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| that evinces the central role played by the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption (ANPCA), lays down the institutional framework through which ANPCA coordinates the action of ministries and of other governmental responsible structures in the field of social, family and educational protection, as well as the essential part of the local administration and the civil society. At the same time, cooperation with the religious cults legally acknowledged in Romania is encouraged, which prove real involvement in the social life. | |||
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| Romania ratified the UN Convention on the child's rights as early as 1990. With the coming into force of the Constitution, in 1991, an important principle imposed by the Convention was included among the constitutional tenets guaranteeing the free development of the human personality. Thus article 45 of the Constitution of Romania reads: "Children enjoy a special protection and assistance regime in obtaining their rights." For the ratification of the Convention on children protection and cooperation in matters of international adoption, the Parliament of Romania adopted Law 84 of October 18, 1994. | |||
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National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption The reform in the field of protection of children in difficulty needed a method, an institution watching over observance of the law in the field. All this in order to achieve the organizational framework, the specific standards and methodological guidelines of good practice in the activity of institutional, public and private factors, in view of approximation to the European regulations on child protection. That is why the National Agency for Child Protection and Adoption was established as a legal specialized body of the central public administration subordinated to the Government. The central authority in charge with the drafting, coordination and monitoring of policies in the field of child protection, it creates the premises for a concrete global reform of the system of services and institutions that assure the promotion of the rights of children, the care and protection of children in difficulty and of those with handicaps or disabilities. The Authority can finance or, as the case may be, finance jointly three types of programs of national interest for the protection of children's rights, such as: specific programs for the implementation of the national strategy in the reform of the system of services and institutions meant for the care, protection and promotion of children; assuring the operation of the restructured institutions and services or, as the case may be, newly created; making studies, research and publications about the agency's activity; continuous professional training of the personnel that carries out activities in the services and institutions meant to promote the children's rights, the care and protection of handicapped children or children in difficulty, etc. Specialized Public Service 1. Inter-Agency Coordinating Group In order to focus even greater attention and effort on protecting our children, a special Inter-Agency Coordinating Group was established in 2001. Comprised of Romanian child protection specialists and high-level ministerial representatives, the Inter-Agency Coordinating Group closely monitors the problems related to children in need, and can subsequently direct special funding support where it can be most useful. In order to implement the decisions of the Inter-Agency Coordinating Group, smaller, specialized working groups of personnel from a variety of child protection-related working groups have been set up. Following the proposal of the Coordinating Group on June 15, 2001 the Executive Council of the Inter-Agency Coordinating Group was established. Since then, regular meetings of this group have taken place in order to identify the most efficient ways of integrating child protection policies with the framework of governmental social, familial, and other demographic policies. Already, an analysis of the operations of specialized public child protection services has started, and the necessity of extending their areas of activity has been highlighted. This will lead to the creation and operation of integrated community child protection services. 2. Multi-Disciplinary Group The Multi-Disciplinary Group was created to monitor the progress made in the de-institutionalization process has been established, and their first meeting was held on the July 12, 2001. Already, diversified, alternative services have been evaluated. These services have been created for the benefit of the child in need, and are within the internationally-financed programs run by the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption. The evaluation is made based on goals defined in the Governmental Strategy on the protection of the child in need. These goals call for reducing the number of:
Foster Care Center The wide-scope process of restructuring infants' and children's homes and their turning into foster care centers of a family type is coordinated at county level by the specialized public services. In effect, the foster care quality standards project was drawn up after in some counties the first novel ideas had already been put into practice, increasing the quality of the disadvantaged child's care. These projects brought elements of family-type in the residence institutions that refer to the change of the room decoration, dividing space, starting programs on developing child-family relationships, and even the building of small family houses, equipped with up-to-date appliances. These experiences at local level provided data to the Center on Resources and Information for Special Professions (CRIPS) establishing the standards of child welfare in foster care centers. Once endorsed by the National Authority, these standards have become the basis for drawing up the institutional project of each foster care center. The CRIPS and county specialists who elaborated the standards consider that these working instruments should be periodically reviewed. Since any child must enjoy the basic right of living in a family, if his or her situation requires temporary protection in a residential-type institution, this has to be a center opened to the community and integrated in a system of services designed to protect children and their families. The child is the first who must know and hope that, at the foster care center, everything is being done for his/her return to a family environment. In some counties, and some sectors of Bucharest, a major goal has been accomplished: fitting up and equipping of the unit, as well as the organization of the activities of the community of resident children and center personnel in such a way as to make possible the implementation of the individualized protection project for each child. The relationships that develop in this framework give the assisted child the feeling of belonging to a family-like environment. By the organization and relations it promotes, the foster care center is part of a county system of services, meant to protect the child, provided by the County Directorate for the Protection of Children's Rights. Obviously, this makes it necessary to design and apply a communication strategy and to determine the community structures (school, church, etc.) to become involved as partners in implementing the institutional project of the foster care center, all related activities being coordinated by the County Directorate. One of the objectives of the standards regarding the care, education and socialization of the child refers to developing the child's responsibility for taking care of their own health. By educational methods adjusted to age, children are encouraged to go for a healthy life style, to understand the importance of personal hygiene, of healthy food, of physical exercise, both in everyday life as well as for their health once they become adults. The children in the foster care center are granted health care by family physicians; for this, the specialized public service concludes a cooperation agreement with the County Health Inspectorate. Each child benefits by medical check-ups when admitted in the foster care center, as well as at determined time periods (according to age) along their stay in the center, by regular dental and sight check-ups, and are treated accordingly. According to quality standards, the development of the affectivity and personality of the child in the foster care center necessarily calls for personalized intervention, a personalized project of family and social (re)integration. This project, turned into a working instrument in some foster care centers, features: objectives, stages and concrete activities, appointment of specialists and their responsibilities. The evaluations established in the personalized project are opportunities of reviewing and, sometimes, redevising the intervention plan. The child acquires the feeling of belonging to a group, right there, in the foster care center. He/she is involved in activities that presuppose concrete responsibilities, within the group, relationships with the other children, in conditions of respect and reciprocity. However, practicians also insist on having children become part of groups outside the foster care center as well (class, sports team, arts group, etc.), that are likely to broaden their socio-cultural horizon. New Professionals The structural changes trigger the opening of residence facilities and the development of family-type alternatives of the old professions and positions acquire a new identity brought about by the new child welfare system. For each member of the team and the team as a whole, positions, roles and competences get outlined, the fulfilment of which should start from the study of the special needs of the child in difficulty and from a realistic analysis of the possibilities to meet them. |
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Following the new perspective opened by the reform, access to education, information and culture presupposes in the first place the integration of institutionalized children in school units along with children living in a family environment, the participatory access to cultural, sport, and tourism activities, organized outside the facility, as well as encouraging communication with families and children from outside the institution. Professional Maternal Worker The specialists of this profession are licensed persons who work at home, looking after the proper raising, care and education of the children entrusted to them The child welfare committee in each county (sector) watches that the persons applying for the licence of professional maternal worker have full capability of exercise and, by their behavior in society, health and psychological profile, prove they are able to properly fulfill the obligations encumbent to a parent in the raising, care and education of their children. In order to be entrusted children from the foster care center, the applicants must have a dwelling place likely to cover the needs of cooking, hygiene, education and rest both for its users and for the children to be placed there or entrusted. The Family - Best Place to Be After 1990, when Romania started to give a greater deal of attention to institutionalized children, the first step being the signing of the International Convention on Child's Rights, financial support came from abroad. Between 1991 and 1995, UNICEF's assistance program was complemented with funds from the US, Danish and German governments. France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and other European countries have funded other programs. In 1993 the first national authority for child welfare was set up, followed two years later by the first action plan - the groundwork for future measures to reform the system. The emergence of a single authority encouraged the reform, with decision-making decentralization and emphasis on a new kind of services that provide children with an environment resembling the family one. The number of children the state cared for in nearly 700 specialized centers remained almost unchanged until 1996. Between 1997 and 1999, the number of children in foster care centers declined from 44,500 to 31,500, while the number of minors taken care of by alternative services almost doubled to 19,400. Moreover, NGOs became involved in child welfare to a greater extent, playing a major role in the training of substitute mothers. The "Adolescentul" Association, a non-political and non-profit NGO, founded in 1991 by a multidisciplinary team of specialists, carry out their programs in cooperation with national and international bodies. The "Luminita" program is conducted in cooperation with SONGE Belgium, with financial support form PHARE-LIEN (European Union) and has as a goal the creation of a socio-professional integration pattern for institutionalized young persons. In 1992, HOLT International Romania started a social assistance program for abandoned children or in danger of being abandoned. This program is funded by USAID, by Romanian and international organizations. The program is being run in Bucharest, Constanta and Mures, based on developing social assistance programs (Foster Care programs; pregnant women counselling; mother and child center programs.) The "Save the Children" organization, founded in April 1990, has carried out information and education activities, based on the UN Convention on Child's Rights; it has 12 branches across the country and some 7000 members.This organization is a member of the "Save the Children" International Alliance, being the first organization in Central and Eastern Europe to be admitted in this body, that has been granted the status of first-rank adviser of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It is a corresponding member of the International Social Service Working Group on Child Labour. The organization represents Romania in the International Alliance of NGOs that fight sexual exploitation and child trafficking (ECPAT). It is a member of the Child Rights Information Network and of the Romanian Forum for Children and Familes affected by HIV/AIDS. More and More Professional Parents In 2000, adoptions by Romanian families rose to 1189, a 38% increment from 1997. Also, the number of international adoptions rose 29% from the base year. At the end of 2000, the state was taking care of 119,041 children, of whom 68,148 were in residential-type institutions. 30,022 were in substitute families, while 20,873 children had been reintegrated in their natural families or adopted by Romanian families. In early 2001 the most urgent objectives of the National Authority for Child Welfare and Adoption (ANPCA) were: to reduce the number of institutionalized children, to prevent the institutionalization of children and to complete the restructuring of large residential institutions. ANPCA is to rethink the procedures related to adoption and clarify the legal provisions concerning the neglect, ill treatment or abuse of children in their own families. According to the legislation, the status of a substitute mother can be obtained by persons coming from established families, having children or not, who are not employed and wish to devote their time to caring for one or several abandoned children. The specialized services of the county directorates for child welfare are analyzing a large number of files on applicants that want to become licensed maternal workers. A moratorium on adoptions is also in place, in order to end practices that were incompatible with Romania’s international obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and which risked opening opportunities for children trafficking and other forms of abuse. For example, starting with 2001, the Romanian Adoption Committee suspended the registration of new foreign families requesting international adoption for at least one year. By Decision no. 401/November 20th 2001, the Prime Minister of Romania created the Independent Group for the Analysis of the International Adoption System. After a through investigation and historical analysis of the adoption system and of the institutional capacity of the NACPA and the Romanian Adoption Committee to monitor and implement policies in this field, the Group has identified the critical problems and immediate needs of the international adoption system in Romania. The Group proposed a legislative package containing eight laws revising the child protection system, including adoption. On April 18th 2002, the Government approved this report and decided to create a working group within the NACPA, in charge with the drafting of the legislative package mentioned above, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on Protection of the Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption. Nationwide Interest in Protecting Children If in 1999 about 2000 billion lei had been earmarked for the entire child welfare system, in 2000 institutionalized children got over 4000 billion lei from the state budget, plus various amounts from the local budgets, foreign credits and funds from the European Union and the World Bank. The National Conference on the child welfare strategy ruled at the end of February 2001
that funds from the budget for child welfare would grow 30% from the previous year. For the year 2002, 215 billion lei ($1 = 33000 lei) was specified
within the National Authority for Child Protection and Adoption (NACPA) budget for the
financing four national interest programs: Another program for integrating disadvantaged children is being run jointly with the
Romanian Orthodox Church. In several counties, residential units have already been
completed and assigned to "social families" who take over institutionalized
children and are supported in raising them. In 2001, caring for an orphan becomes a profitable activity for families that wish to
become involved in solving the problem of institutionalized children. The Government
provides 1.5-2 million lei for each child taken over. The Church selects from among the
faithful poor but honorable families who can raise, in a family environment, 5 or 6
children from foster care centers. The local authorities provide houses or apartments
refitted and properly equipped. In 2001, too, besides funds from the budget, the ANPCA receives support from abroad,
mainly through Phare programs. Financial and Logistic Support from the European Union At the end of 2000, the European Union launched a Phare program worth 25 million euro to support the reform of the child welfare system in Romania. That was based not only on the firm pledges of the Romanian authorities that they would further the reform, but also on an evaluation of the reform measures already taken, the conclusion of which showed that decentralizing the system had proved efficient. According to European specialists, the challenges the Romanian authorities are facing in the area of child welfare are related to cutting the number of children covered by this system, by preventing abandonment and by supporting families in need. Youngsters in children's homes have to be helped to integrate in society. The children will be included in relevant programs around the age of 15, in order to train them for jobs on demand on the labor market, identified with support from the local authorities. The experience accumulated in reforming the system has indicated the need for a better managerial training of local administrators in the child welfare system, so they can design and carry on local programs. The European Commission has recently launched, jointly with ANPCA, a fund of 19 million euro to support a program entitled "Children First," which involves grants for backing the child welfare reform. The program is aimed at creating alternative services of a family type, which will cause the old kind of institutions to fall into disuse and will prevent abandonment. The grants are worth between 50,000 and 300,000 euro per project, with the EU contribution apt to cover up to 100% of the cost of the project, in case the County Council undertakes to further support the respective activities after the completion of the project, assuming responsibility for its management and for providing sufficient and stable resources for a smooth operation. The categories of projects for which financing can be requested are: development and setting up of family care centers, emergency reception and evaluation centers for mothers with children, counseling services to prevent abandonment, family planning centers, rehab centers for youngsters who violated the law, or any other services that serve the good of children and their families.
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