Caregiver-Child Interaction in Children Placed into Different Types of Russian Families following an Institutional Intervention

Abstract

The current study examined whether interventions in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, institutions for infants (Baby Homes) that increased caregiver sensitivity (Training Only) or both caregiver sensitivity and consistency (Training plus Structural Changes: T + SC) versus care as usual (No Intervention: NoI), and the type of post-institutional (PI) families (Relatives versus Non-Relatives) in relation to the length of institutionalization would be associated with caregiver-child interaction advantages in the families. The Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment (Clark, 1985) method was used to assess the caregiver-child interactions at the stages of ≤24 months (n = 55), and 25-48 months of family placement (n = 48). Results suggest that at the stage of 24 months several interactional characteristics were better in families with children from T + SC than from NoI, especially the longer time children spent in these BH, and in families of Non-Relatives than Relatives. At 25-48 months, children in Non-Relative families displayed more Activity and Quality of Exploratory Play than in Relative families. Overall, these results suggest that at ≤24 months in PI families, advantages in caregiver-child interaction might be associated with better institutional caregiving and the type of families, whereas at 25-48 months it might be related only to the type of families.

Keywords:

• Caregiver-child interaction
• institutional intervention
• intervention follow-up
• post-institutional families

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to dedicate this article in memory of Dr. Natalia V. Nikiforova, the head pediatrician of St. Petersburg Baby Home 13. Natasha was our friend, colleague and the study team member, who dedicated her life to the lives of infants left without parental care and orphaned infants. The authors would also like to express thanks to Dr. Robert McCall and Dr. Christina Groark for the helpful discussion and feedback regarding this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The intervention in St. Petersburg (RF) Baby Homes and some data collection were funded by Grants HD39017 and 050212 from the Eunice Shriver Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Robert B. McCall and Christina J. Groark (University of Pittsburgh, USA). The data analyzed for this article came from a research study funded by Russian Science Foundation, project number 22-28-00626, https://rscf.ru/en/project/22-28-00626/, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of St. Petersburg Psychological Society (IRB00012426), Russian Federation. The interpretations and opinions expressed are those of the authors, not the funder.