Living Arrangements of Older Persons: Analysis of the Activities of Constituent Entities of the Russian Federation

The growth of the number of older persons makes it necessary to create decent favourable conditions for their lives and activities, which contributes to forming the basis for their active longevity. Nowadays, in order to solve this kind of problems, an alternative form of social service, a «foster family for older persons» is widespread in many constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Legal relations in a foster family are regulated by the rules of different branches of law. The leading role is played by the legal framework of the constituent entities. Meanwhile, one can observe a lack of consistency in defining terms and notions, as there is no legal definition of a «foster family for an older person» in the federal legislation. The purpose of the research is to establish regional similarity in documents and to find possible solutions of the problems that arise when implementing this kind of social assistance in the Irkutsk region. The content analysis conducted by the author allowed her to study the regulatory framework of the activities of foster families for older persons; to consider the options for naming the alternative form of service and its main notions; assess social demographic characteristics of people that create a foster family; to define the main conditions for creating a foster family. According to the results of the research, key directions of the activities, aimed at improving regional regulatory legal acts, are identified, organizational events, aimed at providing a possibility for older persons to stay in habitual family conditions as long as possible, are programmed. The obtained conclusions can be used to formulate regulations of the federal legislation on foster families for older persons and other regulatory legal acts and methodological documents of both federal and regional levels, which, in the future, could reduce the number of problems that arise when implementing this kind of social assistance for older persons in constituent entities of the Russian Federation.