The article analyses the international experience of establishing evidence-based practice registers. Such registers are considered not as a “container” of once and for all selected “best practices”, but as a permanent mechanism of evidence-based social policy. Using the material of registers developed in the USA and the UK, the analysis of the most important structural components of the registers is carried out, with the main focus on the methodology and procedure of practice selection. The authors question the hierarchy of research methodologies and show that experimental design (randomized controlled trials) can be recognized as the “gold standard” of research only under certain conditions — if a linear, simple theory of change is adopted, while the adoption of a complex theory of change requires other research strategies and methods. Based on the analysis, several priority tasks are formulated that need to be addressed in order for the national register of practices being created in Russia to comply with the principles of evidence-based social policy.

The article presents an expert analysis of the impact of the restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in Russia on the situation of families with children and the children, as well as the delayed consequences for the social orphancy system in Russia. The expert assessment is based on the results of sociological surveys of the child protection representatives, their opinion on the impact of the pandemic on the well-being of families with children and children in 9 regions, the analysis of individual organizations for orphans and children left without parental care. The data on the difference in the assessment of the situation of specialists and representatives of the non-profit sector are correlated. Conclusions are drawn about the strengthening of the “medical approach” in assessing the well-being of a child against social and personal needs, the lack of flexibility in organizing the work of the subjects of the orphancy prevention system during restrictive measures, as well as objective limitations of the remote form of providing social services and the unavailability of such services for certain family categories. The research was com- missioned by the Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation.