Features of the functioning of a microsocial system "foster home for orphans and abandoned children"

In the research, the foster home for orphans and abandoned children is considered as a microsocial system, as a small in number microsocial group whose members are united by a common activity, specific emotional family relations and values, are in a direct regular dialogue with each other realizing their roles. The foster home as a microsocial system consists of the subsystem of a married couple (husband - wife), the subsystem of parents (parent - child) and the subsystem of children (brother - sister). All relations between the subsystems and inside of them develop according to the principles of hierarchy and subordination and are regulated by borders. Its functioning, according to D. Olson, is determined by two key parameters: family unity and family adaptation and an additional one: communication. Matrimonial relations are characterized by emotional autonomy and distance, inability to build precise borders and make a decision, difficulties in the organization of leisure and free time, in dialogue with friends. Foster homes in a greater degree supervise discipline and the whole situation connected with the appearance of an adopted child in the family; they are concentrated on distribution of family roles and realization of family rules and norms. In this connection, such families are a target for correctional work as family adaptation and family unity are the basis of functioning of the whole system. Features of child and parent relations are shown in the interest of parents in the affairs and plans of the children, in aspiration to help them and satisfy all their needs, to protect them from difficulties and troubles of life, in high estimation of their intellectual and creative abilities, in encouragement of the initiative and independence, in an insignificant distance in dialogue with them. Specificity of the role positions of foster parents consists in the primary domination in the family of foster mothers, in their propensity to self-sacrifice and depend on the family. Thus, the hypothesis about realization of features of the functioning of a microsocial system "foster home for orphans and abandoned children" in the specificity of family adaptation and family unity, family relations (matrimonial, child and parent) and family roles, in the specificity of its structural organization, has empirically proved to be true. And the received results have defined the strategy of influence, namely, correction of features of child and parent relations and roles of foster parents, optimization of their family unity and family adaptation, through realization of socio-cultural activities common for foster parents and children, and were the basis in the development of the program of social-psychological support of a microsocial system.

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