Children from chatbot. Home for those who are left without their parents during the war

“A child is orphaned, and we are urgently looking for a family”. There were many such appeals in social networks at the beginning of the full-scale war. It was about orphans taken from the front line, who are now being distributed somewhere in the Carpathian sanatoriums. People spread these messages thousands of times, although many of them were false.

In March, Ukraine launched a temporary shelter program. It is specially designed for children who need a family for a short period until contact is established or biological parents are found.

hromadske tells how this program works through the story of a family that took in two kids during the war.

“We want to adopt a child, help!”

On February 28, Larysa Pietushkova, child psychologist and expert of the “Partnership for Every Child” organization, started working on the newly created hotline to support children, families, and social workers.

“Back then there was such emotional chaos that people turned off logical thinking. The war, the rapid occupation – all this affected their condition, people called, and everyone said that they wanted to adopt, to take a child, that we should help them with this.”

The number of such calls was increasing every day. The hotline workers denied a lot of information. For example, a call for urgent adoption of 45 children whose parents were allegedly killed and who were brought to Vorokhta.

“I saw how people wrote in chat rooms: "Girls, who said that they wanted a child in the family! Tomorrow they will be distributed and 15 thousand hryvnias per month will be paid for each child". Such messages are emotional abuse of people”.

If children did find themselves without adults during the war, first of all, specialists of services for children tried to find their biological parents, who may have been occupied, abroad, or disappeared.

Those children who lost their parents and needed urgent adoption were much less than those willing to take them. In addition, in almost all cases, social workers tried to unite them with biological relatives.

But in order not to lose the potential and desire of people to help children who really needed it, in March we created a temporary shelter program "Child is not alone". This program allows one to take in a child who lost care in their family during the war under the simplified procedure. For the convenience of communication, a corresponding chatbot was launched.

“This program was very timely. If, say, a child was in the hospital while his or her parents were surrounded by enemies, it is clear that it is better to take a child to the family. So that the child could keep in touch with their parents, have emotional contact, and then reunite with them,” says Larysa Pietushkova.

The program provided that a person first registers in the chatbot, fills out an extended questionnaire, watches an introductory webinar, undergoes training, and then can take a child.

As of December 9, 24 thousand people have expressed their desire to adopt a child. 2300 people have been trained.

Larysa Pietushkova says that such a discrepancy in the figures shows that in the end people consciously made their choice.

“If a person expressed emotions and then thought and stopped, it is the right decision. It is much worse if it happens when a child enters the family and thoughts appear, saying, "Why do I need it, I can't cope, I didn't want it".

We are trying to withstand the time, we give people to fill in an additional questionnaire. Some write to us that they have changed their place of residence, moved abroad, or changed their decision. Refusal is also a result”.

“Only life is important”

The family of Liudmyla Lvova has reached the final stage of the program. They had long been thinking about adopting a child. They had two children and felt that they could take another one into the family. The war exacerbated this desire.

“There was an understanding that a missile would come and you would have no house, nothing. Only life is important. And having the support of loved ones. Values have changed dramatically. This was the driving force,” thewoman says.

In the spring, Liudmyla and her husband saw the news about the start of the temporary shelter program for children. The couple left their application in the chatbot, filled out a questionnaire, and a few days later received confirmation that they could start training.

“This program provides that people have to take care of children themselves, not counting on financial assistance from the state. Moreover, children cannot be taken abroad under this program.

We understood that the situation is very difficult, that boarding schools, orphanages, and family-type orphanages were evacuated, that children have nowhere to go, and that the state also needs help. With this awareness, we approached the adoption of this decision.”

At all stages of preparation, Liudmyla told her two children about their intentions: that they might have a child or several children in their family and that they would live together for some time.

Later, the Lvovy couple underwent a special three-day online training for parents who wanted to take in children. They were told how to adapt a child to a new temporary family, how to get to know them, and accept what trauma and loss are.

“They had no trust in adults and there was no one who embodied safety”

“Three weeks passed and we got a call. We were told that there were two children: 2-year-old Sofiia and 4-year-old Maksym. They used to live in the village of Strakholissia. They had a common mother and different fathers. However, they were raised by an elderly grandfather. We were told that the day before he was hospitalized several times, it was hard for him, so he brought the children to the social service. He said that he could not cope with them anymore. That is all we know about the children's previous life”.

Employees of the local social service inspected the Lvovys' home, the couple collected documents and went to Ivankiv, to the hospital where the children had been staying for a month.

For three hours they got acquainted and talked. At the end of the conversation, Liudmyla asked the children if they would mind moving to live with her family. Sofiia and Maksym agreed.

“At first they were wary. They had no trust in adults, and there was no one who would embody safety. Conventionally, if you go with a child to a store, he or she stays close to you so as not to get lost. And they are used to being on their own. They are very smart, self-reliant, and independent,” says Liudmyla.

It was difficult for the children to adapt to the family. They were afraid of the dog, cat, and domestic rats that live in the Lvovy family.

They used a lot of foul language in their conversations, had no daily routine, and had difficulty falling asleep. During the first weeks Liudmyla slept on a beanbag chair next to two-year-old Sofiia, the girl always woke up in the middle of the night and cried.

“They were stressed. They were crying from bathing in warm water. They shouted that it was too hot for them. They wanted to wash only with cold water”.

“When there are difficulties, the children start saying that they no longer want Sofiia and Maksym to live with us”

Since the shelter program does not provide for temporary parents to receive money for children, the Lvovy family had to cope with everything on their own. In the beginning, they were helped by charitable foundations and volunteers. Many things for the children were given by relatives and friends.

But it turned out that, among other things, the children have health problems. The younger one, Sofiia hasbad teeth, for the treatment of which it was necessary to spend 50 thousand hryvnias. For the family, it was too much money to give at once. So they decided to start a fundraiser.

“But Sofia had a flux and we had to urgently save her, despite the money.”

Every time our conversation with Liudmyla is interrupted by children's screams and a dog barking. The woman apologizes every time, calms the children, and continues to talk.

“Now, after 5 months of their stay with us, it has already become easier. The children have adapted.

It is difficult only when they disobey. They only knew the rules of the game when they were punished. And when this did not happen, Maksym, for example, began to beat his head against the wall. It was important not to go on about them.”

The children of Lvovy reacted differently to such behavior of Sofiia and Maksym. The younger daughter managed to find a common language with them, while the older child, a 9-year-old son, on the contrary, began to distance himself.

“When there are difficulties, the children begin to say that they no longer want Sofiia and Maksym to live with us.”

Liudmyla has no such thoughts, but she cannot give the children an answer about how long Sofiia and Maksym will live with them. The trials on the deprivation of parental rights of their biological parents are still ongoing.

“We are just people on their way”

The temporary shelter program provides that children will stay with their families until the war ends or their relatives or parents are found.

In foster families, a similar form of upbringing that existed long before the outbreak of full-scale war, children can stay from three to six months. This period is set so that they do not have time to get used to it.

“If a child stays in a foster family for more than six months, he or she starts to get attached, and then the emotional separation will be very difficult. In this case, we traumatize the child even more.

As a psychologist, of course, I advise that a child should stay in a temporary family for no more than three months. The child needs to understand as soon as possible whether he or she is being returned to biological relatives or found a foster family. During the training, we go through this with parents, so that they talk to their children about their identity and biological relatives,” says Larysa Pietushkova.

“But now there is a war, and it makes adjustments for which we were not ready. We predict, we study the experience of other countries. Israel, in particular. There, children from preschool age are preparing for the fact that there may be a war. We did not have this, no one was emotionally ready.”

Maksym and Sofiia have not received any news from their biological parents for the last 5 months. The children themselves did not mention them either. Only occasionally Maksym said that when his father beat his mother, he rushed to protect her.

Ideally, social work specialists from their community should work with the biological parents of children. They would teach them to be safe adults again and prepare them for the return of children to the family. However, not every community had such an opportunity even before the full-scale war. There was always a lack of qualified social work specialists.

If it is impossible to return the children to their family or if the family is not found, thefamily where the child lived temporarily gets the priority right to adoption or guardianship.

Liudmyla still does not have a definitive answer for herself about what will happen to Maksym and Sofiia after the courts determine their status. If they cannot return to their parents, the woman is inclined to believe that the children need another family that will be ready to adopt them.

“From the very beginning, when we started the program, we understood: we are just people on their way. We really did not want the children to end up in an orphanage.

We had group therapy with psychologists. They held sessions for those who were going to temporarily take children.

In addition, the conditions of our accommodation do not meet the requirements for adoptive parents. And unfortunately, we cannot improve them during the war”.

Currently, 27 children are placed in families under the temporary shelter program. Larysa Pietushkova says that some of the families who were registered and trained but did not take the children are not lost. The psychologist always meets them at special training for candidates for adoptive parents or guardians, which is now held in eight regions of Ukraine.

If you also want to temporarily shelter a child in your family, find a bot in the Telegram — @dytyna_ne_sama_bot.