Home visits stop Polina and family slipping through the net

Posted on By Sarah.SGF

With support from St Gregory’s, our colleagues at Sunflower run support groups for young people living in children’s homes and those who have recently left. They have recently extended their service to offer home visits from a social worker to a few young mums who don’t yet feel ready to join their support group specifically for parents.

Polina* is one of those parents. She is mum to a one year old little girl, who she is raising on her own in a one room flat. Polina herself left home at 13 and was taken into care. Her older sister took custody of her when she was 16. At 20 she started living independently and very soon got pregnant. Polina is focussed on making sure that her daughter is fed and clothed, which she is doing well. Her daughter is physically healthy, but she finds it difficult to bond with her, and uses friends to babysit as often as she can.

Polina feels to anxious to visit the support group, so the home visits are an important way of keeping in touch. Our colleagues are teaching her to recognise how her daughter is communicating her needs. They are also helping Polina and other mums access help, particularly a nursery place for her daughter so that she can learn to socialise with other children. These are the first small steps on what we hope will be a longer journey, that will give Polina the confidence and the parenting skills she needs to break the cycle of disadvantage.

* Because of the family’s vulnerability, we have changed the name and appearance.

Vika’s story

Posted on By Sarah.SGF

In some ways, Vika is not typical of the young people that Sunflower help. She is actually an orphan – her mother died when she was 16 – and she is living in an institution until the paperwork is completed on the flat she is entitled to.

The majority of the young people in these institutions are there because their parents were not capable of looking after them. Sunflower has also recently started accepting young people who have grown up in foster care or an adoptive family onto its programme. What they all have in common is an experience of trauma. They are all alone in the world, without family to guide or support them.

Vika explains something of what life has been like:

“I have lived all my life in St Petersburg. Me and Ilya are twins. I ended up in a children’s home after the authorities turned up at home. We had a lot to deal with in our life, we were hiding from the pandemic, there wasn’t any money then, we often moved around, we lived in Krasnogorodsk near Pskov, where Mama got ill and died. Then Dad (she calls her step-father dad) started drinking. It was scary. It was a good thing that we ended up in a children’s home, there we get all our benefits, and they’ve even shown us a flat in our own district. That’s some kind of luck.”

Vika is carrying a lot of responsibility. She worries very much about her brother, who she says is depressed. She can’t imagine life without him. She finds it difficult and frightening to think about the future.

Vika is really benefiting from Sunflower’s individual counselling. It doesn’t just allow her to get things off her chest, but to put the events of her life in order and to think about them clearly and calmly. She also goes to the group meetings once a month.

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Vadim’s story

Posted on By Sarah.SGF
Vadim

Our partner organisation, Sunflower, supports young people who grew up in children’s homes. For many, the support group is the best way of supporting them. For some with complex needs, a period of individual support, either on its own or alongside the group, is more appropriate. This individual help can be in the form of counselling or helping to resolve practical issues.

Vadim is 19 years old and is one of those being supported individually, as well as being part of the group. Sunflower have worked with Vadim for about a year and a half. During that time he has moved into his own flat, left to him by his parents.

Read more: Vadim’s story

Our colleagues are working on a whole range of issues with Vadim. Firstly, they are helping him understand which documents he needs and why. They are helping him go through a medical commission so that he doesn’t lose his disabled status. In parallel, they are working with Vadim to help him understand and accept his special needs.

Again, on a practical front, our colleagues are working out with him what maintenance work is needed on his flat and how he can make it comfortable.

Most urgently, because of his special needs, Vadim finds it difficult to build safe and trusting relationships. He has often been taken advantage of by so-called “friends”. He is the first to admit that he can’t say “no” to them. “I am afraid they will kill me if I don’t give them money.” After the last incident, our colleagues helped Vadim understand how he could avoid this kind of situation, and where he can turn for help if he feels threatened.

For Vadim, the next step is helping him to find a job and adjust to working life. We wish him well.

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Theraplay helps Lida and Liza to bond

Posted on By Sarah.SGF

Emotionally stable parents seem to know naturally how to play with their children. The parents Sunflower supports grew up in children’s homes and they need to learn this essential skill.


Lida’s childhood was marked by multiple traumas: alcoholic parents, time in a children’s home, and several failed adoption placements before she was successfully placed with her present family. She now lives in Lensovietsky, the suburb featured in our last newsletter, where Sunflower has recently set up a support group due to the high number of care-leavers in the area.

Lida was rather passive and would just say, “you see, she doesn’t listen to me”. The Theraplay method involves repeating the same simple games. This means that it is easy for the child to learn the rules and for the parents to concentrate on their child. Sunflower had a breakthrough when Liza’s dad also started coming to sessions. He too grew up in a children’s home and came from a family of alcoholics. He is rather jealous of Lida’s relationship with her adoptive family, and this makes it difficult for her to get support from them. This puts a strain on her relationship
with Liza’s dad.


Theraplay has helped bring the three of them closer together. Lida values the sessions now and is keen not to miss them. She chats to her daughter and gives her cuddles. In return, Liza will ask her mama for help and also does what
she is told more often. It’s obvious that Liza really likes playing with her mama and papa
now. She particularly likes being swung in a blanket.

Sunflower continues to work despite the very difficult climate. With foreign funding from many quarters disappearing and local funding also drying up many local charities have had to cut services. Sunflower continues to support 21 families in crisis, including 30 children.

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