A heart like yours: how to build relationships in boarding schools
Love stories, especially happy ones, between the wards of the stumps are rare. At the same time, their inhabitants also need a loved one, just like the rest, experts point out. On Valentine's Day, the NGO "Service for the Protection of Rights", which works in neuropsychiatric boarding schools in the Nizhny Novgorod region, released a film about how a couple who have been living in a closed institution for 11 years and dream of entering their own independent family life is building a relationship. So far, their story is rather a unique example. How families appear in closed institutions and why it is so rare — in the Izvestia article.
How a married couple lives in stumps
The film "To be together", which was released by the ANO "Service for the Protection of Rights", tells about the residents of Avtozavodsky PSNI — Lyudmila and Leonid.
Lyudmila and Leonid have been together for 11 years. Recently, they had the opportunity to build a joint life in their separate boarding school room. This is rare in Russia: in PNIs, as a rule, men and women live in different departments and meet only in the corridors or the dining room. This was also the case at Avtozavodsky PSNI before the change of leadership.
Andrey Panurov, the director of the boarding school, has been working for about two years. And when Leonid and Lyudmila came to him and asked if they could live together, he replied in the affirmative.
Now Lyudmila is officially employed at the boarding school itself, and Leonid works outside it, at Auchan (he is capable, Lyudmila does not have such a status yet). They can share a room in a boarding school, but they dream of a separate apartment, especially since they own the property.
The lovers themselves, the Rights Protection Service, and the boarding school are already working on this: they are planning to leave the institution as part of an escorted stay. The couple has yet to learn how to live independently. But, the "Rights Protection Service" explained to Izvestia, first Lyudmila needs to restore her legal capacity. For the same reason, their relationship has not yet been registered, but it is already a family. The film shows their life for two days: a weekday one and a holiday one, when Leonid prepares a birthday surprise for Lyudmila.
Now the service and the boarding school have already started the process of regaining legal capacity. Lyudmila will have to master all the necessary household skills and undergo an examination.
Is it possible to start a family in PNR
Marina Bykova, director of the Life Path Foundation, explained to Izvestia that people deprived of legal capacity cannot marry even with the consent of a guardian — this is prescribed in art. 14 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation.
— In order to get married officially, it is necessary to achieve the restoration of at least limited legal capacity. Unfortunately, this is true both for residents of the village and for those who live at home, — said the interlocutor of Izvestia.
According to Elena Zablockis, a lawyer at the Center for Therapeutic Pedagogy, this is due to the fact that marriage also has legal consequences: the regime of joint ownership of spouses, inheritance, etc.
— But this does not negate a person's right to privacy and to enter into a personal relationship. This is not prohibited or restricted by any regulations. Another thing is that it is difficult to talk about the realization of this right when it comes to an incapacitated person. Because the main concern is that a person's condition will be abused, and the guardian's duties include taking care of the well-being of the ward. The life of an incapacitated person is limited by the opinion of the guardian, and in social service homes the duties of the guardian are performed by the house itself, — said the interlocutor of Izvestia.
Ekaterina Kantinova, director of the ANO Service for the Protection of Rights, explained to Izvestia that 75% of residents in the Nizhny Novgorod region are deprived of legal capacity in whole or in part — this situation is observed in many regions of the country.
— The only difference is that people with legal capacity and people with limited legal capacity can officially marry, but those who are completely incapacitated cannot. But even the absence of a registered relationship cannot be an obstacle to living together," she noted.
According to her, if boarding schools have the opportunity to accommodate a couple in one room and both residents want it, and the management supports them, then there are no obstacles from the legal side. The order of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation dated 11/24/2014 No. 935n states that the institution must provide rooms for cohabitation to families who have legalized the relationship. However, there is no ban on couples who meet "without a stamp".
But even able-bodied people in the PSNI find it difficult to achieve the right to a full-fledged life together, says Marina Bykova. People in boarding schools often fall in love and form couples, but they have to live on different floors, and sometimes in other buildings, because in some colleges men's and women's departments are located in different buildings. Meetings are held only in common areas or outdoors.
— It's good if a couple has the right to leave the floor or go outside, but sometimes they don't have that either. Unfortunately, the rule here is the lack of opportunities for love, and such happy stories [as Leonid and Lyudmila's] are still rare and an exception. Although the need for people in boarding schools to find their own person, to fall in love, to feel warmth is huge," Marina Bykova emphasized.
Can residents of STUMPS have a baby
The situation becomes even more complicated if a woman in a couple becomes pregnant: it is very difficult, if not impossible, to leave a child in a boarding school. In the vast majority of PSAs, the life of a mother with a child is not provided for.
Elena Zablotskis explained that there is no direct restriction on the personal upbringing of her child as legally incompetent, but the question of whether such a parent is able to personally take care of the child is being considered by the guardianship and guardianship authorities — they can restrict parental rights in court. Usually in such cases, either the second parent takes care of the child, or relatives arrange custody.
"And in inpatient social service organizations, if an incapacitated—or even capable— resident gives birth, then the child is separated from her and placed in an organization for children," she told Izvestia. — This is explained by the fact that in boarding schools for adults it is not possible to create conditions for the upbringing of a child.
The way out in this situation may be the development of assisted living, when the family leaves the boarding school and lives in a training apartment under the supervision of social workers, psychologists and other specialists. To participate in such a project, people must be at least partially capable, says Ekaterina Kantinova.
However, such stories happen.
One of them, for example, was described in March 2021 in the magazine "Family and Children": a married couple managed to get out of a STUMP in the Leningrad region, and the three of them — with a newborn daughter.
Both were childhood invalids. Despite her legal capacity, the wife lived in boarding schools all her life, and her husband — from the age of 18. In stumps, they met and fell in love with each other. With the permission of the head doctor, they tied the knot and began to live in a separate boarding school room. Doctors believed that Tatiana could not have children for health reasons, but this was not the case, and when the pregnancy was discovered, it was no longer possible to have an abortion.
When Tatiana gave birth, the question arose what to do, because babies are not provided in the stumps. But it was also impossible to take him away — both parents are capable. Then the children were helped by the NGO Partnership for Every Child, which placed parents and their child in an escorted stay in a so—called professional family, a form of family arrangement for orphaned children. A few years later, the couple went to live in their own separate apartment — and by that time they already had two daughters and a normal family life.
How does the management of the PSNI relate to the relationship
Elena Zablotskis noted that, in general, there are heated discussions about the problem of relationships in boarding schools.
— Where is the line of interference in a person's life, who makes the decision and how? We see individual examples of successful personal relationships between people who are recognized as legally incompetent: both one of the couple and both," she noted. — And among the incompetent, there are people who were married for a long time before being recognized as incompetent and often continue to be married after being recognized as incompetent — no one goes to end the marriage en masse, although there are risks too.
She emphasizes that an incapacitated person also "feels and desires love and relationships." The easiest way to solve potential problems is to suppress feelings and desires, and this happens more often than situations where married couples in a stationary social service organization are allocated an isolated room for living together, although this is provided for by law.
Alexander Gaganov, a lawyer for the Region of Care project of the Popular Front, noted that now the birth of a child in the PSNI is a single practice.
— And this suggests certain thoughts. It is logical to assume that the number of children born in the PSNI should be about the same as the average in a similar population, but this is not happening, — said the interlocutor of Izvestia.
According to him, the main burden here falls on women: for example, they are forced to install intrauterine devices — this is the simplest and relatively reliable method of contraception for boarding schools. And when pregnancy is detected, women are being persuaded to have abortions by hook or by crook.
However, at least in the Nizhny Novgorod region, PSNI leaders are increasingly moving away from old decisions, setting a new vector of orientation for a person and his needs, says Ekaterina Kantinova.
— If the directors and staff understand that both residents want to live together, everything happens by voluntary agreement, it is possible to place them in the same room — the management helps them to fulfill this desire. It is very important for residents to have their own space, internal support," she said.
"We are people too"
In the film "We are Together," Leonid and Lyudmila were asked what they could say to people outside the boarding school.
The lovers were unanimous:
"So that they don't look at us askance. That we're not that bad. We're human too, even if we live in a boarding school. We have the same heart as you."
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
