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From Hell to Heaven: How Orphan Care Evolves

Level 2: Purgatory

More of this Feature • Level 1: Hell • Level 2: Purgatory • Level 3: Limbo • Level 4: Heaven's Gate • Level 5: Heaven • More from this Author

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The 5 Levels of Orphan Care 1. The Streets: Orphans living and dying in the streets, a few orphanages run by religious and non-profit groups 2. Orphanages: State-run and church-run orphanages, usually overcrowded and understaffed 3. Foster Care, Few Adoptions: State-run foster care homes and institutions, adoption is not supported or particularly encouraged by the government 4. Subsidized Adoptions: Adequately funded foster care, financially subsidized special needs adoption, government actively encourages adoption of all waiting children 5. Child-Centric Society: Very few waiting and foster children, adoption accepted, supported at all levels, and viewed as an equally valid way to build a family, all adults feel responsibility toward all kids. -R.L.

One step up from hell is purgatory where the conditions are almost as severe but survival rates are better. The dictionary defines purgatory as a temporary place of suffering. Katrina is in purgatory somewhere in the former USSR. The youngest of three children, she was born with asthma and her parents could not afford the medicine she needed to live. They also could not afford to feed her. So they took her to a local overcrowded state-run orphanage.

Katrina has a roof over her head, a bed to sleep on, and she gets one, sometimes two meals a day. When she is ill, there might be some medicine to open her lungs, but medicine comes in sporadically. Katrina has a better chance of survival here than she would if she were living on the streets, but many children still die. Inadequate nutrition makes them more susceptible to diseases and infections. Lack of parental affection and lack of education spells disaster for their emotional and mental development.

If Katrina is very fortunate, her parents' financial situation will improve and they will come back for her. Or she might eventually be transferred to a religiously affiliated orphanage in the next town. The children there get better food and more of it. A few babies might be adopted by Westerners. But for now, Katrina waits and hopes and cries.

Purgatory is a society's first organized and tax-supported response to the problem of orphans. Orphanages are a beginning, but far from optimal. In the last 50 years, there has been an explosion of research on child development. We know for a fact that children grow best in families, and orphanages can never replace families.

Next page > Level 3: Limbo > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

© 2002 Rita Laws, Ph.D.

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