criteria for assessing the immediacy of the threat must, apparently, be prescribed in separate acts.

About plans

- What are the top five things you want to do in the near future?

- We have developed and are testing a city program for the early detection of the disadvantage of children "Cool Assistant".

Everyone should understand how to act in such situations.

For the family to get out of the crisis, so that the child is not lost.

I would also very much like to deal with the problem of surrogacy.

It is imperative to resolve the issue of abandoning children.

We have a very large percentage of those who take care of children and then return them.

It's hard with your child, and even more so with foster children.

We need to work with this, improve the program to support foster families.

Another issue is bullying at school.

We work with the Psychological and Pedagogical Center, and this is again work through class teachers.

We are planning to form a mobile group of crisis psychologists, volunteer doctors, and other specialists who will help people in acute situations.

Yes, there are psychologists in Moscow, social services are well developed, but when there is an emergency, mobile specialists are needed.

The next project is legal education, legal quests.

There is such a subject in schools as social studies.

Children are taught there according to the textbook, very general data are obtained.

We proposed, together with the Moscow State Pedagogical University and the Association of Lawyers, to continue the initiative of Yevgeny Abramovich Bunimovich and to make a program with a wide coverage - legal quests, not lectures.

These are role-playing games, where children can work out acute legal issues in a playful way.

The same rallies: if a teenager goes to a rally, he must understand what the consequences can be, what you need to be prepared for, know your rights.

And we also need to create an algorithm for the prevention of the involvement of minors in the use and distribution of drugs, tobacco mixtures, tobacco products.

And also "sniffing" appeared.

They sniff the gas.

From lighters, from cans.

Irreversible consequences for the brain.

This can be dealt with in two ways: educating children and punishing adults who involve children in this.