Bulgaria to Start Moving Children from Orphanages


Currently, there are 2,334 children below three years of age, accommodated in 32 orphanages in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria’s Health Ministry has announced it is starting to gradually close orphanages for children below three years of age.

According to the ministry, all the children from the orphanages have to be returned to their biological parents or given for foster care in the next 15 years.

The first nine orphanages for children below three years of age will be closed in the next five years. The financing, which is expected to be more than BGN 26 M, will be provided under the operation programs “Regional Development” and “Human Resources Development.”

The process of shutting down such institutions is part of the “Vision for de-institutionalisation of children in Bulgaria,”

The number of institutions for children below three years of age is 32. They have accommodated 2,334 children and only 0,7% of them are orphans.

According to the Health Ministry, the most common reasons why parent abandon their children are social-economic problems, lack of skills or capacity for raising children, health problems, family violence, unwanted or premature birth.

Analyses, however, show that appropriate policy could allow children to be returned to their families or could prevent their abandonment in the first place.

However, the opportunities for every child depend on the specific circumstances.

Data from the ministry shows that a total of 1,260 children from the 32 orphanages are not disabled and at least half of them could be returned to their biological families. The rest could be adopted or accommodated with foster parents.

At present, there are more than 475 foster families in Bulgaria, which have accommodated more than 417 children. Last year, 800 children were adopted. The rest 1,074 children that are left in the institutions have disabilities or chronic illnesses.

Because of the large number, the Health Ministry is starting verification of the diagnoses they have been given. The goal is to check whether the children are receiving adequate care and treatment.

The checks will begin November and will continue throughout the whole month. The procedure will then continue with development of individual plans for reintegration opportunities for every single child.

A priority in the process of removing children from orphanages will be their interest. The first option will try to accommodate the child in a family environment or in conditions close to it.

For this purpose, the government’s efforts will be focused on providing support for parents who have difficulties raising their children. Also, family advisory centres will be built where pregnant women and mothers will be able to receive assistance.

Oddy

[size=55:36n66r26]BNR 4 November 2010

Bulgaria to bring children out of social care canters

Bulgaria has the ambition to put an end to the practice of infants and young children being left in state-run social care canters. The problem is really serious, the number of such children being over 7000 out of a 7.7 million population. More than 2300 of these children are under 3 years old, some being mentally and physically disabled, others belonging to the Roma community. Yet, Bulgaria’s legislative changes and a unity of action on the part of institutions give hopes that this negative trend will be soon in the past. Under а law that has recently come into effect in Bulgaria, children who have lived in a centre for more than 6 months will be automatically included in adoption registers. The country has also developed a long-term strategy called “A vision for the de-industrialization of children in Bulgaria” aiming to restructure the social care for the under-age. It is envisaged that within the next 15 years Bulgaria should close down all social care canters for children.

“We are carrying out integrated policies”, Valentina Simeonova, Labour and Social Policy Deputy Minister, said for Radio Bulgaria. “We have unified goals that are performed by different ministries involved in the issue. So far, this policy has been fragmented. Now we have come together around the idea that the best environment for bringing up a child is that of the family, and therefore we will all work together to bring Bulgarian children out of the social care canters.

This process will be happening gradually. Already, some canters for mentally and physically disabled children, which do not meet contemporary standards, have been shut down. Authorities closed them down first, since empirical evidence showed they had the most serious of problems.

“When we started thinking about which canters should shut down first, we had a lot of suggestions” Nadya Shaban, Chair of the State Agency for Child Protection commented. “The public, NGO- Bulgaria, as well as UNICEF-Bulgaria were debating whether the canters for mentally and physically disabled children should close down first, since they will be the most difficult to reform. I am happy we chose to start with them, since the most responsible action we can take at this stage is to help the most vulnerable groups first, regardless of difficulties. Authorities are currently assessing these canters, as well as checking the children’s health conditions. Multi-disciplined teams are working on this project by developing а chart of alternative medical and social services for children. The canters cannot shut down out of the blue. We first need to offer the best alternative for these children”, Nadya Shaban, Chair of the State Agency for Child Protection said.

Since some 98% of the abandoned children have parents, social services are first trying to send the children back to their families. If they fail to do so, they look for foster families. Some of the disabled children over 12, who hold little chance of adoption in Bulgaria, will be adopted mainly in the USA, Canada, Sweden and Italy. The canters for children under 3 are shutting down, too. The most common reasons for child abandonment are daily and financial problems in the family, parents lacking skills in bringing up a child, health issues, unwanted pregnancy and others. Bulgarian authorities envisage measures for social support of the biological parents or relatives, including the construction of centers for health support of pregnant women and mothers at risk. The EU operational programmes “Regional Development” and “ Human Resources Development” have provided the amount of 20 million Euro for restructuring the social care system for children at risk in Bulgaria.

About time too but the question I ask is why has it taken this long

Abandoned Bulgarian Children to Be Kept Out of Orphanages

Abandoned Bulgarian children should not live any longer in specialized institutions by 2020, according to Bulgaria's national strategy for keeping children out of orphanages.

Some EUR 180 M is the amount of money planned for spending on keeping Bulgarian children out of the orphanages. A total of 130 institutions will be closed and five projects have already started for achieving that.

One of these projects, funded by EU's "
Human Resources Development"
operative program, is for the closure of 24 Bulgarian institutions for disabled children.

Another project is for closing 74 orphanages.

Additionally, according to the National Strategy, every community in Bulgaria which has the status of a regional centre must have at least 10 foster families.

At present, there are 475 foster families in Bulgaria, which have accommodated more than 417 children. Last year, 800 children were adopted.

The number of institutions for children below three years of age is 32. They have accommodated 2 334 children and only 0.7% of them are orphans. Most of the children are abandoned due to poverty.

A shocking announcement was made recently that malnutrition, cold, and deplorable living conditions have claimed the lives of 236 Bulgarian orphans in the last 10 years.

The case with the Bulgarian orphanage in the Mogilino village became particularly publicly known two years ago, when BBC broad casted a documentary dedicated to the abandoned children in Bulgaria and the strikingly poor conditions in Bulgarian orphanages.