Five-year-old Anya was in the center of the social and psychological work "Aspern-Kyiv" four months ago. Mom left her child “for a minute” to a friend and disappeared in an unknown direction. For half a year a friend had been waiting for the girl's mother to return. She did not wait and appealed for help to the city specialized social service “Center for Social and Psychological Work “Aspern”.

Here, in a kind of “hotel” for street children, kids abandoned by their parents can feel family comfort. The girl stayed at the Center and turned out to be one of the smallest pupils. We saw her when she left the pottery workshop. The robe in which the child worked with pleasure was too large for her and almost reached the floor, but the girl felt like a real princess in him. The correspondents of the “UM” visited this hospitable house in order to see with their own eyes the miracle that happens to the children when they begin to feel at least an “artificial” family, where the parents do not get drunk and do not quarrel. Tatyana Pirenko, deputy head of the center for management and educational work, told UM about the uniqueness of the work of this institution: “In our center, as in an ordinary family, there are no cleaners. Children do everything themselves. We teach them the fact that every day they have to do something useful for the center. Also, every day they learn self-service - to dress, to tie shoelaces, to brush teeth well... We have three departments. Socio-medical, socio-psychological and socio-pedagogical. There is a medical office, there is a “clothing bank”. We try to find the parents of the children and give them the opportunity to feel that the child is not their personal property, that the child has rights and these rights have someone to protect. Thus, we put moms and dads before choosing - either to pick up a child and build a relationship with him in a new way, or to abandon communication forever and wait for the moment of deprivation of parental rights. If parents are deprived of parental rights, then kids can be adopted - and this is the best option for the child. There are other forms of family education for orphans - these are family-type homes and foster families. Over the past six months, we have managed to arrange three of our pupils in family-type homes. But they go to boarding schools only when the child got to the center after escaping from the boarding school, where all his documents remained. ”

...Then the cabinet's doors opened, and on the threshold, a seven-year-old Matviy appeared: "I earned two pieces of bread, because I swept half the yard." Half an hour later, the children were supposed to be fed a tasty dinner, but the boy earned bread as an outstanding reward. It was extremely unusual for the institutions of temporary residence of “problem” children that it turned out that the children of the employees play along with the pupils. Experts explain this by the need to provide an opportunity to feel that if children from difficult families are not renegades of society, the environment can give them their love just like ordinary children. But this is done without giving unrealistic hopes - they help the child here, but they do not promise to become parents. Although from time to time one of the children will say: “adopt me...” There are many male educators in the center, and it is they who recall these episodes.

Twenty children now live in the center around the clock. They will be here for about three months - until their fate is determined. Most of them are adolescents. In the daytime come those who have already grown up and, thanks to the help of the center, have gained a more or less normal life. These are volunteers who help to work with younger children. Sometimes those who seek asylum also come because they have heard from friends about the existence of the center and, most importantly, that adults can be trusted there. For some reason, in this center for children, the mad desire to go outside and delve into the asocial atmosphere of life disappears.

By the way, the uniqueness of the center lies in the fact that both the state structure (Kyiv City Center of Social Services for Youth) and the “Fund “Aspern” are involved in its work. In general, according to the operational information of the juvenile affairs services, there are about 50 charitable shelters and about twenty centers for social and psychological assistance from social services for young people in Ukraine. These centers provide assistance to children from 3 to 18 years. In civilized countries, such services have continued in terms of age. For example, in Germany, experts say, for pupils of similar centers of help who go out of childhood - 18 years old, there are specialized hostels, where experts provide social assistance and monitor the inhabitants of the hostel, as well as provide all kinds of support - advice on legal, domestic and other topics are taught to use money constructively. That is, there the state of its "state" children continues to support in adulthood. What is not an example for Ukraine?