Victor Groza, Ph. D.
Grace F. Brody Professor of Parent-Child
Studies
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH, USA
 Fill
basic and psychosocial needs of children
for their wholesome growth & development.
 Enable children to develop skills to be selfreliant.
 Staff
do the best job they can
 This is not about what staff are doing wrong,
but what can be done better to help children
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 Too
many children for too few caregivers
 Staff do the best that they can given the
situation; it is not about the staff but what is
best for the children
 Babies need more than food, clothing and
shelter; they need to be held when food,
comforted when they cry, talked to when
they are awake, and to attach to at least one
caregiver
During the first three years of life,
brain development occurs which is
crucial to focusing attention and
cognitive skills that are crucial for
planning, problem solving, critical
thinking and good judgment.
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 Changes
in the brain
 Immunization failure
 Developmental problems

Institutionalized children experience 1 month
of mixed developmental delay for every 3-4
months of institutionalization.
 Attachment
problems
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Survivor Behavior—Indiscriminate friendliness
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1.
2.
3.
Mixed age groups in each room
One consistent staff for each room
A daily program of activities
 Replicates
family life
 Gives older children opportunity to observe
an adult caring for a younger child
 Allows older children to participate in care
giving
 Keeps siblings in the same location
 Different type of stress on care givers
 Allows
care giver to know children
 Allows children to know caregiver
 Promotes attachment
 Children
need structure every day during
waking hours, including weekends
 Should be posted for all to see
 Should include children in choosing afterschool and weekend activities
 Allows volunteers to participate in the life of
children beyond basic caregiving
 Children
showed improvements in physical
growth, cognition, language, motor,
personal-social, and affect, with children
having severe disabilities improving the
most.
 Ongoing
training of caregivers to promote
warm, responsive care giving.
 Caregivers needs to be more emotionally
available for children.
 Aim for each child having an early
experience of ongoing interaction with
his/her own close and emotionally available
adult.
 Reactions
to information
 What would be the barriers to implementing
the changes?
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Groark, C. J., Muhamedrahimov, R. J., Palmov, O. I.,
Nikiforova, N. V., & McCall, R. B. (2005).
Improvement in early care in Russian orphanages and
their relationship to observed behaviors. Infant
Mental Health Journal, 26(2), 96-109.
Muhamedrahimov, R. J., Palmov, O. I., Nikiforova, N.
V., Groark, C. J., & McCall, R. B. (2005). Changing
social environment for young children living in Baby
Homes. In V. M. Behterey (Ed.), Contemporary
Psychology, Conference Abstracts (in Russian), (pp.
251-255). Kazan: Centre of Innovative Technologies,
Kazan State University.
The St. Petersburg-USA Orphanage Research Team
(2008). The effects of early social-emotionalrelationship experience on the development of young
orphanage children. Monographs of the Society for
Research in Child Development, 73, Serial No. 291(3).