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In the run-up to the working visit, advisers to the Commissioner for Children’s Rights visited nine institutions in the Tomsk Region, reviewed the work of the child protection bodies and juvenile affairs commissions, and conducted several interviews with parents.

The children’s ombudsman highlighted positive practices in the region that deserve to be replicated, including a dedicated Department for Family and Children’s Affairs, mobile narcotic drug treatment teams for parents addicted to alcohol, and palliative care teams.

During a meeting with the head of the region Vladimir Mazur the Commissioner for Children’s Rights put forward several proposals to improve the prevention system. In particular, the parties agreed to establish a commission in the Tomsk Region to look into whether the children are being placed in group homes for legitimate reasons. The commission will help address the causes of social orphanhood and find ways to have children reunite with their families. The governor noted that the number of children at state institutions in the region had gone down from 865 to 686 over the past five months, and emphasised the region’s efforts in working with at-risk families.

At a meeting with the region’s prevention system bodies and institutions’ leaders, Maria Lvova-Belova came up with a number of recommendations, such as focusing on supporting families while children are in care, expanding family assistance services at existing institutions, and changing performance indicators for children’s fixed-site institutions focusing on family support and family-preserving practices.

In addition, the children’s ombudsman opened a seminar for guardianship and trusteeship staff, visited the Malyshok regional centre for family placement assistance, the Rostok centre for helping children left without parental care, a children’s hospital, and the Little Mother shelter.