Severstal's "The Way Home" Charitable Foundation was founded on 18 February 2005 in Cherepovets, Vologda Region, by Chief Executive Alexey Mordashov.
Amongst a number of activities, one of the Foundation's primary focuses is its work to prevent child neglect and abandonment. Over the last decade the Foundation has ensured that more than 500 newborns have remained with their birth families thanks to the efforts of a group of specialists including psychologists, lawyers, social and health workers, employed by the Foundation.
The Foundation has also invested in a "charity ambulance" and a round the clock helpline to give medical attention and support to children who need it urgently. Since 2008, the Foundation has come to the rescue of four and a half thousand children in cases where their health and lives have been at serious risk. Every year the helpline operators provide psychological support to more than 4,000 callers. The Emergency Help Service is one of "The Way Home" Charitable Foundation's largest scale projects. Human suffering does not sleep and so specialists are on hand to provide the service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Preventing family instability and child displacement is another important focus of the Foundation, which since 2013 has ensured that 800 children at risk have remained with their birth parents.
The Foundation also runs projects that offer people free legal advice over the phone, as well as accesses to a council of heads of agencies and departments, and the Children's Ombudsman of the Vologda Region government. Through these initiatives, the Foundation is working to protect the rights and legal interests of 4,559 children and adolescents.
The "Teenager" Foundation's specialist service for adolescents is working to change lives for troubled young people, using new techniques to help give then a new start. Specialists has so far provided essential support to two and a half thousand teenagers in their "risk groups" as well as those within their close environment. This important work has ensured that 123 teenagers who have committed crimes have admitted responsibility for their actions and have not been exposed to criminal punishment.
Most people who come to the Emergency Help Service need counseling. They have difficult parent-child relations, issues at preschool and school, difficult family relationships, exposure to violence and cruelty – all of these problems require specialist psychological support. For this reason, the Foundation has created a separate specialized department, the family counseling and family therapy Service.
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Maria Solovieva is one of the specialist psychologists in the department:
"When the supervisor passes me a request from a patient, I try to make sure I speak to the person on the same day and arrange a meeting". "Often people just need emotional support — they need to talk and feel that they are being listened to and understood."
"The Way Home" Charitable Foundation has now been active In Cherepovets for over 10 years, working with government institutions dealing with social responsibility, all of which are part of the system for the prevention of neglect and criminal behaviour. Over this period, administrative offences amongst juveniles have reduced three and a half times. The number of children registered annually as having been left without parental care has decreased by 60 percent. The number of children left without parental care in Cherepovets has decreased by more than half compared with 2005, the number of infants abandoned has decreased three times and more than half of potential abandonments at birth are being intercepted and prevented ?€“ i.e., with the mothers leaving the hospital with their baby. Thanks to the early prevention of family crises, the number of children left in positions of social instability has reduced more than three times.