orphanages Archives - St Gregory's Foundation

Sunflower: licensed to train

Posted on 27th November 202427th November 2024 By Sarah.SGF

Sunflower group standing with forest in the background

Quality recognised

Our partners Sunflower have come a long way since we helped them get started 17 years ago. For some years we have been helping fund them to run training courses for social workers and psychologists. Now the quality of these courses has been recognised. They have received a licence as a training organisation and are able to issue certificates for the courses they offer on effectively supporting orphanage-leavers and foster or adoptive families. Their teaching is helping to raise the level of care across St Petersburg, the Leningrad region and beyond.

Summer camps revived

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our appeal to restore the Sunflower summer camp. Their dining area is now usable again after being destroyed by fire in 2023. The summer camps are held in a very special place and Sunflower use their surroundings well. A walk through the forest to the local sand quarry is a highlight of both summer camps, for young families and for the teenagers.

Our colleagues say this about the children’s experience this year:

Vika’s story

Posted on 8th May 20248th May 2024 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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Sunflower summer camp for families

Posted on 3rd November 20233rd November 2023 By Sarah.SGF

Six families with children aged 5 to 11 took part in Sunflower’s summer camp this year. The venue this year was different: they stayed at a centre in Komarovo beside the Finnish Gulf as the log cabin (the dacha) required some repair and later a dramatic fire happened at the site.

A new location offered lots of scope for outdoor fun and games, and as usual special training was organised for both parents and children. Many of the activities related to the levels of freedom and responsibility that the parents give their children as they grow and establishing an appropriate balance. The children were able to explore the theme too through a fairy story, ‘Dwarf Long-nose’ in which a little boy has to cope with a magical transformation so complete that his parents don’t recognise him.

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Fire at Dolbeniki

Posted on 3rd November 20233rd November 2023 By Sarah.SGF

This is the scene in Dolbeniki at the dacha used by Sunflower for their summer camps. A serious accident at a local electrical substation led to a power surge and a wave of fires hit the area.

The free-standing dining room caught fire immediately, destroying the building, the furniture and also the kitchen equipment, which was stored there. Fortunately, no-one was hurt. The fire brigade arrived swiftly and the fire was extinguished. It did not spread to any of the other buildings used during the summer camps.

Sunflower are assessing the damage and the cost of creating a new eating area so that they can run summer camps there again. Meanwhile, volunteers have started to clear the site already, although the weather will soon force a break in the work. Serious work will start in spring 2024, when we hope to be able to help Sunflower recover.

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Summer hike for orphanage-leavers

Posted on 10th July 202310th July 2023 By Sarah.SGF

Vadim, taking part in the summer camp for the first time

This year, the summer camp for young orphanage-leavers took the form of a 3-day hike. A group of six took part, some had taken part before and some, like Vadim, were first-timers.

The whole experience was a challenging one for our young people. Right from the planning stage, they needed to learn new skills and to take responsibility.

They worked out the menus and the budget for a significant part of the trip. During the hike, the most challenging part was navigating the route and identifying suitable places to camp. Some of these experiences caused stress and anxiety, but the staff were there to help the young people cope with their difficulties. Over this short time, the young people grew more confident and resilient. This will be particularly useful for the three who are preparing to leave the programme, having worked with Sunflower for a few years. At the end of the hike, one of the young people said, “Now I can understand what my aims are for the summer more clearly, and I’m confident that I can reach them.

Alongside the walking and camping, the young people also had exercises to help them reflect. One interesting game was to find objects in their surroundings that expressed their personality. Their answers give us quite an insight. One likened themself to a little ant carrying a heavy load, another to a hare, which is scared all the time, but carries on. Kostya said, “I am like a path. Everyone walks on me, but I am solid and unchanging.”

Summing up at the end, one of the group said, “I was beginning to realise, but now I understand properly that I have to look after myself. Before I looked after the cat and my friends better than myself.” Sunflower will help the group transfer this learning into their ordinary every day lives back in St Petersburg. It should give them a great step forward as they become more independent and resilient.

Vadim’s story

Posted on 28th April 202317th May 2023 By Sarah.SGF

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.

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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A challenging time for Sunflower

Posted on 28th November 202228th November 2022 By Sarah.SGF

For 15 years Sunflower has been supporting young people who grew up in orphanages. They have helped over 650 teenagers and young parents, 300 families in crisis, and 200 foster families with teenagers to build independent lives and develop their parenting skills. They have become a respected training provider, helping over 2,000 specialists who work with orphanage-leavers and improving standards across St Petersburg and beyond.

None of this has been easy, but this autumn, they face their most challenging times. In September, Elena Sukhorukova, director and co-founder of Sunflower, died after a serious illness. She is enormously missed by all who worked with her.

Since her death, the Sunflower team have rallied round. Such is their committment that they have been working largely as volunteers since September because of our difficulties transferring money to Russia. To make life even harder, their bank is not allowing them to access their account until Elena’s role is officially transferred, a process that has taken more than a month.

For Natasha Andreeva, who founded the charity with Elena, a key moment came when she ran training courses for professionals in October. This was a programme that Elena headed up. It felt like a turning point when the three-day course was a success. Everyone realised that Sunflower would be able to continue the work that Elena and Natasha started.

Having provided training for professionals from Izhersk, Volgograd and Chelyabinsk in October, Sunflower will be welcoming more trainees from Siberian towns this month. They aim to improve standards of care and reduce worker burn-out by helping trainees understand the particular needs of orphanage-leavers.

This year has brought challenges for all NGOs in Russia, and indeed for their beneficiaries. Despite this cluster of difficulties, Sunflower has managed to respond to increased demand for their parenting support groups. They are now supporting 50 families of orphanage-leavers, up from the 35 of recent years.

We are in awe of this committment, and relieved that the Charity Commission have approved a safe and legal route for us to transfer money to Russia. Although our colleagues continue to work in a very difficult climate, we are hopeful that we will be able to continue our funding. You can be assured that every care is taken with your donations.

Theraplay helps Lida and Liza to bond

Posted on 24th May 202224th May 2022 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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Outreach to care-leavers in troubled suburb

Posted on 8th December 20218th December 2021 By Sarah.SGF

Lensovietsky is a new suburb of St Petersburg, which has become a “settlement of orphanage-leavers”. Its crime-rate and anti-social behaviour make it notorious. There is loud music, conflicts, fights, etc round the clock. Police raids and visits by social services have become the norm district. Understandable, orphanage-leavers are not popular with other residents. Quite apart from their antisocial lifestyle, they have run up debts for heating and water supply, and residents have complained about the disconnection of such necessary services. The infrastructure – medical, educational, social institutions – in the residential district is still underdeveloped. For leavers, this has become one of the main obstacles to their integration into society.

This is the context for a new class our partners, Sunflower, have set up this year for families in crisis with children under 5.

HRH Prince Michael visits charity for orphanage-leavers in St Petersburg

Posted on 8th December 20218th December 2021 By Sarah.SGF

HRH Prince Michael meets staff at the Sunflower centre

We are delighted that on 13th October our Patron, His Royal Highness, Prince Michael of Kent, visited the Sunflower Centre in St Petersburg to find out about their flagship programmes at first hand. The Sunflower Centre focuses on providing psychological support for parents who grew up in orphanages and for teenagers leaving orphanages in St. Petersburg.