Family preservation should be main criterion of guardianship services work - Liliya Gumerova

UFA, 7 February 2017. /Bashinform News Agency/. The First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Science, Education and Culture, the representative of the executive body of the Government of Bashkortostan Liliya Gumerova participated in the workshop on the monitoring of minors withdrawal from the family in the country. The meeting was held by the Children’s Rights Ombudsman under the President RF Anna Kuznetsova, with attendance of parliamentarians, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Education and non-governmental organizations protecting children's rights.

The Senator Liliya Gumerova drew attention to high importance and urgency of the issue under discussion. She marked that the problems arising in connection with withdrawal of children from the family, had been discussed for a long time already. According to statistics, each year about 94 percent of children’s taking from their families, 90 percent of parental rights deprivation and 80 percent of restrictions on parental rights were at the discretion in the first place of the guardianship authorities, depending on how they interpreted certain legal terms. In practice the data recorded numerous cases of ill-founded removal of children from families. "There are many cases when a family was registered in the guardianship authorities on the grounds of its being a large family or in connection with the fact that it was incomplete", the Senator said.

The legislator noted that first of all clear criteria and procedures should be created to guide with when a child is taken from his family. In addition, a number of regulations relating to an independent medical examination of children placed in foster families, time limits for submitting a claim for deprivation (restriction) of parental rights, as well as establishment of obligation to pass certain training and psychological examination for persons wishing to take foster children should be improved.

However, the Senator believes that work in this direction should be carried out so that the first and foremost to preserve a birth family.

The MP believes that it is necessary to support families, contribute to their recovery, carry out preventive conversations and provide explanations of legal consequences of parental responsibilities improper performance, facilitate putting minors in pre-school institutions and schools, provide socio-pedagogical, psychological and legal assistance to minors and their legal representatives, attract volunteers, non-governmental organizations to this activity and, most importantly, establish a clear interagency cooperation of the family trouble prevention agencies system.