INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
Each intervention includes extensive training and follow-up supervision of Russian professionals by Russian and Western experts.  These experts simultaneously work with administrators and government officials to incorporate the improved services into the local healthcare and social welfare systems.

• Training for healthcare professionals to prevent abandonment of children with disabilities
  This intensive three-year program was first piloted in Vladivostok by Firefly and the University of New Mexico, and is currently being replicated in Kazan.
• Training for social workers and psychologists to prevent abandonment of newborns at maternity hospitals
  This program was developed by Firefly’s Russian consultants.  It was successfully piloted and is in its third year of implementation in Leningrad region by a local NGO. Similar programs exist in Ekaterinburg and the Russian Far East.
• “Mellow Parenting” training for social workers and psychologists to prevent abandonment of infants and young children
  This U.K. program was piloted in St. Petersburg and Velikiy Novgorod as part of a joint project between Healthprom (U.K.) and Russian professionals. It is currently being implemented in both cities.  It is particularly successful in teaching parenting skills to young mothers who were raised in orphanages.
• Training for professionals working with families and children to convert existing orphanages into family support centers
  These centers will support foster families, as well as birth families at risk of giving up their children to the state.  Preliminary studies of the effectiveness of these techniques in Russia have already been conducted by Firefly's Russian consultants.
• Training for social workers to recruit, prepare, and support foster and adoptive Russian families
  This program was developed by the Institute for Human Services (U.S.A.), which has shaped child welfare policies and practices throughout most of the U.S.A. and Canada.  It has been successfully piloted in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan.
• Training for orphanage staff
  These programs were also developed by the Institute for Human Services.  They teach staff how to conduct life-skills training classes for older teenagers who will soon age out of the orphanages.  They also provide residential care training to administrators and direct care staff in orphanages to improve their care of children, and to promote children's healthy social and emotional development. These programs are being implemented throughout Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.