ПФ 1-й курс

Not enough adoption placements are being found for children (The number of children waiting to be placed with families has risen as adopters appear not to be getting adequate support) Gretta Schifano The Guardian, Tuesday 9 October 2012 15.30 BST

I) The government's overhaul (полный пересмотр) of the adoption system is designed to speed up the approval process and make it easier for people to adopt. But the latest Department for Education statistics for England reveal that the number of children waiting to be adopted has increased by around 15% since last year.

II) In March 2011, there were 6,240 children with placement orders, a year later there were 7,160. A placement order is granted when a local authority plans for a child to be adopted. At the same time, the number of children placed with adopters has decreased by 1% since 2011 – and 6% since 2008. This suggests that while more placement orders are being made, not enough adoption placements are being found.

III) John Simmonds, policy director for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (Baaf), says the number of children with placement orders is a concern: "I don't think we have a sufficient number of adopters being recruited at the moment. For some children there's a prospect that they won't get placed at all."

IV) If progress is to be made, he believes it is crucial that adopters know they'll get the necessary support once their child is with them, particularly in the case of harder-to-place children such as sibling groups, older children and those with disabilities. "There needs to be a recognition that, for any adopter, this is a challenging thing that people are taking on."

V) The support provided to adopters by local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies varies. Julie and Mark had a six-year-old boy placed with them for adoption last year. Julie says that, despite their local authority's promise of support, appropriate help and information ceased when it looked as though the adoption could go ahead and they began asking questions and requesting support. The placement broke down and their child returned to foster care (патронирование).

VI) Julie says: "I did not want to lose our boy. He was my son whom I had begun to bond with, loved and had envisaged being part of our lives for ever." She believes their son could still be with them had they been supported adequately.

VII) By contrast, Rose adopted her son through Adoptionplus, an agency that provides specialist therapeutic support for all of its adoptive families. She says: "We felt very well prepared for our little boy to be with us." Rose says support is available whenever they need it. "Although we've got set therapy sessions, we know that if we don't need to access them we don't have to. The great thing is that we could not see them for months and months, or years, and then ring them up in six years' time and say this is starting to be an issue, and then they can help us out with that. That's just great to know."

VII) Currently, 72% of adopted children were neglected, abused or both by their birth families. Alan Burnell, director of adoption agency Family Futures, says many children they see are scared and need help to adjust. "Even though they're in safe, new environments, they need help to rewire their brain so that they can accept the love and the care that they're getting in adoptive families," he says.

VIII) Local authorities are obliged to assess adopters' support needs, if requested, but not to provide any specific services identified by those assessments. "The key to adoption success is in the post placement support and therapeutic input," says Burnell. Family Futures has been placing children for adoption since 2009 and offers support from a team of therapists, paediatricians, teachers, psychologists and social workers. "All the families that come to us have access to that whole multidisciplinary team, who can provide whatever help they need over a long period of time," he adds.

IX) Joanne Alper, director of Adoptionplus, used to manage a local authority adoption team. "It used to break my heart to see the same children coming back into care again and again, following breakdown after breakdown of fostering and adoptive placements," she says. "The local authority used to respond to these children from very much a crisis intervention perspective."

X) Alper is part of the team that set up Adoptionplus to support children's long-term needs. The agency started placing children for adoption in 2011, and employs a support team of specialists.

XI) Diane Cecil manages a team at Essex county council whose job is to find families for children who are hard to place. "We have placed many children outside of Essex," she says. "There have been some voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities that have provided good post-adoption services, and there have been some that haven't provided anything at all."

XII) Cecil's team recently placed a child with an Adoptionplus family after his first adoption broke down and it was clear he would need ongoing support. "I feel confident … this little boy and these adoptive parents are being provided with a very good support service," she says. Although the cost of this type of placement is high (Adoptionplus charges local authorities £65,000 for placement and support), she adds that the alternative for the child would have been long-term foster care, costing the council around £27,000 per year. "For us, I felt that was a really good investment." • Some names have been changed

• True/False statements

1. The government's examination of the adoption system is hindering the adoption procedure. (T/F) 2. The number of children waiting to be adopted has decreased by around 15% this year.(T/F) 3. It is easy to find adopters. (T/F) 4. Any adopter needs support either from local authorities or voluntary adoption agencies (T/F) 5. Julie and Mark’s placement broke after they have been refused their local authorities’ support. (T/F) 6. Adoptionplus is an agency that provides specialist therapeutic support for all of its adoptive families.(T/F) 7. Many adopted children need help to rewire their brain so that they can accept the love and the care that they're getting in adoptive families. (T/F) 8. Adoption agency Family Futures offers the adoptive families support from a team of therapists, paediatricians, teachers, psychologists and social workers.(T/F) 9. Placement and support is less expensive than long-time foster care.

• Find in the text and translate the sentences with the infinitive.

• Answer the questions:

1).What categories of children belong to harder-to-place children group?

2).Why is it necessary to provide support both for the future parents and for the children.3) What bodies help adopting families? How?

4)What is the cost of a good support service?

5)What is the cost of long-term foster care?

ПФ 1-й курс

Now is the moment to get children playing outdoors again

The recession presents us with a big chance to realise a universal desire – to reconnect children with nature

Для ФСУ 2-й курс

A quiet revolution has begun. Its aim is simple – to get our children outside and closer to nature. In March, the National Trust released a report called Natural Childhood. It highlighted the growing and concerning gap between children and nature. Less than 1 in 10 children regularly play in wild spaces now, compared to half a generation ago. This matters, the report argued, because nature is good for mind, body and soul.

There are many good things about the rapid changes that have formed the modern world. An unintended but serious consequence is an equally rapid decline in the freedom our children have to explore and experience nature.

This week, the National Trust hosted a conference with professionals from the worlds of education, health, childcare, planning, conservation and play among many others. Attending were representatives from the public, private and voluntary sectors. Our task: to find solutions that will reconnect our children with the outdoors and nature.

A growing and credible (достоверный; убедительный) body of evidence shows this disconnection is real and it matters. Natural England has calculated that equitable (отвечающий интересам той и другой стороны) access to green space would create an estimated saving to the health service of £2.1bn a year. There are many organisations working on the issue, some with decades of experience.

But we recognise that there is a bigger challenge. Much of this work is great but at too small a scale. Activity is fragmented, and the statistics show things are getting worse: for example the area a child is able to roam unsupervised has shrunk by an astonishing 90% in just one generation – ours. Yet there is almost a universal desire to get our children outdoors again, playing naturally and enjoying the benefits that contact with the natural world can bring.

We are, I believe, at a tipping point (переломный момент). Materialism has taken a knock (потерпеть неудачу) in the recession and people are turning to simpler pleasures. There is an opportunity, if we can grab it, to show how lives are enriched by children running free. But if we don't seize the moment, we risk bringing up a generation of children that won't have even the memories of playing in nature when it comes to bringing up their own children.

There were three big messages that I took away from our conference. The first is that a society-wide problem needs a society-wide solution. No one organisation, or even one sector, can alone reconnect children with nature. Education policy, urban design, health provision, insurance provision, retailers, naturalists and more all have their part to play, working together. We need the right public policies, but no less important is the creativity and resources of the private sector. A shared commitment to solving a shared problem.

Second is the importance of the quality and quantity of places children can play. How do we bring and nurture nature where children are: at school, at home? And how do we improve access for all children to good quality green space in the public realm? It is a simple fact that children closer to green space are much more likely to play outdoors. Improving access to green space is partly a matter of town and country planning. But it is no less a state of mind and attitude – window boxes, gardens and local parks can become wild places if that's how we choose to see them.

Third is the realisation that this is nothing less than a nationwide culture change. We as parents – and as the mother of three daughters, I include myself in this – have ourselves been part of the process of disconnection. Children roam less and have less contact with nature because we, as parents, make that choice. Often we are concerned for their safety: sometimes this is valid; but often those concerns are overstated.

Parents need help to make choices about where and how our children play. Catching tadpoles(головастик), flying kites, building dens (пещера) and climbing trees should be staples (главный элемент) of every childhood; things have come to a head when there's a market for plastic nature trail sets. (маршруты, знакомящие туристов с достопримечательностями природы)

There's a risk we sound too worthy (достопочтенный) and preachy: but what we are really talking about is freedom, joy, vitality. Our children come alive in the outdoors in a way they just don't when playing computer games. We owe it to them to do all we can to give them the experiences we treasured so much.

by Dame Fiona Reynolds is the director general of the National Trust

ИНФИНИТИВ В СОСТАВНОМ ИМЕННОМ СКАЗУЕМОМ:

Встречается после подлежащего, выраженного словами:

Цель-aim, object// Задача - purpose, task// Назначение-mission// Способ-way// Метод-method// Долг-duty// План-plan// Желание-wish, desire// Намерение-intention// Трудность-difficulty// Проблема, задача-problem// практика-practice/

To be- является глаголом связкой в составном-именном сказуемом и переводится «состоит в том, чтобы», «заключается в том. чтобы».

Translate the following sentences into English:

1. Наша задача заключается в том, чтобы вернуть детей в природу.

2. Цель участников конференции состоит в том, чтобы найти для этого правильное решение.

3. Наше желание состоит в том, чтобы расширить масштабы проводимой работы.

4. Желание многих заключается в том, чтобы дети получали положительные результаты от общения с природой.

5. Наш план заключается в том, чтобы облегчить детям и родителям доступ в экологически чистые природные зоны.

6, Проблема заключается в том, что площади, приемлемые для общения с природой, уменьшилась на 90 %.

7. Наш долг состоит в том, чтобы улучшить и благоустроить площадки для детских игр.

8.Задача родителей состоит в том, чтобы не преувеличивать опасность, с которой дети могут встретиться в природе.

9. Долг специалистов состоит в том, чтобы помочь родителям выбрать места, где дети могут знакомиться с природой.

10. Наше желание состоит в том, чтобы от общения с природой дети становились свободнее, жизнерадостнее, здоровее

• READ THE TEXT

Child safety: what's the best way to warn about the risks?

(Over-emphasising the risks of 'stranger danger' does not give children the full picture, say the experts, or the opportunity to work out the correct responses to particular situations)

by Leo Hickman, Wednesday 3 October 2012 17.30 BST , The Guardian

I) It's every parent's worst nightmare. The fear of a child being abducted (похищать насильно) haunts us all, not least when high-profile cases (дело, получившее широкий общественный резонанс) saturate the media, as has been the case this week.

II) A generation ago, television viewing (1) seemed to be routinely interrupted by public information campaigns warning (2) children about "stranger danger". All adults of a certain age will remember the lasting (3) impact of watching (4) as children the "Charley Says" broadcasts in the 1970s, warning (4) about risks such as strangers in parks approaching (5) you.

III) "Don't talk to strangers" feels too didactic and unfriendly for this age. And, in any case, there are no such public service campaigns now. So how should a parent explain to a child how to behave safely?

IV) John Cameron, head of child protection operations at the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), says it's important that adults instil (исподволь внушать) a sense of perspective (адекватная оценка) in children about the risks. "Say something like: 'Not all strangers are bad, but occasionally they might want to harm you. You must never get into a stranger's car and you must scream and shout if they try to make you.' But I would reinforce the idea that not all strangers are dangerous."

V) Cameron says it is important that children do not lose the desire to explore their environment, as they must learn how to sensibly assess risk: "They can't be cosseted (изнеженныи). As adults, we can become over-anxious and our children then suffer. The risk of a child being abducted is incredibly low and has remained roughly the same for decades. In previous decades, we were relentlessly (упорно, неустанно) told that the danger came from strangers, but we know that's not the case. We have also developed an idyllic sense that rural areas are safe and urban areas are dangerous in relation to the risk of abduction. But, again, that's not the case."

VI) Michael Lamb, a professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge who specialises in "shaping (приспосабливаемость, адаптация) and wellbeing", agrees that adults often "mis-focus" the perception of danger when communicating to children.

VII) "The majority of children who are abused or abducted are done so by people known to them," he says. (Большенство детей, которые подвергались опасности или были "We therefore risk giving them a false sense of security that they should only be wary of total strangers. The best instruction to give to children is not to go off with someone unless they have first checked with their parent or carer. The risk is that we communicate (передаем) to children that there is more danger around than is actually the case."

VIII) Lamb also argues that parents should reassure children they are being monitored – and, obviously, follow that through by actually monitoring them when they are outside exploring: "It is clearly good advice to say: don't get into cars. But we also want parents to be more aware of what their kids are doing at all times. We must present the idea to children that their parents are there as a source of guidance. We have been good in the past about inoculating (внушать) our children against strangers, but we must also be wary (осторожный) of instilling in children an unwillingness to believe that someone they know could be harmful."

IX) He adds: "But I accept that finding a balance is tricky. We can over-exaggerate the dangers, especially with the influence of modern media. We also can't de-risk the world entirely. It is important that children are given the opportunities to explore. There is good evidence from studies that teenagers are better adjusted when they know that their parents are still monitoring their whereabouts. This extends to all children."

X) Suzie Hayman, the agony aunt(сумасшедшая тетя) and trustee of the parenting advice charity Family Lives, says the best way to talk to younger children about any danger is through "What would you do if …?" scenarios: "From an early age, we should be asking them how they would react to a certain situation – say, if they throw a ball into a road, or if a stranger asks them to get into a car. We shouldn't lecture them about the dangers, rather they should be encouraged to think of the right response first. We should then correct them if they don't get it right. We want to train them to have the correct instincts when it comes to potential dangers."

TASKS:

I) grammar

1) Define the functions of the “ing-words” in the sentences of the II-nd paragraph.

2) Pick out sentences with modal words (should, might, must, can, could, be to) and translate them.

3) Pick up sentences with adjectives in comparative and superlative degrees. Translate them.

4) Pick up sentences with the infinitive. Translate them.

II) speaking

1) What warning was provided by the "Charley Says" broadcasts in the 1970s?

2) How should parents warn their children against risks and dangers nowadays?

3) What do experts mean saying that children should be monitored by their parents?

4) Which is better? To lecture the children about the dangers or to train them to have the correct instincts when it comes to potential dangers?

III) topics for discussion

1) Are there any TV or Radio broadcasts in our country instructing children how to behave safely when they are on their own? Do you think these programmes are necessary? Why?

2) Do you think it is necessary for the parents to turn to an expert for a professional advice on the subject of children’s safety? Why? Why not?

3) Does the fear of a child being abducted (похищать насильно) haunts the parents in our country? What do educational institutions and public services do to minimize the risks?

4) What high-profile cases of a child abduction have you heard of recently? How in your opinion the abduction could have been prevented?

Infancy is the time to start tackling inequality between girls and boys (How a nursery on the outskirts of Paris works against gender stereotyping)

By Gaëlle Dupont//Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 9 October 2012

When does gender inequality take root? In the cot, according to the Bourdarias nursery in Saint Ouen, in the suburbs of Paris, the first infant care centre in France to introduce a policy to combat discrimination in 2009.

Last month France's minister for women's rights, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, visited the nursery to promote this pioneering work. Only one other nursery in Seine-Saint-Denis has launched a similar policy. "We will not achieve equality if we do not combat the construction of stereotypes as early as possible," Vallaud-Belkacem said.

"We aim to give [children] the foundations to develop properly," says the head of the nursery, Haude Constantin-Bienaimé. "But what we observe is that even very young boys and girls don't have the same degree of self-confidence.

"Children develop by imitation, with adults exerting considerable influence," Constantin-Bienaimé suggests. "We bring up our children in line with our own representations and with the expectations society places on each sex. Little girls should smile and be sensible, little boys should be brave." Parents are not the only ones to blame. Teachers, the media, literature, the childcare and toy industries bombard toddlers with stereotypes.

The nursery looks much the same as any other, with the usual toys. Without denying differences, its "proactive egalitarian pedagogy" seeks to avoid locking children up in boxes, with pink and tea sets for girls, blue and lorries for boys. "We try to keep toys as neutral as possible, without banning dolls or garages," says David Helbecque, one of the educators. "Simply, we show the young girls that they can play with the toy cars, make a noise, shout and climb. Boys wanting to play with dolls are encouraged too."

"The merit of this pedagogy is that it enables everyone to broaden the scope of what is possible," says Geneviève Cresson, a sociologist at Lille-1 University and a specialist in children and gender relations. "Gender discrimination reduces the opportunities for young women, but is also damaging for their male counterparts, imposing aggressive behaviour and requiring them to hold back emotion."

The craft and cooking workshops are open to all comers. The former is led by a woman, the latter by a man. Everything is vetted (зд. пересматривается): the activities available to children, but also relations between adults of both sexes at the nursery, even everyday language. "Adults need to work hard on their own behaviour to gain an awareness of the biased way they treat girls and boys," Cresson explains. "They're always convinced they are perfectly even-handed."

Seine-Saint-Denis council, which manages a network of 55 nurseries, is backing this initiative. "It is part of a broader approach," says council leader Stéphane Troussel. "We have a scheme to combat gender discrimination in secondary schools and an observatory of violence against women. This is not to say that things are any worse here than elsewhere, but we do not want to deny its existence."

The work at the Bourdarias nursery demands parental support, but the response in this socially mixed area – where executives from the capital rub shoulders with the residents of low-income housing estates – has been positive. The nursery is now heavily oversubscribed.

Childcare specialists are convinced that such policies enhance mutual respect between the sexes and can reduce violence against women. But the approach needs to be applied on a larger scale and extended to schools. "We have nevertheless made a small contribution to laying the foundations," says Constantin-Bienaimé.

• Read the statements. Which of them are true and which are false.

1. Gender inequality takes its origin in early childhood	T	F
2. Society places certain expectations and stereotypes on each sex.	T	F
3. Adults serve as an example for children.	T	F
4. According to stereotypes girls should be amiable and boys should be courageous.	T	F
5. Equality between boys and girls can be achieved if educators combat stereotypes as early as possible.	T	F
6. Children are allowed to play the toys they choose themselves.	T	F
7. Gender discrimination is to be combated in secondary schools as well as in nurseries.	T	F
8. New approach to bringing up children enhances mutual respect between the sexes.	T	F

• Match the words (word combinations) from the left column with their Russians equivalents in the right:

1. gender inequality	a. в основе развития лежит подражание
2. develop by imitation	b. в соответствии с нашими собственными представлениями
3. Without denying differences	c. осыпать (забрасывать) ребёнок ясельного возраста стереотипами
4. in line with our own representations	d. неравенство полов
5. to keep toys as neutral as possible	e. проактивная эгалитарная (основанная на принципе равенства) педагогика
6. it enables everyone to broaden the scope of what is possible	f. давать как можно более нейтральные игрушки
7. bombard toddlers with stereotypes	g. зарождаться
8. proactive egalitarian pedagogy	h. разрушить стереотипы
9. combat stereotypes	J. она (педагогика) позволяет каждому расширять диапазон (границы, рамки) дозволенного
10. take root	k. не отрицая имеющиеся различия
11. to hold back emotion	l. способствовать взаимному уважению
12. reduce violence against women.	m. уменьшить насилие, которому подвергаются женщины
13. enhance mutual respect	n. cдерживать эмоции
14. to be applied on a larger scale and extended to schools	о. поддерживать инициативу
15. to back the initiative	Р. Использоваться более широко, в т.ч. и в школах