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Moldova’s National Program for Child Protection (2022-2026) articulates the commitment of the Government of Moldova and its partners to dramatically reducing the number children in institutions and to a child protection system anchored in securing safe and nurturing family care for all children. The Program includes the introduction of a moratorium on the placement of children under the age of three in residential care. The age was expanded to include children aged between 0-6 years to reflect the age range of children cared for in residential institutions. Despite notable achievements in…
This webinar was hosted by the Evidence for Impact Working Group of the Transforming Children’s Care Collaborative on March 30, 2023, and examined the Early Institutionalization Intervention Impact Project in Brazil.
The Early Institutionalization Intervention Impact Project's (EI-3) main goal is to document and compare the impacts that enhanced institutional care and enhanced foster care have on development during early childhood.
The EI-3 research project builds upon the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP). Conducted in…
Introduction
Children placed in institutional care are deprived of their fundamental right to living in a family environment. The Romanian state would greatly improve their situation, if it took care of preventing the separation of children from their family, instead of focusing on the current model - placing in care about 63,000 children, while hundreds of thousands of them still live in inhumane conditions. These are the ones that specialised public authorities pretend they do not see, because they lack the capacity for legislative framework design to prevent the separation of…
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
This article reports the findings of a multi-country study of medical professionals' perceptions and evaluations of children. The primary aim of the study was to establish the perceptions medical professionals working in three Eastern European countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova) hold toward children identified as “typical”, “at-risk” and “with disability”. A second aim was to explore the existence of country-level differences in medical professionals' perceptions of children. The third aim was to examine the pattern of associations between attitudes toward children and a change…
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…
The process of deinstitutionalisation (DI) seems to have been demoted on the list of priorities by the Romanian government lately. Such change of focus and the fact that the government did not include children on the agenda for the 2019 EU presidency presents a challenge for a continued national reform on deinstitutionalisation. In 2018, there were still 185 institutions in Romania housing 6,632 children. 2,997 children with disabilities were living in 81 institutions for children with disabilities in Romania. The majority of children in out-of-home care were placed in family based care,…