News

On October 5, 2007, the MONAR Association in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Welfare of the Moscow Region and the Administration of Egorievsk Region, organized official opening and presentation of the first in Russia PUBLIC REHABILITATION CENTRE FOR ADOLESCENTS WITH PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE ABUSE. About 50 persons took part in the seminar aimed at presentation and discussion of the program. Among them were social workers of local family counselling centres who witness growing tendency of drug and alcohol abuse among adolescents, street workers who help homeless children in Moscow, doctors as well as pedagogues and psychologists who took part in training and exchange events organized earlier by MONAR. The seminar was attended also by the Head of the Federal Agency for Drug Control in the Moscow Region E. Shevchenko, Deputy Minister of Social Welfare of the Moscow Region E. Kholostova, Deputy Head of Municipality of Egorievsk Region T. Nikolaeva, and Aleksey Kolodinsky, representative of IKEA which gave to the centre necessary furniture. Marek Gołkowski and Dariusz Cybul from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland also attended the event and confirmed international dimension of the project. The new rehabilitation centre was visited also by the General Director for Russia of the Polish Company “Bella”. Local newspapers and television widely described the event.

The seminar-presentation of the Rehabilitation Program for Adolescents with Problematic Substance Abuse in Egorievsk is scheduled for October 5, 2007. Venue: Centre «Chayka» Egorievsky region, village Sergievski

On September 7th, 2007, the rehabilitation program for adolescents started to operate within the structure of the Egorievsk Centre “Chayka”. The initiative group of 4 therapists from MONAR is working in the program. Currently, admission of the new clients is held.
The following main admission criteria have been agreed upon: age 14 to 18 years old, no abstinence syndrome (in case of addiction of alcohol, heroin and other, preliminary detoxification is needed), no acute psychiatric disease. Responsible for admission are Valery Romaniuk, Director of “Chayka” (tel.                       8 240 37887          ), and Sergey Naboykin, Therapist (tel. 8 962 964 29 20)

On July 29 in Rehabilitation Centre MONAR in Gdańsk Matarnia employees of “Chayka” Centre in Egorievsk met with MONAR team which conducts therapeutic communities in Gdansk and Lodz. The meeting was aimed at agreeing on the details of the rehabilitation program to be implemented in Egorievsk for adolescents who abuse psychoactive substances.
This year by a decision by the Ministry of Social Welfare of the Moscow Region a rehabilitation department for adolescents was established in Centre “Chayka” in Egorievsk. The centre will start functioning in early September when a group of MONAR therapists arrives to stay and help the Russian colleagues till the end of this year.
We were working on opening this centre since the year 2006, however due to prolonged formalities necessary to fulfill to make a building available and a state co-financing provided only now we can talk about the location and timing of the initiative. Apart from formal issues we have managed to train staff to work in Egorievsk and to prepare and refer wards to the rehabilitation program from the whole Moscow Region.

Due to the prolonged procedure related to obtaining the building for the rehabilitation centre in Dmitrov, the Project Steering Committee based on the proposal by the Ministry of Social Welfare of the Moscow region, made a decision to change location of the core rehabilitation from Dmitrov to Egorievsk. A complex of two buildings together with the park territory was made available for the project purposes in "Chayka", former pioneer camp in Moscow Region.

Today IKEA Teply Stan delivered to Monar furniture to equip rehabilitation centre. The total cost of furniture is 365 089 rubles.

December 14, 2006

On Sunday Dece mber 17, six psychologists and social workers from the town of Dmitrov in Russia will arrive to Poland to take part in 80 hours of training carried out by Monar. The focus of the training is therapy for adolescents with drug problems, and the training will take place at Monar's therapeutic communities in Gdansk and Lodz.

In June, July and October this year a total of 85 Russian psychologists and social workers went through 72 hours of training with the same focus. In October they passed an exam, and the 31 best qualified continue with further 80 hours of training. So far 12 have taken part in this training, and before New Year this number will be 18. When all 31 have been through these 80 hours of training, the best qualified will be chosen to form the therapeutic team in the new therapeutic community in Dmitrov.

December 14, 2006

The English version of the website connected to the pilot project Grow Up Like Others has been released today. The webdesigner – Rojalstudio by Wojciech Rojek – is still making small technical adjustments, and the Polish and Russian version of the site will be ready before Christmas.

The project Grow Up Like Others is based on a belief that the children who scrape out existence in the streets in Russia are not lost for good. Like all other human beings they have potential, and they deserve a normal childhood and a dignified life. The idea of the website is both to describe the problem and - based on long experience from Poland – to show a way to help these children. It is the hope that the website will be useful for as well those without any special knowledge of the problem as those already working with social exclusion and drug addiction among children and young people in Russia.