By September 1, 2025, according to a government decision, all children’s homes must be reorganized into medical rehabilitation centers, social support centers for families and children, other health care or social protection institutions, and children must be placed in family-based care. This latest attempt to reform boarding institutions in our country is not the first—and unfortunately, like the previous ones, it has not emerged from within society itself but has been driven by the imperatives of EU integration. That is why, as before, it faces criticism and resistance from the management of individual children’s homes, local authorities, some experts and MPs. However, something has changed, and this gives reasons for hope. Below I will try to explain what this hope is based on, why the transformation of orphanages in particular is so important, and how this can—and must—happen.
Our society still tolerates social orphanhood, corruption and other shameful phenomena of modern life. This shows a certain immaturity, a focus only on our own problems and a lack of real leaders and moral authorities. Our nation is going through a challenging time in its pursuit of the future and is still on its way toward maturity, forming self-awareness and real human values.
Almost 30 years ago, our state took certain steps to combat social orphanhood, developed a program for the prevention of orphanhood and launched alternatives to the boarding school system in the form of family-type children’s homes and foster families. Institutions were created at the state level to protect children’s rights. A program to combat orphanhood and homelessness was introduced and gradually implemented, and national adoption began to emerge. The state began to address this issue in the mid-1990s.
However, society remained largely indifferent to the suffering of tens of thousands of children in the closed boarding school system. Many years of living under the imperial and Soviet rule shaped people’s perception of life under constant totalitarian control. Therefore, most citizens perceived the life of children in closed boarding schools in post-Soviet Ukraine as normal and a reality that did not need to be changed. When talking to people, I often heard the following phrase: “In boarding schools, children have lots of toys, beautiful rooms and halls, teachers look after them, they are well fed and cared for.” However, a child always needs a family, even if it is not very wealthy, but loving and caring.
Regional authorities and boarding school administrators eagerly competed to report on the “happy” children, supposedly cherished by boarding school staff, local officials, and philanthropists. The institutional care system has consistently emphasized the purported benefits of children remaining in residential facilities, while expressing resistance to national adoption, guardianship and placements in foster families or family-type care. This resistance stemmed from the system’s desire to preserve itself—unwilling to relinquish control over “its” children to alternative, family-based forms of care.
Local authorities were always happy to attend the pompous celebrations in boarding schools on June 1 and New Year’s Eve. Parliamentary hopefuls and various “philanthropists” staged photo shoots for self-promotion against the backdrop of well-dressed but sad pupils. The problem with our authorities and society is that a small child from an institution cannot decide their own fate. Their voice is not heard, their nighttime tears remain within the walls of the boarding school.
It is important to note that the boarding school system as such is a place of bondage, where a child cannot develop normally or realize their potential. They will never have a single important adult (mother or father) with whom they can have a constant emotional connection, which can only be formed in a family environment.
People who work in the boarding school system in Ukraine and other countries are not to blame for the fact that it is the institutional environment (not the staff) that has such a destructive impact on a child’s development and future. We should not blame the staff for all mortal sins because most of them genuinely love children and try to take care of them. The boarding school model itself is toxic and unnatural. It affects not only the development of children but also the consciousness of the staff, making them dependent on the number of pupils and teaching them to act according to the logic of self-preservation—even when this means neglecting a child’s chance to escape the system.
In Ukraine, people often argue that boarding schools also exist in civilized countries, so they question the need for their transformation and resist it. These people do not understand that the existence of boarding schools for raising children in other countries is not at all related to social orphanhood; rather, it is a conscious choice made by the child’s parents for their further upbringing and maintenance.
What kind of institutions are these? They can be boarding schools for children with severe mental disabilities; seriously ill children who need palliative care and round-the-clock medical attention. There are also boarding schools for children with significant visual impairments, as well as sports, military, religious, humanitarian and other boarding schools, where children live together or learn certain necessary skills and do not lose touch with their families, as they spend weekends, holidays and vacations with them.
Such institutions are open 24/7 to parents, government officials, journalists, philanthropists and community activists, and they have real supervisory boards. Tragedies involving children happen all over the world, both in the boarding school system and in biological families. We should not compare the number of tragedies and draw false conclusions.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to orphanhood and the future of the boarding school system. We should borrow from the many years of experience of civilized countries, where children and families always prevail over the system.
What is happening with the boarding school system in our country now, during the war? Once again over the past 30 years, the state is trying to reform these institutions. But now there is an understanding that without creating alternative forms of child care and developing social services in every community, it is impossible to prevent social orphanhood and reduce the number of boarding schools throughout the country. First and foremost, it is important to transform orphanages because that is where children left without parental care end up first. Foster families need to be developed and provided with stable funding and state support because they should become an alternative to orphanages as the first stop on the long and difficult journey of a young orphan in the system.
What new models is the state offering to children’s homes during their transformation in 2025?
A children’s home can become a rehabilitation and palliative care center, a mother and child center, a day care center for children with disabilities, a rehabilitation center or a center providing various social services. The main thing is that the transformed children’s home retains a capable team of specialists, receives the necessary resources and personnel support from the owner and works for the benefit of children and families in its community.
It is important to note that the transformation of children’s homes does not entail eliminating medical and social beds for children deprived of parental care. Such beds may remain in the transformed orphanages, alongside new beds for providing inpatient services to children from families in their communities. When transforming a children’s home, local and central government officials must clearly understand the ultimate goal of their actions: the need to create new services for children who have parents and families in their communities; to expand and develop alternative forms of care in each region; and to maintain an appropriate number of medical and social beds in each region during the transition period. But not as many as we have now.
More than 90 percent of children in Ukraine’s boarding school system are currently outside its walls. After the start of the full-scale war, conscientious Ukrainian citizens adopted or took in children from orphanages. Most of the family-type children’s homes were evacuated to the west of our country or abroad, where they courageously continue to care for children.
Unfortunately, social orphanhood will continue to exist in our country. Therefore, after the end of the intense phase of the war, when some of the children return to Ukraine, it is very important that they are not returned to orphanages but are transferred to family-type children’s homes, foster families, guardianship and other alternative forms of care.
To address this issue, the Cabinet of Ministers established the Coordination Center for the Development of Family Upbringing and Child Care, which, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Health and the State Service of Ukraine for Children, implements the state strategy for reforming the boarding school system, creating various services in communities and improving the protection of children’s rights in Ukraine.
I was delighted to join the team of this Coordination Center as an expert on the transformation of children’s homes. The Hippocrates Regional Clinical Center for Medical Rehabilitation and Palliative Care for Children, based in Kharkiv, was previously a children’s home and underwent a transformation 15 years ago. Our team has provided recommendations to local authorities on the transformation of children’s homes. We are ready to assist our colleagues from children’s homes and local authorities who will be implementing the transformation in their regions.