I. Background: Why the work of Light of Love is so critically needed in Russia today:
In January, 2007 the Russian government enacted a law that is significantly impacting orphans. It calls for overhauling the country’s child welfare system by shifting from an orphanage system to a foster care/adoption system. Ideally, this is a positive step because clearly it is better for orphans to be in families than in institutions. However, there are some key roadblocks:
1) The timing: the government plans on closing down 70% of orphanages in the next 3 years. There are over 800,000 orphans in institutions in Russia. It is not feasible to successfully place that number of children into families in such a short timeframe.
2) The lack of screening: The Russian government is doing very little to screen potential foster / adoptive families, and is instead offering a lump sum of money up front to anyone who will take in a child.
3) The lack of training: The Russian government is providing very little in the way of foster parent or pre-adoption training to interested families.
Additionally, as orphanages are being closed, international adoptions from Russia have virtually come to a halt. The combination of these two events puts Russian orphans in a desperate situation. It is critical that stable Russian families become equipped to adopt and foster orphans.
Light of Love, an officially registered Russian NGO, exists for that very purpose: to identify stable Russian families and then to provide them with the training and assistance they need to become successful adoptive and foster families.
II. What Light of Love does:
The Director of Light of Love, Alexander Rodin, is a brilliant Russian who served in the St. Petersburg parliament in the 1990s. He is a human rights activist who is respected worldwide for his work on children’s rights. In the past decade, he has helped more than one hundred Russian orphans find families in the United States, Germany, and Italy. Today, as the Russian government promotes in-country adoption and foster care, Mr. Rodin is excited about the opportunity to unite orphans with families in Russia.
Light of Love staff believe that churches are one of the best places to find stable families with an existing support network. Therefore, we work in close collaboration with churches of various denominations in the St. Petersburg region to identify potential families, and then to help those families through the adoption process with a holistic approach that addresses the legal, spiritual, emotional, and psychological aspects involved. We consult with families when they are first considering adoption or foster care and provide them with preparatory training and legal assistance. Our services and support continue throughout the entire process, as well as for one year post-placement, during which time foster and adoptive families receive close and consistent counseling and assistance. Light of Love provides the critical assistance that can make the difference between a child finding their lifelong family or not.
We also work very closely with the Russian government in St. Petersburg. Officials there are both supportive and enthusiastic about Light of Love because they recognize that we share the common goal of placing orphans in the care of families. Here is an overview of how we unite orphans with families:
- Identify children who are available for adoption and foster care
- Identify and screen potential adoptive and foster families
- Provide training for potential adoptive families (often through seminars and conferences)
- Put on educational seminars for the Russian public about the orphan situation and the need for adoptive and foster families to step up
- Provide legal assistance to Russians who desire to adopt or foster orphans
- Provide both pre- and post-adoption emotional, spiritual, and psychological assistance for adoptive and foster families
