Particular attention is focused on the Zelenograd court, where sooner or later the fate of a large family from which 10 adopted children were immediately removed must be decided. Some, however, have already been returned. But not everyone. The main question is: where did the children get the bruises and were there any cases of use of force in the family? Previously, a special meeting was even convened on this topic with the participation of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights. Psychologists worked with the children themselves.
It's only just a pre-trial hearing, but there's already excitement. In the Zelenograd district court on February 1, they were waiting for Svetlana Del, the mother from whom the guardianship authorities had taken away eight adopted children. The reason is that the teacher found traces of beatings on one child. One lawyer came to court.
“She found two bruises, and suddenly, immediately, without any proceedings, without questions from the parents, without checks, brutal actions were carried out in a civilized way to remove the children,” says Del family lawyer Ivan Pavlov.
Svetlana Del's defense believes that the children should be released before the end of the trial. The opinion of guardianship representatives is clear: children have nothing to do in the family. And it’s not just about bruises: one unscheduled check, inspection of the apartment and this is the data:
“The girl who was standing in the corner, when they approached her, they said: I feel bad here, please take me away from here,” said Anna Matveeva, senior inspector of the juvenile affairs department of the Staroye Kryukovo and Silino police department of the Zelenograd administrative district of Moscow.
Svetlana Del does not communicate with the press. Does not comment on the situation. On social networks he simply asks: return the children. Mom of 16, part-time foster parent, foster parent school coach. This is how Svetlana Del introduces herself here. Her page is open, the number of subscribers has exceeded 20 thousand. There is a story behind every photo. For example, he tells how he taught his daughter with cerebral palsy to walk independently. I didn’t pick it up again.
“Then I realized that everything was like that with her - you’ll regret it a little, it’s a rollback. It's all about overcoming. Otherwise, he won’t walk or talk. You have to be a tough mom, but it’s hard,” she says on her Instagram.
But this, of course, is not at all the cruelty for which the children were taken away. The brothers and sisters said really scary things about dad.
“I asked: “Seryozha, what happened to you?” He said: “Dad beat me in the evening.” There was a blue butt, just a large hematoma on the right side of the butt. And then he turned to his right side, and he also had a large hematoma on his thigh,” said Galina Golubkova, a teacher-psychologist at the preschool department of gymnasium No. 1528.
Now these boys and girls are under the supervision of psychologists, four independent groups of specialists. Children are difficult. Svetlana and Mikhail Del took care of disabled people. Not just cerebral palsy. Down syndrome, HIV. It has long been known that such people need family like air.
That is why the situation is difficult, says Arina Sharapova, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. She personally communicated with the children who were taken away, hoping to hear that they wanted to go home.
“The baby himself, sitting in my arms, told me how his father beat him. Not only him, but everyone else too. Apparently, this was strict discipline, and in principle it is not forbidden. But here, apparently, she was already going overboard, you know, going over the edge. That is, when the children just wanted to take a piece of bread, they were not allowed - and the children stole the bread, the children were malnourished,” said Arina Sharapova, a member of the Moscow Public Chamber.
Wherein material problems the family certainly didn’t. They were supposed to receive almost all medications free of charge. The total amount of benefits for those who were under guardianship in the family is almost 700 thousand rubles per month.
“There were two girls they went to private school“, once every six months, in my opinion, there is some kind of interactive training, there were checks for the Globus school, there were no other checks, so it is not possible for us to track whether they were actually spent on food, on clothing,” - said Galina Stenina, deputy head of the department of the Staroye Kryukovo and Silino districts of the Zelenograd administrative district of Moscow.
Photos on the Internet as a possible argument: the money was spent on the needs of children. Holidays abroad, additional classes and sections. High quality beautiful clothes. But in real life everything was different. In any case, that’s what the parents who met their children in the hallways every day think so. kindergarten.
“In the photographs, the children are dressed up, that is, they are wearing some kind of overalls. Seryozha was never brought in in this overalls, which is in the photo on Instagram. The boots are short, it’s winter, the pants are so short,” worries Lyudmila, a member of the kindergarten’s parent committee.
True, the Del family has many defenders. Parents organized a flash mob online: they posted their children’s bruises, saying that anything can happen to children, maybe he fell. And friends of Svetlana and Mikhail Del consider the family exemplary.
“Mikhail treats Sveta and children very well, that is, this is the standard of a family, you look at them and understand: these people love each other and love their children,” says Svetlana Del’s friend, mother of many children, Maria Ermel.
This story conditionally divided parents not only in Moscow, but throughout the country into two camps. Some say that the law has been broken, and children should not be taken away from the family so abruptly. Others remind: there is no smoke without fire, the children themselves told psychologists about the beatings, which means it is dangerous for them to remain in this family.
The Zelenogradsky District Court will decide whether the guardianship actions are lawful. The first hearing in the Del family case is scheduled for February 8.
The issue of returning ten adopted children taken from their parents by guardianship authorities in Zelenograd to their families can be decided on January 20 based on the results of an independent psychological examination. The mother appealed to the court with a demand to declare the seizure illegal.
“Psychologists from the Volunteers to Help Orphans charity foundation, psychologists from the Ivan-Chai human rights and information center, as well as psychologists from the Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation will meet with the children.
Taking into account the conclusions made by psychologists, as early as Friday, January 20, a collegial decision may be made to transfer the children to the mother,” said Vladimir Petrosyan, head of the Moscow Department of Labor and Social Protection.
“The fact that children have formed an attachment to their adoptive parents has been established, and our social services will provide maximum assistance to this family,” he told TASS correspondents.
By words Representatives of the Office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, at a meeting in the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow, employees of the guardianship authorities presented to the participants photographs and other materials “indicating numerous injuries on the body of one of the children, and other violations, as was the reason for their seizure.”
“My trustee filed a lawsuit with the Zelenogradsky Court of Moscow to recognize the actions of the guardianship department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs as illegal, as well as the obligation to return the children to their mother. None of them have yet provided any documents confirming the legality of their actions. This is a completely unprecedented situation,” Ivan Pavlov, lawyer for Svetlana Del’s adoptive mother, told RAPSI.
According to him, the adoptive parents contacted the institutions where the children were placed, demanding their return.
« Currently, a group of lawyers specializing in criminal law has joined the case,” Miloserdie.ru told the portal. lawyer Anna Mishelova, Svetlana Del's confidant. — Requests have been submitted againon the issuance of copies of seizure acts and status reports living conditions. At the same time, officials do not meet us halfway, they do not make contact.
— How do you evaluate the publications that appeared in the media, where, with reference to guardianship workers, it is stated that the children in the Del family allegedly lived from hand to mouth, in difficult conditions, while their parents received large sums of money from the state for their upbringing?
If someone believes that the family makes money in this way, then why don’t trustworthy citizens who consider this a good source of income do the same? You need to understand how difficult it is morally, physically, and how expensive it is to socialize such a child.
As for the fact that the children allegedly slept on the floor and ate leftover bread. The most interesting thing is that for 10 years (and the guardianship authorities and the police confirmed this) there were no complaints about the family. They themselves say that the problems emerged “by accident.” Everything was fine, we were watching this family, and then suddenly this happened?
The mother of the family leads blog VInstagram, you can look through it and see that we are not talking about starving children at all! If this were so, it would not have been noticed now, after this operation was carried out. The case would be put under control, a remark would be made, and only then a decision would be made regarding the removal of the children. It seems to me that there are a lot of inconsistencies here.”
Let us remind you that recently 10 children were removed from a foster family in Moscow Zelenograd. The cause was bruises found on one of the children in kindergarten, the mother told reporters. Three more children managed to escape from the guardianship staff.
Help! Don't remain indifferent! Children again lose the ground under their feet, lose faith that their parents can protect them, lose trust in all people! The consequences are much more severe than it seems to those who have not lived with a child who does not trust anyone. Any child who lives without a loved one, for whom he is a treasure, does not trust anyone. He may smile, happily say nice things to you, and do crafts for you. But, if trust never grows, he will just as easily commit anything, including a crime. And in relation to you, your children, those who are dear to you. Only because there is no one next to him for whom he is a jewel!
Children are a treasure for Sveta! Help!!!
Friends and colleagues! As a journalist, I contacted the adoptive mother Svetlana Del, my mother was completely crushed, shocked by what happened, intimidated, but still decided to make a public statement, and I again ask you for a repost, real adoptive mothers and future ones: “It’s very difficult for me to evaluate now and analyze the situation, I worry and worry about my children who were taken from us. It seems to me that I am going crazy from the horror and incredibleness of what is happening. It feels like this is not my life, but a fantastic dystopia. Thanks to friends, family and acquaintances for their support and offers of help. It was completely scary without you. They promised to give me the children and not do anything. For the sake of the children, for the sake of their speedy return to the family, I remained silent. But the children are still not home. And I want to make a public statement. 1. I did not beat our children, including Seryozha. My husband did not beat our children, including Seryozha. He talked, he inspired, he explained, he scolded - yes. But he didn’t hit me. We didn't hit our children. Now the question is, let’s say the husband beat his son until he had bruises. Why should I, a foster mother, take such a risk and send my beaten son to kindergarten? By the way, there was information that another child, who did not go to kindergarten that day, was also beaten, but the guardianship staff did not find any bruises on him. 2. On the day of the events, my husband went to St. Petersburg for a funeral; it was a planned trip - his mother died. When he left, this horror had not yet begun, we believed that everything would now become clear and the children would be returned. 3. Everyone asks us, who did we cross? I don't know, I can only guess. But for the last week, the teacher has been complaining daily, convincingly and purposefully about Seryozha: he behaves badly, fights, offends others. Yes, Seryozha is a very difficult child. But adopted children are rarely simple, and who among the successful adoptive mothers can argue with me? 4. During these days, the diagnoses of our children and the secret of the adoption of some of them were disclosed. Guardianship workers make comments that clearly contain diagnoses of children, diagnoses, I note, which are viewed strictly negatively in society. And now our children have to live with this. There is no way to erase this information from the Internet. Who exactly, what specialists and journalists will be responsible for what is written? 5. Wild articles with wild headlines appear in the media. In the comments, people discuss how we could infect our children in a foster family and consider our “income.” Our family has begun to be persecuted, but we are adults, we will survive, it’s scary that our children are suffering. Children, each of whom has already experienced the loss of their birth family and suffered associated trauma. 6. Now about the bruises. A number of media outlets write about bruises and some scratches on the neck. The guards showed me a photo on the phone and said that dad beat him with a belt. I saw, attention, the most ordinary bruises on the butt and elbow. I asked the guardian, was he also hit on the elbow with a belt? In a few days these bruises will go away, and to defend your position, I’m sure you can write anything you want. You can even beat a child so that the necessary bruises appear not only on paper, but also on the body. Why not? After what is happening, I admit this too. 7. Summary - Ten children, foster and adopted, were taken from our undocumented family based on two bruises and the words of a foster child with an attachment disorder. I believe that everything will become clear in the end, and our children will return home, this hell will end. But how can we continue to live now?
Recorded by Tatyana Baydak
Original taken from ludmilapsyholog in Regarding the removal of children in Zelenograd
Dear everyone
My colleagues and I really didn’t want to bring the situation up for wide discussion while there was still hope that everything would be resolved peacefully and quickly.
Today this was done without us, with distortions, with the disclosure of the children’s diagnoses and without agreement with the adoptive mother on the specific content of the comments.
As a result, heated discussions began about “whether to hit or not to hit” and other things to wash the family’s bones.
In this regard, a call, a request, an appeal, whatever you want to call it, to everyone who is participating in the discussion, be it just people on social networks or - especially - the media.
Let's remain correct and appropriate.
We do not know, cannot know and should not yet know whether physical punishment of the child took place or not.
For me personally, since we know Svetlana quite well, this is hard to believe, but my feelings have nothing to do with it. Information has been received and work must be done to verify it. Professional work in collaboration with adoptive parents.
What we know is that, based only on the words of a 6-year-old child, without doing much less any work - not even any conversation with the adoptive parents - 10 children, including adopted ones, are taken away from the family. The children are lied to during the process, the adoptive mother is not given any documents about the selection, the children are scattered among shelters and hospitals without being provided with therapy.
The adoptive mother offered many options during the proceedings: the children could be taken away by their relatives, the family was ready for any form of cooperation to clarify the essence of the matter. But they are not even allowed to visit their children (at least this was the situation as of yesterday evening).
All this is monstrously unprofessional and essentially amounts to child abuse. Much more severe than the hypothetical physical punishment that took place.
At the same time, the mother is persuaded not to worry, because “the children have a good time there, they are entertained.”
Specialists who cannot imagine what happens to a child when he is taken from his family like this and sent to an orphanage are unsuitable for their profession.
Specialists who do not know the psychological characteristics of children who spent the first years of life in an institution, for example, the fact that a child is often ready to say everything they want to hear from him to any adult in order to be the center of attention, and that he needs to delve into and understand every time with the involvement of child psychologists, before moving on to organizational conclusions, are simply dangerous.
It's like a doctor who doesn't know anatomy and physiology. They have nothing to do in the field of protecting children's rights.
Discussing other people's families can be fun and enjoyable, but the well-being of each of us and our children does not depend on whether something happened or didn't happen in any particular adoptive family. It depends on the professionalism of specialists who, due to job responsibilities can decide destinies, including breaking them. It depends on how complex and conflict situations that are inevitable in the social sphere are resolved - through cooperation and reasonable procedures, or through state kidnapping.
We have all done a lot to develop the family structure in last years. But every time it turns out that in the main thing, alas, nothing has changed. The system always serves itself first, trampling on the rights of children and families easily and naturally.
I kindly ask you to focus the discussion on this aspect.
You don't have to ask permission to repost.
Original taken from oleg_kozyrev c Removing children from the family should be difficult, almost impossible
I admit, I was struck by the story of the removal of a large number of children from a large family by guardianship authorities and the police. I absolutely do not like that the withdrawal process today is so easy and fast. Even if we are talking about an allegedly temporary seizure. It is clear that Russia has moved towards the Western format of attitude towards the family, when the state can come to any family and find a reason for seizure. In democratic countries, minorities suffer from this approach (religious, national - everyone who does not fit into the general outline of traditions). In authoritarian countries, the opposition and various inconvenient people on the ground often suffer from this approach. In corrupt countries, anyone, any random family, can suffer from this approach.
The worst thing about this recent fashion is the attitude towards children as something that can be easily passed from family to family, from family to boarding school. On one side of the scale we have the declared health and well-being of the child. On the other is his real well-being in the family. Totalitarian societies used to experiment with raising children outside the family - little good came out of these experiments. This practice is still used today by a number of terrorists in Africa and Asia, capturing children and training them to become brutal killers.
I didn't grow up in the most better conditions. My father was a miner and sometimes drank. And when I drank, I could get it. Once he broke his leg on me, and after his blow I flew across the room and crashed into the wall. Childhood was not the sweetest. But I was lucky in the sense that violence was not the norm for my father, he was ashamed later and, again, fortunately, he did not behave so often In a similar way. Would I have been better off if I had been deprived of my father? I'm sure not. Because he taught me good things too. In those years, almost all the working men around drank. And many behaved in the same way at home with their children. Make everyone orphans? It is unlikely that something good would have come of us then.
I realize that children live in different circumstances. Domestic violence is common in Russia and has almost become the norm. I understand why civilized countries began to look for ways to protect the life and health of children, including through intervention in the life of the family. But in my opinion, the result was that they went too far.
Let's go back to that large family.
- Why was the seizure so hasty? Why was it based on just one episode?
- Why can’t you give your children to your family or friends? For children, it would obviously be more comfortable among people they know than in a boarding school or hospital.
- finally, if something terrible is suddenly suspected, why not put the father in a pre-trial detention center instead of actually putting the children behind bars?
This is not clear to me. The father could have been given a warning or a fine. But it is quite possible not to seize the children. And if such a need arose, the family could indicate relatives or friends who know the children and who would look after them. This was not done.
In general, all this withdrawal is more reminiscent of mockery, when formalism prevails over the essence - the interests of the child. A father who does wrong at times may improve, but he is still a father. But the life of orphans in our country is almost one hundred percent crippled by orphanages. A very, very small number of orphans can then get back on their feet in life.
And further. Children grew up in a family. They have already become attached to the home format. In the very, very as a last resort It may be possible to temporarily transfer such children to some family of educators for home maintenance and care, but not to a boarding school!
I think it's better to make it very, very difficult to remove children. Almost impossible. Is the family raising children poorly? Give the family a nanny from the state. Poor students? Give me a tutor from the state. I don’t understand why, why it is always easier to kill the future of children and destroy a family than to make efforts to save the family. Send your parents to Alcoholics Anonymous classes, have them take some kind of parenting course or anger management course. Help with work or housing if they are poor.
Hand on heart, who today would dare to say that in a modern Russian boarding school a child will be better off and safer than even in a dysfunctional family?
Guardianship services must stop multiplying orphans. And we must learn to help families.
I have known Sveta since 2008. We became friends in 2010. We talked and never lost sight of each other. I KNOW that in Sveta’s family the children are not in danger, that they are not tortured there, but are LOVED! Help me please! Sign the petition
Tonight, popular TV presenter Irena Ponaroshku addressed her subscribers. “Help get the children back,” she wrote on her blog and posted a link to a petition in which desperate volunteer parents appeal to children's ombudsman Anna Kuznetsova.
"U mother of many children A few days ago, the guardianship authorities took 10 children from Svetlana Del’s 16 children because kindergarten teachers discovered a bruise on one of them on the elbow and butt. People, wake up! My child also gets covered in bruises and abrasions! Although we don’t lay a finger on him,” Irena was indignant.
“Children and the police were literally kidnapped from the kindergarten, from clubs and classes! Without providing documents, without explaining reasons! Then they didn’t give us the opportunity to see each other, and there is still no information about the future fate of the children,” she explains.
“Look carefully at @svetkaaa2012’s profile, as I did before writing about this situation - I got to the very beginning of the feed, read all the posts, watched all the videos. There is no violence in this family and there is unconditional love! Svetlana and her husband found a place in their hearts for healthy children, and for children with serious diagnoses, and not children at all - one of the boys was 16 years old when Svetlana took him to her place. A year later he began calling her mom... I have been following this story from the very beginning. The only thing I didn’t understand was: why doesn’t my eldest daughter Daria write anything about this on her account @dell_daria, although she posts posts with jokes and poems? This alarmed me and stopped me. But last night, after my question in the comments about this, she also started posting,” the star writes.
“The worst thing is that now hundreds of other children may remain forever in orphanages, because adoptive parents, knowing how the juvenile justice system works in our country, will be afraid to take them into the family! After all, they can come and take away everyone: both relatives and adopted ones (who are also relatives!),” Ponaroshku addresses the public. To date, the appeal has been signed by more than eight thousand people.
Media reports that Svetlana Del first decided to adopt an orphan when she was 26 years old, at which time she worked in one of the orphanages as a volunteer. Her first adopted daughter was 9-year-old Dasha. “Even when snow falls, it continues to fall! We are no exception! Let's fight them all off! And let the whole country and the whole world know that a real #family never falls apart in difficult times,” the grown-up girl wrote in her blog yesterday.
Following her, the new mother managed to adopt her brothers. The fourth child in the family was a baby who weighed 3.5 kg at 10 months. The fifth was a 4-year-old boy with Down syndrome, who was being prepared to be sent from an orphanage to an orphanage with all the ensuing consequences. The remaining children, including several with HIV infection, are registered as a foster family. “We took them because it was a pity - they are very good kids, but no one will take them, adoptive parents are afraid to take them. And I have a higher medical education, and I know that there is no danger of getting infected,” Svetlana explained in an interview with MK.
In response to accusations that she did this for money, Del said that in addition to child benefits and the salary of foster parents, her husband has a small business. The children spend the summer in a house by the sea, and in their free time from school they attend many sections and clubs - swimming pool, football, alpine skiing, ballet. The guardianship authorities comment on the situation sparingly, claiming that the children were selected only for the duration of the check and they are looking into complaints about the bruises found.
Photo: starface.ru, instagram.com
Removal of children from the foster family Del: chronicle of events 01/19/17
For a week now, the Russian-language section of the Internet has been discussing the situation that is unfolding in Zelenograd (Moscow region). Ten children were removed from the family of Svetlana and Mikhail Del. Svetlana has been a member of the Littleone forum since 2007. We tried to chronologically present all the events associated with the high-profile case.
2006-2013 Svetlana Del works as a volunteer in one of the orphanages Leningrad region and there he meets a girl, Dasha. After some time, Svetlana and her husband accept Dasha herself, and then her two younger brothers, into their family. Later, the family accepts 12 more children. Together with the son born in 2013, there are sixteen children in the family: relatives, adopted children, guardians, and those transferred under a foster family agreement. Most of the children adopted into the family had serious diseases - infectious, genetic, musculoskeletal. Nine children have disabled status.
There are several forms of placement in a family for children left without parental care:
1. adoption - occurs by court decision, adopted children receive all the rights of blood (natural-born children), retain the right to receive a survivor's pension, if one was assigned, but no additional funds are paid from the state for the adopted child. The secrecy of adoption is protected by Article 139 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation and Article 155 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation;
2. guardianship (for children over 14 years of age, guardianship) - the registration procedure is carried out by the guardianship authorities, the child retains the status of one left without parental care, the state pays funds for the monthly maintenance of the child;
3.foster family - an agreement is concluded between the adoptive parents and the guardianship authorities. Adoptive parents receive wages foster parent, payments for monthly child support, targeted payments for large expenses.
Since 2009, when there were three children in the family, Svetlana maintained her own topic on the Littleone forum, where she talked about the everyday life of her rapidly growing family. Later, an Instagram account appeared, 90% filled with photographs of children. The family gave the impression of being prosperous: the children played football, ballet, skied, baked homemade cookies and went to the Christmas tree in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The active social life was not only virtual: the family communicated a lot with other participants in the section on adopted children of the Littleone forum and their photographs appeared in the topics of thematic meetings, in the topics of other forum members who came to visit the family or invited the family to their place. Svetlana herself eventually became a trainer at the School of Foster Parents.
Since September 2012, each candidate for adoption of a child into a family must undergo special training at the School of Adoptive Parents, where psychologists, teachers, teachers and experienced foster parents talk about possible problems and ways to overcome them. A school completion certificate is a mandatory part of the package of documents required to become a candidate for adoption, guardianship, or foster family.
2014-2017
The family moves from St. Petersburg to Moscow, where the head of the family was offered participation in one of the projects. Zelenograd becomes the family's place of residence.
By 2017, 13 children live in the family of Svetlana and Mikhail Del. The three eldest have already grown up and live separately from their parents.
From the family archive
Employees law enforcement came to the Del family’s apartment, examined the conditions in which the children were being kept, examined the children themselves, and made a decision on the spot to remove the children from the family. At the same time, Svetlana’s daughter was removed directly from ballet classes, another daughter from a New Year’s event, and a six-year-old son from kindergarten. No records of the removal of children were provided in any of the places, nor were there any documents confirming the authority or even the identity of the people who carried out the removal. Children in an orphanage before adoption.
From the family archive
According to law enforcement officials, the teacher of one of the children, a six-year-old boy, found two bruises on his body. Answering questions from the teachers, the child, according to police officers, said that his “dad” beat him. The kindergarten passed this information on to the appropriate services, as a result of which 10 children were removed from the Del family within one day. The two older boys were able to escape on their own and managed to pick up their three-year-old brother from kindergarten and hide them, leaving all three with their family.
Two children were placed in a shelter, eight children were placed in the Moscow Children's Hospital No. 21 named after. Speransky. These 8 children have health problems from birth, and therefore must receive appropriate therapy twice a day. The mother tried to give the medicines along with the children, and later - to give them to the hospital, but she was refused on the grounds that the doctors at the hospital must conduct an examination themselves, after which they will prescribe treatment. As a result, therapy was interrupted for the first few days of the children's stay in the hospital, which, when diagnosed, carries a certain risk to their health.
From the family archive
Mothers are prohibited from visiting their children. The ban is motivated by the fact that it “may have an impact on children”
Svetlana turns to lawyer Anna Mishelova with a request to be her confidant.
The family turns to the Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, Anna Kuznetsova, for help. The commissioner's office is involved in the situation.
A family friend posts information about what happened on her Instagram, and the Del family's story becomes public.
There is a wave of outrage in the adoptive parents section of the Littleone forum. All forum participants claim that it is simply impossible to believe in the possible dysfunction of the family and the threat to the life and health of children. We asked for a comment from one of the forum participants who is personally acquainted with the family. svn says: “I met Svetlana and Mikhail’s family about 5 years ago. Trivial and random: I called out to the LV, who can take a few bags of new ones from me soft toys for gifts for children from orphanages (my daughter is engaged in figure skating, and they threw toys on the ice in large quantities), and Sveta responded. Our chance acquaintance continued in the summer: it turned out that Sveta lived in the same Lisiy Nos, where I spent every summer with my children. Gradually we got to know each other better, became close, and became friends. My daughter and I visited Svetlana almost every day and saw their life. My daughter played more and more with the children, and I talked with Sveta and Mikhail if he was not at work. Since then, we spent all the summer months together in Lisy Nos, and the rest of the time we went to visit each other. Everything in the yard was thought out for the kids, and not just for play, but for rehabilitation. For example, not a standard children's playground was purchased, but a custom-made one: with some kind of climbing frames, jumping ropes and slides that developed the motor skills of children, for whom many natural movements for ordinary children were not given without effort. Moreover, children were not just launched onto the playground under the motto: “Busy - and thank God!” Sveta constantly monitored who to launch on which “projectile”. And I think that this is not Sveta’s fault, but her great merit that her older children helped her work with the younger ones, whom, I note, it was Sveta who raised them to be so loving, caring and adapted to life. In addition, in the yard there was a large sandbox with a lot of buckets, molds, scoops and cars, and a trampoline. Under the canopy of the house there was a huge “vehicle park”: in total, probably a dozen children’s bicycles, balance bikes, and scooters. That is, a normal courtyard of a large family, concerned about organizing leisure time and the development of their children. And what a caring husband and father Mikhail showed himself to be! It seems incredible to me that the very possibility that such a patient, calm, I would even say, slightly phlegmatic Mikhail not only raised his hand to the baby, but even raised his voice beyond measure.”
Lyudmila Petranovskaya - psychologist, member of the Association of Family Arrangement Specialists “Family for the Child”, one of the founders of the Institute for the Development of Family Arrangement, author of a book about adopted children “Child of Two Families” makes a publication in her LJ, in which she expresses her opinion about what is happening: “We we do not know, cannot know and should not yet know whether physical punishment of the child took place or not. For me personally, since we know Svetlana quite well, this is hard to believe, but my feelings have nothing to do with it. Information has been received and work must be done to verify it. Professional work in collaboration with adoptive parents. What we know is that, based only on the words of a 6-year-old child, without doing much less any work - not even any conversation with the adoptive parents - 10 children, including adopted ones, are taken away from the family. The children are lied to during the process, the adoptive mother is not given any documents about the selection, the children are scattered among shelters and hospitals without being provided with therapy. The adoptive mother offered many options during the proceedings: the children could be taken away by their relatives, the family was ready for any form of cooperation to clarify the essence of the matter. But they are not even allowed to visit their children (at least this was the situation as of yesterday evening). All this is monstrously unprofessional and, in fact, is child abuse. Much more severe than the hypothetical physical punishment that took place.”
“Removal” is a term enshrined in Article 77 of the Family Code, which contains information that “if there is an immediate threat to the life of a child or his health, the guardianship and trusteeship authority has the right to immediately remove the child from the parents (one of them) or from other persons in their care which it is located. Immediate removal of the child is carried out by the guardianship and trusteeship authority on the basis of the relevant act of the authority executive power subject Russian Federation or an act of the head of the municipality.” The same article obliges the guardianship authority to file a lawsuit to limit or deprive parental rights within seven days after the seizure.
The Department of Social Protection of the Population, represented by its deputy head Tatyana Barsukova, informs Interfax that “on January 10, kindergarten workers revealed the fact of cruel treatment - bruises were found on the body of one child. The guardianship authorities were called, and together with the police officers the fact of beatings by the father was witnessed.” According to her, in connection with this, a decision was made to temporarily remove the children from the family and place them in a safe place. At the same time, according to her data, 10 children were removed from the family, and not 12, as previously reported. Thus, eight * (the diagnosis was removed for ethical reasons and due to the illegality of disclosure by the author of the article) children were placed in a hospital where they received the necessary medications, two were placed in social institutions. Two more older children and one natural child are with their mother.” Mothers are allowed to see their children, Barsukova noted.
Lawyer Anna Mishelova pays a visit to the guardianship authorities and the police in order to obtain copies of the seizure documents, but both departments refuse her on the grounds that the documents were sent for pre-investigation checks. After this, Anna filed a complaint with the Zelenograd prosecutor’s office against the actions of the police and guardianship authorities. The complaint was accepted and from now on the case is under prosecutorial supervision.
Svetlana herself takes part in an emergency meeting dedicated to analyzing the situation with the selection of children, to which Anna Kuznetsova invites her. The results of the “meeting of the special commission” are written on the website of the Office of the Commissioner on the FB: “According to a representative of the guardianship and trusteeship authorities of Zelenograd, there is no talk of depriving the mother of parental rights. It was decided that the woman would visit the children without restrictions. The issue of transferring adopted children to the mother’s closest relatives is also being resolved.” Anna Kuznetsova herself states: “We must thoroughly understand the situation, consider all the conditions under which the return of children is possible. But to do this, you need to understand what happened, get an overall picture of the children’s health, their psychological state, and get clear guarantees from mom and dad that the children in this family will be safe.”
Svetlana is verbally informed that the children in the orphanage will be given to her. Later the decision was changed - they said that until all the circumstances were clarified, a relative of Svetlana could take the children to her. In the evening, when the children were already dressed to be handed over, the decision was changed again - the children will remain in the shelter at least until Monday, January 16.
All executive authorities went away for the weekend, and the situation unfolded in the Internet space and media mass media. The story was covered by all television channels, including federal ones. Online publications published many articles in which the exact diagnoses of children were disclosed, with or without last names, although even their number was not always accurately indicated.
The Littleone forum is beginning to collect signatures for an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Open a support group on VKontakte. They are launching the hashtag #help bring children back on Instagram. They are collecting signatures for a petition to Anna Kuznetsova. They explain to parents who are unfamiliar with the characteristics of adopted children what the diagnoses of mental retardation and developmental disorder mean, contained in the medical records of the seized children, including the boy who “gave testimony” against the adoptive father.
Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is a disorder in the ability to form close and trusting relationships. Occurs in children whose love for their parents in the first years of their life was not reciprocated, whose needs were not met; occurs in children who have experienced parental abuse or neglect, cruelty towards themselves. Children suffering from RAD have difficulties in establishing attachment to their adoptive parents; in order to attract attention to themselves, they can tell anyone around them that their parents do not feed them, offend them, beat them, punish them, etc.
Delay mental development(abbr. ZPR) is a violation of the normal pace of mental development, when certain mental functions (memory, attention, thinking, emotional-volitional sphere) lag behind in their development the accepted psychological norms for a given age. Children left without parental care, and later transferred to another family, often continue to call both sets of parents - natural and adoptive - mom and dad. When situations like the one that happened arise, it is necessary to involve child psychologists who are familiar with the characteristics of such children. Maria Ermel, Svetlana’s friend and mother of nine children, some of whom are adopted, commented: “You need to understand what kind of children we have. Imagine an adult who has been betrayed by his family two or three times in a row. Will this person be able to continue to trust someone? Introduced? Now imagine that this was not an adult, but a child. A child abandoned by his parents was not stroked or kissed, but starved and beaten. And then they quit. And so, this little person with great and not childish grief ends up in the family of a foster parent. Do you think this grief-stricken child will instantly forget everything and love mom and dad? No. This little person will treat the new adults in his life the same way he was treated before in the orphanage and in the family from which he was thrown out. With indifference. Aggression. Hatred. And quite a lot of time will pass before such a child can begin to feel something other than hatred and love. This is called attachment disorder. And a child with such a disorder always wants to be the center of attention. To collect as much emotional input from others as possible. Such a child is ready to do anything for this attention - lie, steal, hit. And even if we are talking about children at home, let's be serious: if you suddenly take your child away and isolate him from you, what will he then say to anyone? Yes, he will say everything. Everything that is asked and not asked of him. All. Our children are not partisans. In captivity, they will say everything they want to hear from them. These are homemade. And a child from an orphanage, with an attachment disorder, who has just begun to trust new adults who suddenly disappeared somewhere - like the old ones - will say out of his pain everything that he would like to say about the fact that he was betrayed again . Because he is alone. And again there are no people nearby who said they would always be there.”
On the Facebook page “On the Way to Adoption” the first public statement in these days by Svetlana Del herself was published, in which she writes, among other things: “I did not beat our children, including Seryozha. My husband did not beat our children, including Seryozha. He talked, inspired, explained, scolded - yes. But he didn’t hit me. We didn't hit our children."
Svetlana gets the opportunity to visit the children in the orphanage. A video appears on Instagram in which little Polina begs her mother to take her home.
Svetlana's daughter, 19-year-old Daria, visits children at the orphanage. Later she will tell you that they let her in because she came with a film crew from one of the TV channels. The children, according to her, really want to go home: “For Polina, every parting is hysterical.”
TASS published a message from a representative of the press service of the Moscow Department of Social Protection: “Children temporarily removed from their families will remain in our institutions, probably until the end of the day. We are preparing documents to hand over to the adoptive mother's sister. It's not a quick process."
The opinion of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in Moscow, Evgeniy Bunimovich, was also published there: “There are no questions now about the deprivation or even restriction of parental rights, there is nothing like that, I hope that the children will return to the family as quickly as possible. I don’t feel that the children should be isolated from this family.”
Svetlana and her eldest daughter Dasha are again making an attempt to see the children who are in the hospital, and meetings with whom she is also officially allowed. They are allowed to give the children bags with gifts and notes, but they are not allowed to see the children again - according to the staff of the institution, a quarantine has been declared. Svetlana has not seen the eight children who were placed in the hospital since their removal.
The seventh day expires from the moment the children are taken away from the family. According to the law, guardianship authorities are required to go to court within seven days with a claim to limit the parents’ rights or deprive them of parental rights. Or return the children to their legal representatives.
The family’s lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, publishes a message on his page that the family has filed a lawsuit: “Today our lawyers filed a lawsuit against the guardianship authorities and the police. We will demand an explanation - almost a week has passed since the children were seized, and we have not seen any documents. And, of course, we demand that the children be returned home. At the same time, appeals were distributed to all involved authorities - to the hospital and shelter where children are kept, to the guardianship authorities and the police. We ask you to present documents that allow you to take children from your family and keep them in such cases. So far no one has been able to.”
The Commissioner’s Office publishes two messages at once dedicated to the Del family, which state that “the situation with the removal of children from the Del family is under the close control of the Commissioner for the Rights of the President of the Russian Federation, Anna Kuznetsova, who has repeatedly made statements about the need to return children to the family "
In one online publication, information unexpectedly appears that the children in the family of Svetlana and Mikhail Del were not only subjected to physical punishment, but also starved. Allegedly, the apartment where the family and children lived was dirty, there was no bedding and no food. The source of information is the page in social network one of Svetlana’s adult daughters, Alexandra. It turns out that the girl posted an “appeal for help” there, in which she talks about how hard life was for her in a foster family: “My brother and I lived in a foster family with Del Svetlana Sergeevna, and it so happened that we don’t know where the money from our money went missing savings books […]We were also not really fed, we ate empty pasta, occasionally sausages for all the children, a bun, mayonnaise, rarely cucumbers and tomatoes, and sometimes glanders. But they had sausage and all sorts of things in the refrigerator, and they also sent us to the store to buy alcohol and cigarettes, and there was assault.” Spelling has been preserved. The page has been deleted; the girl refused contacts with the press, including the author of the article.
Flashback: 2012-2014 The story of the appearance and stay of Alexandra and her brother Ivan in the Del family was preserved in the very topic where Svetlana talked about the life of her family in the section for adoptive parents on the Littleone forum. Currently, the topic has been removed from public access at Svetlana’s request until the end of the trial. Sasha and Vanya came into the family almost as adults - Sasha was only two years away from coming of age. According to Svetlana herself, these two years were not enough for Alexandra to socialize. The main problem of children who have lived in orphanages for many years is their inability to adapt to life outside the institution. They simply do not understand how life is built outside the orphanage walls, they have no idea about basic things - where housing comes from, money for living, how, where and with what they buy food and how they pay for utilities. Sasha turned 18, she categorically refused to study, and later to work. After coming of age, she and her adoptive parents could not agree on the rules for Sasha’s residence in the house of Svetlana and Mikhail. Even then, in conflicts that arose with her adoptive mother, she used a “native” method for children with attachment disorders - she drew attention to her person with stories about how she was being offended in the family.
Messages from Svetlana Del’s thread on the Littleone forum (2014): “Our Sasha is weird, there’s just no words for it. Tomorrow I'll go to the guardianship for advice, although I'm not sure what it is correct solution . And whether we will be considered “problematic”. Come on, the main thing is not this, but the fact that my soul is sick. Our Sashka left the house the day before yesterday. Of course, this didn’t start overnight. Spring-spring, love-love. Again […] Now my beauty writes some garbage on social media. networks that this evil woman guardian is kicking her out of the house, took everything, gets money for her and other children, spends it on herself, and feeds them with slop. […] We are not afraid of any inspections, of course. Today was just planned. She told me about the current situation. Guardianship seems to be understanding. True, she said that our maid, uh, doesn’t have much of a reputation anymore. And it would be necessary to send it to the place of permanent registration. Moreover, they provide an apartment there. But she doesn't want to. He doesn't want to leave. He doesn’t want to get an apartment. He wants to live in St. Petersburg and “build love.” I have no leverage. The feeling of complete helplessness and meaninglessness of the last three years.” “Sasha will come today, we’ll talk. So far, the option she offers - on weekdays she goes for walks and relaxes with her boyfriend, and on weekends with us - I am categorically not happy with it. Today I went to the guardianship and discussed the problem. It turns out that Sasha has been telling all sorts of stories for a long time, like they put her in the worst room, in winter they specially turned off the heating in her room, they didn’t let her out of the house and forced her to “work as a farm laborer.” They don’t buy clothes, they feed poorly, etc. Guardianship, of course, is reasonable and understands everything, fortunately. Moreover, he lives next to us and sees children every day.” Petersburg guardianship, which had known both the family and the girl for a long time, was on the side of the adoptive parents. Sasha even then accused her adoptive father of beating children, but Mikhail did not take this seriously and felt sorry for the girl. Svetlana wrote: “He is our kind dad. Sasha will shed a tear and he will definitely regret her. […] I say, she actually says that you beat children. My husband somehow doesn’t take all this seriously. Like, I’m not knocking who would believe this nonsense. And Sasha, they say, is not lying out of great intelligence, he doesn’t know what he’s doing...” The parents’ attempts to reason with the girl did not lead to success. Svetlana shared on the forum: “Well, in response to my proposals to agree on the rules of living in our house, Sasha said: “I’ll find somewhere to live, and they’ll figure it out with you, you’ll find out what I can do,” and she walked away proudly.” Almost 3 years later, Alexandra posted information on her social network page about how bad it was for her in a foster family, and as confirmation she posted a video in which one of Svetlana’s youngest daughters, Katya, complains that her “mother” offends her. The video was filmed and first posted online in the same 2014. At that time, Katya had just joined the Del family and most likely called her biological mother “mom” in this video. Accusations of Alexandra's adopted daughter Now that Alexandra has made new accusations, she names nanny Lydia Yasinetskaya, who worked in the Del family, as a witness. Lydia, who herself grew up in an orphanage, transferred her daughter to a state institution due to the impossibility of raising her on her own. Svetlana helped Lydia pick up her daughter, offered both of them to live in her house and paid a salary for help with the rest of her children. In this situation, Lydia supported Alexandra and left negative and revealing comments online, similar to Alexandra’s own comments and posted on the same resources and at about the same time. Currently, Lydia is avoiding commenting; it was not possible to contact her.
We asked Veronika Kudryavtseva, chairman of the St. Petersburg Association of Adoptive Parents, mother of nine adopted children, to talk about the characteristics of children taken into families as adults: “What older child adopted into a foster family, the greater his experience, the wider the range of proven methods of influence. Before meeting his adoptive parents, he was forced to survive. That's right: survive! First in his birth family - most often teenagers are removed from dysfunctional families and have experienced neglect, hunger and violence - and then adapt to the endlessly changing very different adults surrounding him in the orphanage. The “survival program” becomes a model of behavior, the only one possible for them. The variability in how this manifests itself is very wide. These are endless provocations, manipulations, theft, lies, aggression, sexualized behavior, self-harm, oppositional behavior, etc. Everyone uses the available arsenal exactly to the extent to which he had to master it. And this, of course, is not the fault of the orphan teenager. This is his problem! As a rule, what adoptive parents have to face when they take a teenager into their family is directly proportional to what he had to endure. How traumatized this child was. How many times, how many people, how long ago he was betrayed by adults whom he tried to trust. All this is nothing more than a test. The child asks the question: “Do you really love me? Even like this? And what if it’s like this?” It is worth remembering how an ordinary child from a family behaves during the “transitional age”. Even those children who were loved, cared for, for whom, it would seem, everything was done, during puberty make their parents grab their heads. What does a foster parent receive when faced with a seriously traumatized child who came into the family during this very puberty period? I think everyone understands that this is hell... People from the outside, who are attracted by teenagers with their demonstrative behavior, from the outside may see everything completely differently. “Kind” aunts and uncles rush to save the unfortunate orphans. Protect them. Join the accusations against adoptive parents... Just believe that everything is in order with the checks in our case! Specialists, in accordance with the law, regularly conduct inspections of living space, living conditions, food, and the mode of spending funds paid for the maintenance of children. Guardianship authorities, as well as services working on contractual relations with them, cope with the control function to the fullest! Anyone who supports the types of behavior of an adopted teenager that I described above does not help, as he thinks, but only complicates and delays his socio-psychological rehabilitation. Parents are forced to spend themselves not on the child, but on excuses and endless explanations. Only experience, knowledge of special psychology, and understanding of behavioral characteristics will allow foster parents to survive. This is the only way a family can overcome a child’s trauma. Only time. If it exists...”
On the night of January 18, all children from the hospital named after. Speransky was transferred to the Zelenograd shelter. The children were given phones. The eldest of the girls, Victoria and Margarita, immediately sent messages to their mother: “I miss mom” and “Mom. I'm bored. Mother. , I love” (author’s spelling). Svetlana was invited to the shelter at 10 a.m. to attend a diagnostic conversation between the children and independent psychologists. When she arrived, she was informed that the children had already talked to psychologists without her participation.
The head of the Moscow Department of Social Protection, Vladimir Petrosyan, stated on one of the Internet channels that an independent commission conducted an inspection and finally established the fact that the adoptive father beat the children. In this regard, the children will not be returned back to the family: “It is absolutely impossible to return children to this family, because all the children have categorically confirmed the fact that their dad beats them, they are afraid of this dad.” He also said that they spoke with representatives of investigative and law enforcement agencies, who stated that a criminal case had been opened under Article 116 and that there were facts that the children were deprived of a lot.” The Del Family’s lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, publishes a post on his Facebook page in which he claims that no one informed the family and lawyers either that the return of the children to the family was no longer planned, or that a criminal case was being initiated: “None of them bothered to come to parents, bring and hand over documents, contact a lawyer, inform about the initiation of a case. Instead, the Department of Social Protection prefers to publish information in the media - no one has yet proven guilt, there is no verdict, there is not even a single summons.”
On the same Internet portal where a few hours earlier Vladimir Petrosyan’s statement was published that “all absolutely children categorically confirmed the fact that their dad beats them,” video recordings appear in which journalists ask children a question about their dad’s use of physical violence and no one of the children, except for the same child with RRP and mental retardation, does not confirm that their father beat them. Even when a journalist asks the children a direct question about whether their dad beat them, they deny this fact.
TASS publishes a statement by the Speaker of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, who believes that removing children from the family should be a last resort when other measures no longer work. “In this case, there were hasty actions, there were no sufficient grounds. We first had to figure it out, get to the core of the problem. And only if there were serious facts, then only after that should they be confiscated,” the speaker concluded.
Petrosyan Vladimir Arshakovich - Minister of the Moscow Government, Head of the Department of Social Protection of the Population of the City of Moscow. It was this department that in 2016 entered into a contract with the Park Hotel Syamozero camp, in which 14 children died as a result of boating, after which many violations were found in the camp and it turned out that these violations had been identified earlier, before the conclusion contract, which did not prevent the company from re-entering a contract with the Moscow Department of Social Protection in 2016. In the wake of what happened in Karelia in 2016, Vladimir Petrosyan gave an interview, part of which we consider it appropriate to quote: - Did you talk to the affected children? about what happened? Was there a warning that a storm would start? - I am with them now. The children are happy with their trip to the camp. They say: “They had a good time on these trips.” he was not there. The contract was signed by his deputy, Tatyana Barsukova. Assistant to the head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, Yuri Ursu, published an analysis of the terms of reference for the purchase on his blog, in which he saw a deliberate restriction of competition in the bidding. In this regard, on the change.org portal, a collection of signatures has begun for an appeal to the Chairman of the RF Investigative Committee, A.I. Bastrykin, demanding that Tatyana Barsukova be brought to criminal responsibility for holding a fictitious tender and involvement in the deaths of children. Tatyana Barsukova already appeared in our article on January 13 - it was she who revealed the children’s diagnoses to the press, although by occupation she is one of those who are obliged to keep information that constitutes a medical secret.
We contacted the mother of the selected children and asked her to comment on the current situation. Svetlana Del said: “Today I was told to come to the shelter at 10 am for a conversation with the children together with psychologists. But I was not able to see the children. “Specialists” interviewed the children without me, without their legal representative. While I was waiting, I received calls and SMS from them... We heard each other for the first time after 7 days. The children said that they were very bored and asked when they could return home. Unfortunately, I don't have answers to these questions. Later I was informed that the children did not want to go home. It is not true!! And in the evening I was deprived of contact with the children.”
As of the date of writing, the children remain in the Zelenograd shelter; the fact that they were beaten remains unproven, but also not refuted. We can only add that throughout the entire time during which the children were in the hospital. Speransky, which is not subordinate to the Department of Social Protection of the City of Moscow, all responsible persons argued that the removal of children was illegal and hasty, and the children should be transferred to a family in the near future. Let us recall that this opinion was shared by the Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Anna Kuznetsova, the department itself, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Moscow Evgeniy Bunimovich, and the Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko. However, immediately after the children were transferred to the Zelenogorsk shelter, which is subordinate to the Moscow Department of Social Protection of the Population, information appears that such serious shortcomings in the upbringing and maintenance of children were identified that 8 foster family agreements were subject to termination. Transfer of children from the hospital named after. Speransky to the shelter and a sharp change in the Department’s position occurred immediately after the Del family filed a lawsuit on January 17 against the guardianship authorities for the illegal removal of children from the family.
Littleone will continue to monitor the situation as it develops. Prepared by Natalya Romanova-Afrikantova Photos from the family archive and open pages on social networks
Stalker2010: Read other materials about the Del family on my blog.