Child care reform in Bulgaria - Role UK Embassy

Child care reform in Bulgaria

Bulgaria has long faced problems with how it accommodates and handles children in its childcare system. It is a throwback to communist days and has remained largely untouched and ignored since then. Too many children are placed in institutional care and once there, the standard of care can vary hugely. What is indisputable is that the longer a child is in an institution, the worse that child’s economic and social future is. Although there has been a steady decline in the number of children in institutions, from over 12,500 in 2001 to around 7,000 in 2009, this decline is due in part to demographics (a declining national population) and partly because some children were moved to “special schools” that are not technically classed as institutional homes. Only a tiny proportion, less than 2 percent, are actually orphans. There are no official statistics of the number of children of Roma origin but according to observing NGOs they are about 80 percent of the children in institutional homes for non-disabled children.

Since taking office in July 2009, the present GERB government of Boyko Borissov has declared child care reform one of their social priorities. Ministers and senior officials have begun to open up and discuss the problem, willing to talk to NGOs and foreign donors, in particular with the European Commission.

In February 2010 the Council of Ministers adopted a Strategy for Child Care reform – Vision for Deinstitutionalisation, which is aimed at providing top level policies to reform child care services in Bulgaria. The ultimate goal is to close all child care institutions in the form they are now over the next 15 years. On 24 November 2010 an implementation plan was approved by the Council of Ministers. This will in turn open the door to significant EU funding and substantial reforms on the ground.

The European Commission has been actively working with the government. DG Regio and DG Social have developed a programme together to fund de-institutionalisation in Bulgaria – supported by the European Regional Development and Social Funds. An initial Euro 25m has been allocated to the programme; a further Euro 30-40m is likely to be available if targets under the action plan are met. Implementation of the first project, namely to close down all 24 homes for disabled children by 2013, has already started. Closure of the homes for children aged 0-3 is to follow shortly.

There is increasing recognition that the real aim of de-institutionalisation is not to shut down institutions for the sake of it, but to do so only when alternative care services have been developed which open up opportunities for children and families, and promote social inclusion. This involves a mix of policy responses: reintegration with family, adoption, foster care, and small group homes, coupled with flanking measures like improved parental education, better education opportunities, and more child friendly application of the law by district courts in custody cases. Public awareness of the issue has improved with the media now actively engaged in the public debate.

The UK role

The UK can with some justification claim to have played a significant behind the scenes role in delivering this change. In particular, for the past 18 months the Northern Ireland Cooperation Office (NI—CO) has been running an EU Twinning Project on Child care reform in Bulgaria, led by Paul Martin, former Director of Social Services in Northern Ireland. This project – which formally closed in October this year - has been pivotal in guiding the government’s reform programme.

We should also pay tribute to the UK NGO community which have been tireless in their advocacy and work for change. Particularly influential have been the larger NGOs like ARK, Hope and Homes for Children, the Cedar Foundation, and Lumos, which have engaged at the policy level, as well as providing inspiring examples of best practice on the ground. This Embassy has played an important role in facilitating dialogue between the NGOs and the government, and harnessing NGO energy in a direction that goes with the grain of planned government reforms. Almost all NGOs and experts confirm that the whole attitude of the government and institutions has changed and there is a much more enthusiastic, focused and structured approach to child care reform. NGOs are no longer regarded with suspicion and are properly involved in many of the discussions on reform programmes.

Prospects

These reforms will require sustained implementation and political will over a period of many years and several governments. Obviously there is a risk that this won’t happen. But the initial signs are positive. The fact that these reforms are being carried out in the teeth of the economic crisis, with severe pressure on government finances is an indicator of their importance. Provided that the strategy is right (which it now is) and is implemented with vigour (which remains to be seen) EU and other donor funding will continue to flow in support.

Organizations: European Commission

Countries: United Kingdom, Bulgaria

New Meeting between Bulgarian Adoption agencies and the Deputy Minister of Justice

Contact

New meeting between Bulgarian Adoption Agencies and the Deputy Minister of Justice

On 14^th February 2012 the first working meeting was organized between representatives of the accredited organizations in Bulgaria (AOMO) and Mrs. Velina Todorova, the deputy Minister of Justice responsible for international adoption.

....,.......jjjTwo main issues were brought up for discussion:

1. Entering the children in the National register and the transfer of their files to the International register – how to shorten the waiting times and make the procedures easier.

We broadly discussed the problem related with the fact that ¾ of the children placed in foster families are not entered into the registers which is a 100 % violation of the law and even a more serious violation of the basic right of every child to be raised in a family.

Mrs. Velina Todorova committed herself to discussing with the Intercountry Adoptions Directorate the problems related with the registration of children in the International Registeraiming to accelerate the process.

2. The work of the International Adoptions Council (IAC) – how to improve its effectiveness and transparency. In relation with this issue we discussed the fact that since the policy of the Bulgarian government is to gradually close down the institutions for children (till 2020), the MoJ in its capacity of Central authority should support this policy and speed up the adoption of the children by persons whose usual place of residence is abroad. Furthermore, the Bulgarian MoJ has declared that it complies with the resolutions of the European parliament concerning intercountry adoption, then it should take into consideration its recommendations as of February 2011 and namely that intercountry adoption should be made easier. In this regard we made a lot of suggestions which would lead to increasing the number of proposals/referrals made at each session of the IAC.

The main part of the discussion on this issue was about the principle of “the first 50”. This principle is related with full transparency and it was applied in 2008 and 2009. The idea is the following: the IAC lists on the official webpage of the MoJ the numbers (together with the dates of entering applicants into the register) of the first 50 couples waiting for a child. If this is done, the updates that the IAC currently provides will not be so unclear. In this way all applicants will be able to monitor the manner of making proposals/referrals and make sure that another family registered after them and having exactly the same requirements for a child will not receive a proposal/referral before them; they will be able to check whether the principle of consecutiveness is applied and the full transparency of the work of the IAC will be ensured. This will also give us more specific information about the proposals/referrals – we will know to applicants with which year of registration the IAC is making proposals/referrals and this will enable us to make approximate prognoses when the next proposal/referral can be expected.

Deputy Minister Todorova promised to think about another suggestion: at each session of the IAC, as a guarantee for the transparency of its work, at the principle of rotation, one representative of an accredited organization to be present.

Countries: Bulgaria

Organizations: European Parliament

Update: NCFA's Meeting with Bulgaria

by Adoption ARK - A Nonprofit, International Adoption Agency on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 at 17:34

Chuck Johnson, President and CEO of the National Council for Adoption, recently met with a child-welfare delegation from Bulgaria. Adoption ARK wrote to Mr. Jonhson this week and asked for a rundown on the meeting and the outcome. Below is his response.

I met with four Bulgarian representatives on March 30 for about two hours. Participants included:

the chairperson for International Adoption and Reintegration

Organizations: Adoption Ark, National Council for Adoption (NCFA)

Countries: Bulgaria

Barred: The aid workers who exposed Romania's orphan abuse

By DANIEL BOFFEY, The Mail on Sunday

Last updated at 22:51 09 September 2006

Persons: Chris Rogers, Robin Nydes, Bogdan Panait

Countries: Romania

The New Adoption Law

The New Adoption Law
Last updated: 2012-05-28 12:42 EET Print
We start with a point of view recently voiced by the head of the Romanian Adoption Office, Bogdan Panait: Bogdan Panait: ”We badly need to raise the awareness of all families; we seriously need to raise the system’s awareness, but when things are not going well in the family we need to find a solution so that children may live a normal life. Nowhere around the world can a protection system provide a normal life. A normal life can only be family life.” A normal and caring family that really wants you and where you can feel safe; that’s what any child around the world wants. Recently, Romania has taken yet another step further to make such a wish come true, passing a new adoption law. And, as “no one can live a normal life in the system”, as the State Secretary with the Romanian Adoption Office Bogdan Panait said in the beginning, the new law is trying to speed up the entire procedure setting up clear deadlines. Speaking now is Ramona Popa, a Cabinet Manager with the Romanian Adoption Office. Ramona Popa: “For children whose parents are unknown, the file can be submitted to court within 30 days since the birth certificate was issued. For children whose parents say from the very beginning they do not want to look after them and want to give them up for adoption, both they and their relatives up to four times removed can submit the file to court within 60 days since the parents or the relatives issue their last statement.” Although statistics mention around 67 thousand institutionalized children, the old legal provisions allowed for a limited number of those children to be eligible for adoption. However, in Romania there are around 1,700 families who want to adopt a child. Dina Pluhovici is the president of the Bucharest Branch of the ADOR Copiii Association, the community of adoptive families. She will now be sharing with us her experience of adoptive parent. Diana Pluhovici:” Under the old law, if we wanted a child to be declared eligible for adoption we needed the consent of the relatives up to four times removed. Now let’s be honest: I myself don’t know who my relatives four times removed are, let alone the institution who goes at all lengths to dig into the family history. A provision of the new law states that the very moment a social protection measure is stipulated for the child, and if for a whole year the family as well as the identified four-times-removed relatives do not wish to get involved in the upbringing of the child, that particular child should become eligible for adoption. My little girl became eligible for adoption almost four years ago when she was about three years and eight months old. Three years and eight months of doing nothing and letting that child in the system, depriving her of the right to be raised in the middle of a loving and harmonious family! And also with no balanced upbringing. Especially from an emotional point of view, as these children have already been going through a trauma. The trauma of being abandoned.” Now Diana Pluhovici is the mother of Antonia, a little girl of Rroma origin, whom the old adoption law had her spend almost five years in the system before she was entitled to having a family. Diana Pluhovici:” When I met her, my daughter was 4 years and 9 months old. A rather old child who, according to the statistics of the Romanian Adoption Office was a child hard to adopt. However, her age did not bother us. It was all we wanted: to become parents. We were not particularly interested in her condition or her ethnic roots, I just said I wanted to be a mother. I wasn’t interested in anything else. And that despite the fact that the moment I was shown her file I saw she was a child with an Apgar 1 score, a resuscitated child with a neurological condition. But that didn’t matter at all. I said I wanted to see the child. And the moment I saw that little browned eyed wonder, who was trying to draw your attention, all those things didn’t matter at all.” Even though the diagnosis proved not to be accurate, and Antonia turned out to be a perfectly normal child, there still was a problem: the new family had a period of accommodation, with psychological blocks and fits of rage. This is often encountered in families that bring in a new child all of a sudden, and some time is needed for things to settle. From this point of view, the law omitted a very important aspect, according to Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association. Diana Pluhovici: “Since we adopted an older child we got no parental leave for raising and caring for the child. This is a problem, and it persists. You can’t tell the child ‘Well, we’ll spend this weekend with you, but on Monday I’m going to work, you will go to kindergarten, your babysitter or grandma will pick you up and that’s it.’ You cannot that, because then it’s a failed adoption, and no one wants that.” The good news is that the law allows changes as long as they support and speed up the adoption procedures. Here is Bogdan Panait, undersecretary with the Romanian Adoption Office: Bogdan Panait: “We are open to amendments. The law in its present form is a living law, meaning it is undergoing changes, so that whatever we didn’t take into account from the very beginning can be regulated as things go along, so that in the next three years we have a law that is completely in line with the interests of the child and totally meets the needs of this nation”. The most important thing for the institutionalized child is to have a family, even if he or she lives in another country. The new law on adoptions, which came into force on April 7th, opens the door for international adoptions. Not for foreign citizens, but for Romanians living abroad. Here is Ramona Popa, cabinet manager for the Romanian Adoption Office: Ramona Popa: “We have expanded the range of persons who may adopt a child in Romania to Romanian citizens residing abroad. So far, the means by which a national or international adoption was defined was country of residence. Now the principle is where one’s usual residence is. We have widened the range of people who may adopt children to Romanians whose primary residence is abroad”. The new law, which is child oriented, brings about another interesting change: the family adopting the child must tell them the truth in order to avoid future trauma. Here is Diana Pluhovici once again: Diana Pluhovici: “I actually encourage families to tell, and the new law makes it compulsory to tell children the truth, and that is a good thing. It is true that you can’t tell a three year old, ‘you’re adopted’, but you can tell him or her your family’s history, at least that’s what I did. I told her when I met my husband, when I got married, and Antonia really wanted to hear it. A few days ago she herself told me that she’d adopt a child, too”. As she waits for Antonia to grow up, Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association have one more wish: for Romania to declare June 2nd National Adoption Day. If that happens, we hope as many children as possible will celebrate this day within their own families, which is where they really belong.

The New Adoption Law
Last updated: 2012-05-28 12:42 EET Print
We start with a point of view recently voiced by the head of the Romanian Adoption Office, Bogdan Panait: Bogdan Panait: ”We badly need to raise the awareness of all families; we seriously need to raise the system’s awareness, but when things are not going well in the family we need to find a solution so that children may live a normal life. Nowhere around the world can a protection system provide a normal life. A normal life can only be family life.” A normal and caring family that really wants you and where you can feel safe; that’s what any child around the world wants. Recently, Romania has taken yet another step further to make such a wish come true, passing a new adoption law. And, as “no one can live a normal life in the system”, as the State Secretary with the Romanian Adoption Office Bogdan Panait said in the beginning, the new law is trying to speed up the entire procedure setting up clear deadlines. Speaking now is Ramona Popa, a Cabinet Manager with the Romanian Adoption Office. Ramona Popa: “For children whose parents are unknown, the file can be submitted to court within 30 days since the birth certificate was issued. For children whose parents say from the very beginning they do not want to look after them and want to give them up for adoption, both they and their relatives up to four times removed can submit the file to court within 60 days since the parents or the relatives issue their last statement.” Although statistics mention around 67 thousand institutionalized children, the old legal provisions allowed for a limited number of those children to be eligible for adoption. However, in Romania there are around 1,700 families who want to adopt a child. Dina Pluhovici is the president of the Bucharest Branch of the ADOR Copiii Association, the community of adoptive families. She will now be sharing with us her experience of adoptive parent. Diana Pluhovici:” Under the old law, if we wanted a child to be declared eligible for adoption we needed the consent of the relatives up to four times removed. Now let’s be honest: I myself don’t know who my relatives four times removed are, let alone the institution who goes at all lengths to dig into the family history. A provision of the new law states that the very moment a social protection measure is stipulated for the child, and if for a whole year the family as well as the identified four-times-removed relatives do not wish to get involved in the upbringing of the child, that particular child should become eligible for adoption. My little girl became eligible for adoption almost four years ago when she was about three years and eight months old. Three years and eight months of doing nothing and letting that child in the system, depriving her of the right to be raised in the middle of a loving and harmonious family! And also with no balanced upbringing. Especially from an emotional point of view, as these children have already been going through a trauma. The trauma of being abandoned.” Now Diana Pluhovici is the mother of Antonia, a little girl of Rroma origin, whom the old adoption law had her spend almost five years in the system before she was entitled to having a family. Diana Pluhovici:” When I met her, my daughter was 4 years and 9 months old. A rather old child who, according to the statistics of the Romanian Adoption Office was a child hard to adopt. However, her age did not bother us. It was all we wanted: to become parents. We were not particularly interested in her condition or her ethnic roots, I just said I wanted to be a mother. I wasn’t interested in anything else. And that despite the fact that the moment I was shown her file I saw she was a child with an Apgar 1 score, a resuscitated child with a neurological condition. But that didn’t matter at all. I said I wanted to see the child. And the moment I saw that little browned eyed wonder, who was trying to draw your attention, all those things didn’t matter at all.” Even though the diagnosis proved not to be accurate, and Antonia turned out to be a perfectly normal child, there still was a problem: the new family had a period of accommodation, with psychological blocks and fits of rage. This is often encountered in families that bring in a new child all of a sudden, and some time is needed for things to settle. From this point of view, the law omitted a very important aspect, according to Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association. Diana Pluhovici: “Since we adopted an older child we got no parental leave for raising and caring for the child. This is a problem, and it persists. You can’t tell the child ‘Well, we’ll spend this weekend with you, but on Monday I’m going to work, you will go to kindergarten, your babysitter or grandma will pick you up and that’s it.’ You cannot that, because then it’s a failed adoption, and no one wants that.” The good news is that the law allows changes as long as they support and speed up the adoption procedures. Here is Bogdan Panait, undersecretary with the Romanian Adoption Office: Bogdan Panait: “We are open to amendments. The law in its present form is a living law, meaning it is undergoing changes, so that whatever we didn’t take into account from the very beginning can be regulated as things go along, so that in the next three years we have a law that is completely in line with the interests of the child and totally meets the needs of this nation”. The most important thing for the institutionalized child is to have a family, even if he or she lives in another country. The new law on adoptions, which came into force on April 7th, opens the door for international adoptions. Not for foreign citizens, but for Romanians living abroad. Here is Ramona Popa, cabinet manager for the Romanian Adoption Office: Ramona Popa: “We have expanded the range of persons who may adopt a child in Romania to Romanian citizens residing abroad. So far, the means by which a national or international adoption was defined was country of residence. Now the principle is where one’s usual residence is. We have widened the range of people who may adopt children to Romanians whose primary residence is abroad”. The new law, which is child oriented, brings about another interesting change: the family adopting the child must tell them the truth in order to avoid future trauma. Here is Diana Pluhovici once again: Diana Pluhovici: “I actually encourage families to tell, and the new law makes it compulsory to tell children the truth, and that is a good thing. It is true that you can’t tell a three year old, ‘you’re adopted’, but you can tell him or her your family’s history, at least that’s what I did. I told her when I met my husband, when I got married, and Antonia really wanted to hear it. A few days ago she herself told me that she’d adopt a child, too”. As she waits for Antonia to grow up, Diana Pluhovici and the ADOR association have one more wish: for Romania to declare June 2nd National Adoption Day. If that happens, we hope as many children as possible will celebrate this day within their own families, which is where they really belong.

Persons: Bogdan Panait

Countries: Romania

EP Round Table and Exhibition

hildren need families not institutions! - ending the harmful institutionalisation of children in Europe.

Mairead McGuinness MEP - in association with Eurochild, ARK and Hope and Homes for Children

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Date

06 Jun 2012 16:00

Address

European Parliament

Brussels

Belgium

Links

Event's webpage

Event Type

M - Seminar, presentation

Organiser type

Federations / Associations

Section

Social Europe & Jobs

Event Location

Brussels

Event Description

Exhibition and Expert Roundtable hosted by Mairead McGuinness, MEP

Date: 06 June 2012

Venue: ASP Ground floor. Exhibition space outside the Members restaurant

Time: 16:00 – 18:00

Overview:
This unique and powerful exhibition will highlight that for over a million children in Europe, the right to a family life is still not realised. Visitors will hear from young people themselves and from experts in child development and fundamental rights about the detrimental effects of institutionalisation, and the benefits of prevention and alternative care. In a Europe of rights, no child should have to grow up in and institution; with policy support and funding from the EU, they won’t have to. Speakers at the roundtable include Dr Charles H. Zeanah, a leading global expert in early childhood development, and renowned children’s rights expert Dr Maria Herzog of the UN’s Committee for the Rights of the Child. Speakers include Commissioner László Andor and Vice-President of the European Parliament Roberta Angelilli.

Registration: You can register to attend the vernissage at http://ark-exhibition.eventbrite.com/

Organizations: European Parliament

Gezinnen, geen kinderhuizen: tentoonstelling en rondetafel lezing in Europees Parlement

ingevoerd op 29-5-2012

Exhibition and Expert Roundtable on ending the harmful institutionalisation of children in Europe

Eurochild, Hopes & Homes for Children (HHC) and Absolute Return for Kids invite to an exhibition, vernissage and expert Round Table beginning of June in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Expert Roundtable: 6 June, 16:00 – 18:00, European Parliament, Brussels, ASP A1E-1 followed by a:
Vernissage at ASP Ground Floor (outside the members’ restaurant), 6 June, 18:00 – 20:00
Exhibition: just outside the members’ restaurant, open between the 4–7 June 2012
This unique and powerful exhibition will highlight that for over a million children in Europe, the right to a family life is still not realised. Visitors will hear from young people themselves and from experts in child development and fundamental rights about the detrimental effects of institutionalisation, and the benefits of prevention and alternative care. In a Europe of rights, no child should have to grow up in and institution; with policy support and funding from the EU, they won’t have to.

Speakers at the roundtable include Dr Charles H. Zeanah, a leading global expert in early childhood development, and renowned children’s rights expert Dr Maria Herzog of the UN’s Committee for the Rights of the Child and president of Eurochild. We will then hear from the Commission and European Parliament Presidency at the vernissage which follows (speakers tbc). The whole event is hosted by Mairead McGuinness, MEP.

http://www.eurochild.org

Organizations: Lumos, European Commission, Amici dei Bambini, European Parliament, Bucharest Early Intervention Project, Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), Better Care Netwerk (BCN) - NL, Hope & Homes for Children

Persons: John Mulligan, Charles H. Zeanah, M.D.

Issued notice, Preet Mandir says it was following old norms

Nisha Nambiar : Wed Jun 06 2012, 01:31 hrs

Express impact Following Indian Express report, Women & Child Welfare dept demands answers

The state Women and Child Welfare Commissionerate has issued a showcause notice to the city-based adoption agency Preet Mandir following reports in The Indian Express that it was accepting ‘donations’ from parents. In its notice, the department has sought answers from the agency. The adoption agency, however, maintains that it was following old guidelines that allowed it to accept donations to raise funds.

The showcause notice, issued on May 29, states, “In respect of The Indian Express report which appeared on May 8, the Women and Child Welfare Comissionerate, Maharashtra state has issued a showcause notice to the agency. The agency on receipt of the notice should respond within four days. If it is not done, then it would be understood that as an agency you have nothing to say and we would be free to cancel your licence to operate as an adoption agency.’’

Deputy commissioner, women and child welfare (adoptions), Rahul More said no adoption agency should be accepting donations. “We issued the notice after its records were checked by the district women and child welfare officers. We have received the agency’s response and are yet to take a decision,’’ said More. The Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) does not permit any kind of donation.

Managing trustee of Preet Mandir D P Bhatia said they have replied to the notice. “We have received no notification from CARA on new guidelines. I have written to the district women and child welfare officer, commissionerate and to the minister that we were following the old guidelines, whereby we are allowed to raise funds considering our situation. We as an agency are surviving only on donations. We have a three-shift system to support the 40 children. We do not force any parent to donate money; it is by their own free will to support our endeavour. As we have the infrastructure, I have been requesting the government to allow us to re-start admissions so that we can keep the activity going. At present, we are also going to have new trustees as the old ones have resigned.’’

He added that the agency had 33 years of experience and needed to pay its staff up to Rs 2.5 lakh as salaries, which was raised through donations not only from adoptive parents but others as well. Asked whether they would give up the children to other agencies, he said that they have not yet thought about it.

The adoption agency, which had gained notoriety over alleged malpractices last year, was once again in the news for accepting donations. A CBI chargesheet notwithstanding, the agency, that has permission to give away only 40 children remaining at its Kalyaninagar unit for “in-country adoption”, was allegedly accepting donations from parents.

As per details available with The Indian Express, for 12 children who were to be placed under foster care, the agency charged the parents adoption cost as well as “donations”. CARA guidelines state that for in-country adoption, there is a Rs 1,000 registration fee, home study report and post-adoption follow-up charges of Rs 5,000, and Rs 40,000 as Child Care Corpus. The total payment to be made to the agency is Rs 46,000. Preet Mandir, however, charged donations (as the agency has labeled the entries in its books) ranging from Rs 17,000 to Rs 1 lakh apart from the adoption cost.

Minister of Women and Child Welfare, Varsha Gaikwad, had recently ordered that all divisions and district-level officers must check the functioning of adoption agencies.

Organizations: ACT CASE Preet Mandir