Family vs the State in the System of Social Protection of Children

As the object of our study, we have chosen present-day Russian families, living and functioning in a provincial urban environment and bearing the marks of social deprivation or at risk of suffering from it. The aim was to assess the intra-family practices through which children are provided with social protection in situations of social deprivation, or when there is a risk of deprivation. As the hypothesis of our research, we put forward the proposition that the intra-family social protection practices adopted in Russia include some that are traumatic for children. The research is based on three blocs of data: 1. focused interviews with teachers in urban schools and with social workers; 2. individual and group interviews with members of families that are at risk or that display various signs of social deprivation; 3. inclusive structured observations of the work of social work specialists in social institutions in the city of Penza (Russia). Our study leads us to conclude that families can do a great deal to raise the level of child social protection, but if intra-family practices of child social protection are of a traumatic nature, they become factors of child social deprivation, and must be taken into account in the course of interactions with the children concerned.