Foster Care Reform and Social Partnership in Nizhny Novgorod Region

Abstract

Jouko Nikula – PhD, Senior Researcher, Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: jounikul@gmail.com

Nina Ivashinenko – Doktor Nauk in Economics, Professor, Head of Economic Sociology Department, Lobachevsky State University of N. Novgorod, Head of UNN-ISESP RAS Laboratory. Russian Federation. Email: nni@fsn.unn.ru

This article discusses on-going foster care reform in Russia and analyses possibilities for the evolution of partnerships between stakeholders. The role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the realisation of programmes related to child welfare reform is considered, revealing that social partnership is a form of collaborative action. In other words, drawing on the work of Sandra Waddock, social partnership involves interactions performed by various actors to achieve common goals. The main characteristics of social partnerships are that they are specialised, voluntary and collaborative, and their main goal is to try to solve a common problem. However, not all cooperation between public authorities, NGOs and business is a partnership; in fact a successful partnership is characterised by a variety of features. These include mutual trust, complementary strengths, reciprocal accountability, joint decision-making, clearly articulated goals, equitable distribution of costs and benefits, performance indicators, as well as mechanisms to measure and monitor performance and a clear delineation of responsibilities. The role of non-state actors is increasing in welfare and other social services due to adverse demographic trends and the diminishing economic base available to the state for delivering social services. The state’s efforts to dismantle the former state-centred system of welfare has also resulted in the outsourcing of welfare responsibilities and services in child welfare to non-state actors. Alongside their growing role, many new questions have been raised about the quality of the NGOs’ activities and their skills. Therefore, the expansion of NGOs’ social functions potentially generates both opportunities and risks in the transformation of child welfare. Even if there are some green shoots of partnership between the public authorities and NGOs in this field, their relationship is not reciprocal. We argue that Russian NGOs need to improve their social status and the quality of their work to allow them to have their own voice when negotiating their relationship with different state actors.