Summer camp for orphanage-leavers with children

In our last report, we told you how our families with older children got on on summer camp.  Today it's the turn of the families with young children.  Thanks to your generous donations, we were able to host five families, including nine children.  Numbers were down on last year to keep within the pandemic regulations, so we chose families who were highly motivated to strengthen their relationships.

The spring and early summer were so difficult for our families, and we saw this very clearly in the first few days of our camp.  Some of the families had found it very stressful to be thrown together without a break during the quarantine.  Others had been separated during the quarantine, with the children staying with their father or grandparents.  And they had all been separated from each other, from their friends.  In the first few days, the children found it difficult to settle to our activities and games.  They needed to reestablish their friendships, and spent most of their time playing chase, or a game which involved all piling on top of each other.  We also found that all of our families had lost fitness through the weeks when they weren't allowed to go out.  We had to adjust and shorten our usual walks.  All the same, the children took great pleasure in getting out into the forest, collecting berries and splashing in puddles.

Recovering from the stresses and strains of the pandemic restrictions was our first goal.  After that, we helped parents balance the needs of their two children.  We helped them reassure their children, so that they could take turns playing with their parent, confident while they waited that they would get a turn soon.  The children all learned to allow their sibling more attention without becoming disruptive, and to enjoy the attention when it was their turn to play.

We also organised some listening exercises to encourage good communication.  The parents were asked to find out what made their children happy and then to report back to the group.  This simple task made the parents very anxious because they weren't used to having such conversations with their children.  However, for most of the families, including Natasha and Nikita, it was a real breakthrough moment.

"To begin with I was shaking I was so scared.  Nikita was busy drawing and didn't want to talk to me.  But I did what we had been shown, and gradually he started to answer my questions.  Then he began to tell a story about how we ran through puddles together.  He was laughing the whole time he told the story.  I was in shock that it was so simple to talk to him, and that all I needed to do was listen.  He just talked and I only listened.  I don't think I have ever seen his eyes like that - they were so big and bright.  I really want to hold onto that moment."

We are very grateful to everyone who helped fund this summers camps.  They were more valued and valuable than every before.  Although we were only able to take a few families with us this year, we know that they will work on what they have learned when they get home, and they will share it with their friends.  Our most committed families often become mentors to new families joining the project.  They are absolutely invaluable in guiding and encouraging their peers.  The camp you supported is the most solid step towards this level of commitment.  Thank you!  

This year's summer camp was always going to be different.  After the isolation of the quarantine, everyone needed to be together, to be able to share experiences and support each other.  But right until the last moment we couldn't be sure that the camp would go ahead at all.  As it turned out, we were allowed to hold it, albeit with reduced numbers.  Sadly, those numbers were reduced further when a few of our young people were not allowed to take time off work.

Tatiana was dissapointed her friends coulnd't join her, and we are proud of her for going on her own. 

"I planned to come on camp with my friends, and I only just heard that at the last minute their bosses wouldn't let them take time off.  It's really annoying, but of course they couldn't do anything, especially at the moment when you can lose your job any time.  But all the same, I decided to come without them, and I don't regret it at all."

For Kostya, changes to the train timetables also made the lead-up to the camp stressful.  Thanks to his training, he dealt with his anxieties in a very practical way and made it to camp in one piece.

"I've been on camp before, but this time it was difficult to get ready because the train was very early and I was worried that I wouldn't get to the station on time.  I did a practice run to the station in advance to check how much time I needed, so I wouldn't be late, taking into account that I would have a heavy rucksack and wouldn't be able to walk so fast when I was changing metro trains.  I was so nervous that I decided to have a friend from the group to stay the night before. In the end we didn't sleep all night, we were so worried we would miss the alarm.  But we were the first to the station in the morning."

As is traditional, we started off by getting the site ready not just for our camp, but for the little ones who would be coming for camp after us.  With help from the staff, the teenagers made low benches to go round the campfire, cleaned up the play equipment and the cabin itself.  Everyone always gets a lot of satisfaction from imagining how happy the children will be when the arrive.

In our group sessions, we concentrated a great deal on developing self-reflection, on recognising our strengths and the resources we have available to us to solve our problems.

Dima explained how he felt camp helped him:

"It's very important for me to come here.  I feel light and calm here.  I feel that just here I can free myself of my past worries, which weigh heavily on me.  Before I lived in a children's home, and there I knew very little about the life I live now.  The people teaching me were busy with their own lives.  They didn't notice me, but here I am noticed.  And I have started to live life myself.  Thanks to our meetings in St Petersburg and here, I can see how much I have to learn and I am learning.  Here I can see how parents interact with their children, and it's a lesson for my future.  Sooner or later, I will need to be responsible and become a father.  At some point I realised that I am alone and I need to become independent or I'm lost.  And here they teach me that.  Yes, it's difficult.  It's difficult to recognise that you don't have family backup.  But I am learning to come to terms with the situation and to grow up.   It's as if I'm learning to pull up the weeds that are strongly holding me back in my old habits and ways of thinking.  At the training I had a real breakthrough.  Now I have to work to put it into practice in my life."  

Because of the pandemic, our families and young people face a great many extra challenges.  Challenges of isolation and practical and financial challenges.  Thanks to the summer camp, this group have made great progress towards becoming truly independent and resilient.  We are very grateful to you for helping make it possible.  In our next report, we will let you know how the families with younger children got on.  Watch this space!

"I was thinking about the summer camp all through the lockdown - will it go ahead or not.  I am so glad that we can start to get ready."

Kostya is not alone in rejoicing that our summer camp will be able to go ahead this year.  Lockdown has been hard on our families, and it is just wonderful that we should be able to be together, to support and learn from each other.  We plan to lead two camps as in recent years.  One will be for families with teenage children and some young orphanage-leavers.  The other will be for families with younger children.

As the restrictions brought in because of Corona virus ease, our families are able to start planning in earnest.  Katya says, "I am glad that I can go back out to work, so I have more money.  I can start to save up for my train ticket and for food for myself and to share with everyone."

We still have a fair amount of uncertainty about exactly what the regulations will be in a month's time, or what the train time-tables will be.  However, we are starting to get out log cabin ready, making the repairs that are always needed after the long winter.

We thank you all for sticking with us through this difficult time.  It's not too late to contribute to make this year's camps truly special for all our families.

The summer camps that you help fund are just a part of the support that our organisation offers to parents who grew up in Russian orphanages.  Through the year we offer a weekly support group with a similar mix of activities to our summer camps, albeit indoors in St Petersburg and without the intensity of our time together in the summer.  We use play therapy, art work and group and individual counselling and coaching to motivate and equip our families to strengthen their relationships.  Here parents find the encouragment they need to carry through with what they learnt at summer camp so they don't slip back into old habits.

That's the follow up, but most of our parents have been on quite a journey before we even invite them on summer camp.  Two thirds of the new families that come to us are in crisis with a high level of risk to their children.  These are the children whose health and development are at risk, and there may be a chance that they will be taken away from their parents.  These families often don't understand how different their lives could be.  Our immediate task is to reduce the risk to the children, and to motivate the parents to work with us for change.

When met Nastya, aged 17, for the first time she was living in a hostel for young mums.  She was brought to meet her by a member of staff from the hostel, who carried her baby in for her.  When we asked her to bring the baby into our room herself, she looked baffled, and clearly expected us to take the baby for her.  It was one of our more experienced mums who helped us make a breakthrough with Nastya.  She described her own early parenting in vivid terms that Nastya could identify with.  "I thought my child was like a suitcase that I had to carry around with me.  I thought I would get used to it one day."  Her ears really pricked up when our experienced mum said, "I didn't understand then that a child needs attention and special care.  It's only now with my second child, that I realise how much I harmed my first child".  We are so grateful to the parents who've been in our programme for a while for sharing so honestly and so bravely.  In this case, they gave Nastya this totally new idea and she wanted to know more.

Our pictures today are of Kiril.  He joined our programme with his mum, Natalia, when he was 21 months old.  At that time he spent most of his time in a play-pen and slept in an electronic rocker.  We made regular home visits to the family and persuaded Natalia that Kiril needed exercise and that it would harm his joints to sleep in a seat rather than a bed.  Now Kiril sleeps in his own bed and Natalia is very proud of this parenting success.  Natalia wants to return to work, so we have been supporting her as she gets Kiril ready for kindergarten.  She has bought a little table for him so she doesn't have to feed him sitting on her knee like a baby.  We have been helping her potty train him.  We've also been working together on making the environment safe for Kiril, and Natalia has gradually been throwing out things she doesn't need that clutter up their room or are unsafe.  Each step gives Natalia something to be proud of and increases her trust in us.  Soon she will be ready to move from home visits to taking part in our support group.  If she continues to be motivated to improve her parenting and strengthen her relationship with Kiril, she may even be ready to come on summer camp this year or next.

When we see how far our parents have come, we are all the more proud of them and grateful to you for being part of their journey.  Without our support, the cycle could so easily repeat itself, and the new generation be taken from their birth families just as their parents were.  Thank you for helping us make children like Kiril feel safe and loved.

It's a grey day, and despite the holiday season, it's still lovely to look back at the summer and remember what it was like to spend the whole day outdoors.

Our summer camps are bright highlights for the parents in our support group, and they and their children remember them through the year.  Of course it takes time and effort to change habits and improve relationships, but we are with them to help them build on the lessons learnt at camp.

Sveta was learning how to play with her son in the summer.

"I was sure that my job was to watch my son, to make sure he stayed save and that he observed the rules when he played with other children.  To be honest, it did my head in.  I used to stand like a watchman, all the time watching.  It used to give me a headache."

We suggested the parents try to interact more with their children.  Sveta remembered a few games and suggested she play them with the children.  She was really pleased to see how keen they were to join in, but it often ended in shouting and fighting.  Sveta brought her troubles to the group discussion.  The parents came to the conclusion that adults need to gently guide the games.  The group helped Sveta think of some games that were more age-appropriate for her 5-year-old son, like hide and seek.  Games with simple rules which the children find easy to follow.  Her son really enjoyed his mama's initiative and started to play more harmoniously with other children and even to ask others to play.

At a time of year when we are encouraged to think that we can buy memories, it is good to remember that a simple game of hide-and-seek can also become a treasured memory.  In the new year we will be starting to plan for our summer camps 2020.  We will be selecting families, usually a mix of old-hands and first-timers, all committed to deepening and strengthening their relationships next summer.  We will keep you posted about how we get on.