On December 26, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. The unified concept of child support is designed to encourage society to create foster families. This opinion was expressed to a BELTA correspondent by Ivan Shchurok, Head of the Education Department of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, commenting on the topic of supporting families with children and the problem of demographic security, raised by the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on December 23 at a press conference for representatives of Belarusian and foreign mass media. According to Ivan Shchurok, significant work has been done in Belarus over the past years to support foster families. The main achievement of these efforts has been an increase in the number of guardianship and foster families. For example, in the Vitebsk region, about a thousand such families have been created, and they raise more than 60% of orphans and children left without parental care living in the region. The rest are in boarding institutions. "The state is making every effort to move away from this form of upbringing and find adoptive parents for every child, and opportunities and resources are being found for the moral and material support of such people," emphasized the head of the regional executive committee department. One of the priority areas in this activity is the creation of family-type children's homes. Since 2006, under the presidential program "Children of Belarus," 15 houses have been built in the Vitebsk region for families raising orphans in the Vitebsk, Verkhnedvinsk, Miory, Glubokskoye, Dokshitsy, Orsha, Lepel districts, Orsha and Gorodok. More than 110 children have found their families in them. In January, two more houses will open in Shumilino and Chashniki. The task for 2012 is to build similar houses in Ushachi and the Braslav district. "Belarus pursues a socially oriented policy, so children's issues will always be in the spotlight," concluded Ivan Shchurok. -0-

BELTA