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This child-led research initiative was conducted under the umbrella of World Vision’s DEAR project (Development Education and Awareness Raising) and the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. The authors worked together to raise children’s voices to the highest levels possible in order to have an impact on decisions and processes that affect them, especially the work around the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. These child researchers were invited to choose one of the issues covered by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each country team discussed these issues, and they decided to…
The context:
Numerous studies have highlighted that in Europe people with care experience are amongst the most socially excluded groups and are at greater risk of poor outcomes in education, health, employment, criminality, mental health and social functioning in general as compared to the wider population.
Leaving the formal alternative care system is an important phase for both young people and the service providers responsible for their care and development. All the efforts and investments made throughout the child’s alternative care path risk being rendered futile if the preparation…
The Opening Doors 2018 country factsheets provide an update about the progress with the transition from institutional to family- and community-based care (also known as deinstitutionalisation). The new generation of country snapshots covers 12 EU Member States, 2 EU pre-accession and 2 EU neighbouring countries. This factsheet highlights the developments and challenges still ahead in Romania and offers key recommendations to the EU and the national government to ensure that children are cared for in family-based settings.
This video from the Economist explores the history of institutionalization in Romania and the efforts now underway to transition to family-based care and small group homes for children. The video features an interview with an adult who grew up in one of Romania's many institutions describing the conditions and abuses she experienced and the need for reform in the system. The video also highlights the work of Hope and Homes for Children, in partnership with the Romanian government, to close all large-scale institutions in Romania, reintegrate children with their families where possible, and…
Summary/Abstract: The times when the world discovered the images of horrific Romanian residential institutions for children and adults with disabilities belong to the past, and are registered in the collective conscience and scientific literature as the responsibility of the dictatorship under Ceausescu’s ruling of Communist Romania. Never the less inducing changes in residential care settings is a difficult process, due to the characteristics of the total institutions, as conceptualised by Goffman or the disciplinary institution, described by Foucault. Exploring the…
Abstract
After the fall of the Communist regime, the Romanian population has decreased approximately 15%, due to the high level of labour migration. The migration of Romanians was even more intensified later on, after Romania has joined the European Union. This decrease of population was due to an increased demand of the West-European population for domestic, construction and agricultural workers, corroborated with the entitlement of the new European citizens to free movement of workers within the territory of the European Union. As a direct consequence, a minimum of 82,464 children were…
Prepared for the Agenda 2030 for Children: End Violence Solutions Summit, held in Stockholm, Sweden, on 14-15 February 2018, this report tracks progress towards prohibition and elimination of corporal punishment of children in Pathfinding countries. Under the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, these countries have committed to three to five years of accelerated action towards target 16.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): “End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.”
The Solutions Summit aims to…
The 2017 country factsheets provide an update on the status of child protection and care reforms from 16 European countries that are the focus of Opening Doors for Europe’s Children campaign in Phase II. The latest compilation of data identifies key achievements and gaps towards DI reforms in each participating country across member states, pre-accession countries and countries within the EU neighbourhood. The evidence focuses on policies that regulate deinstitutionalisation and prevention of child abandonment; engagement of civil society; existing know-hows;…
Abstract
The Romanian child welfare system has undergone a series of major changes over the past two decades, impacting the type of care and developmental outcomes for Romanian orphans and foster children. Each distinct reform period within this twenty-year span can be identified by the laws and governmental reform measures enacted, the shift in child population among various Romanian institutions and foster care homes, types of institutions available to children, level of care, shift in reasons for child abandonment, changes in ways children are routed through the system, and how these…
This chapter appears in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care: History, Research, and Current Practice, a volume of research examining the institutionalization of children, child abuse and neglect in residential care, and interventions preventing and responding to violence against children living in out-of-home care settings around the world.
Abstract
In…