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Abstract: Family and family of origin of orphans and children deprived of parental care are complex entities. To understand their nature it is important to address these concepts in the context of a number of approaches. The article reviews the current general scientific and specifically-scientific approaches to interpretation of the concepts «family» and «family of origin of orphans and children deprived of parental care», which allowed to ensure the integrity of comprehension. The evolutionary approach provides an insight into the dynamics of the development of concepts; the functional approach allows us to consider the family through the execution of its specific activities, the scientific approach leads to consideration of the family as a constantly evolving system. In specifically-scientific approaches there is duality of interpretation of the concept «family»: family as a small group (a social institution); the family as an institution of education. We agree with the second interpretation, focusing on the implementation of the family educational functions. In this article, the family of origin of orphans and children deprived of parental care is considered in the context of the listed approaches by compiling their guidelines due to the specific content of the input concepts. The family of origin of orphans and children deprived of parental care are considered in the article as a small group with dysfunction associated with impaired parent-child relationship. These breaches result from the loss of the ability to realize the basic function of the family – an educational function.