Raisa A. Scientific grounding for a system of medical and social assistance to orphan children and children deprived of parental care in public boarding schools.

The thesis is dedicated to the scientific grounding, development, and implementation of the new functional and structural model of the system for medical and social assistance to orphan children and children deprived of parental care. The basic flaws were defined in organization of medical and social management in various types of establishments: orphanages, children's homes, and boarding houses of Kharkiv Region. The situation with medical and social protection and inmates' health indices were studied in dynamics from 1992 to 2002 using the Ministry of Public Health of Ukraine computer database on monitoring of activity of orphanages, and government statistical accounting data. Considering the revealed flaws, a managerial functional model for assistance to children in these establishments was developed and tested in 2000-2002 in orphanages; it is proposed for implementation in other public boarding schools. The model's efficiency is proved with the lowering children's mortality in orphanages from 2.2per 100 children in an orphanage in 1999 to 1.1 of the respective figure in 2002; acute intestinal disease rate from 2.3 to 0.9 respectively; rate of children assigned to boarding schools because of disablement in the age of 4, from 7.5 % to 4.8 % out of discharged children.