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Romania used to be infamous for its nightmarish orphanages. Since 2001, however, the national system of care for vulnerable children has been undergoing a successful reform process. Authorities in the county Brasov in central Romania bring children found begging on the streets, youths who have been abused, and abandoned infants to the emergency receiving centre 'Domino'. They are required to stay at the centre until they can be reunited with their families. If this is not possible, they are moved to a permanent residential facility of the state. Domino, which currently hosts 15 children, looks like a big family house. After breakfast, the kids who do not go to school go play in the backyard, with three caretakers looking after them. Infants are in a perpetual quest for hugs, while the teenagers are more aloof, playing cards or chatting to one another. Marian, almost six, is showing off his new schoolbag. He cannot speak, but he will manage to explain what he means with his eyes, his face and his hands. He wants to show what he has inside the bag. It's toys rather than notebooks. Because of his delayed development, Marian is not ready for school. He has been living in the centre for some months now, and the staff is pleased that he has made progress, even managing to say "mama" to one of the caretakers. His real mother is nowhere to be found. Marian was brought to the centre after he was hospitalised, with no one asking for him. Mihaela Stefanescu, the psychologist at 'Domino, says he is most likely to move on to a house where he will live together with five to nine other children affected by similar disabilities, in a family-like structure that provides specialists who can address his needs. One of the main elements of reform of the childcare system is the switch from placing youths in huge residential centres to hosting them in smaller family-type units and, as far as possible, finding them foster families. In 1989, when the Communist Party lost power, more than 100,000 children were living in dire, overcrowded orphanages. Childcare before 1989 relied almost exclusively on institutionalisation, with practically nothing being done to reunite children with their families or encourage adoptions. Infant abandonment rates were high, as many mothers were giving birth to unwanted children following a decree passed in the 1960s outlawing abortions. Adoptions not the answer After 1989, when the media started revealing the horrors of Romanian orphanages, a rush of international adoptions began. Many argued at the time that this slowed down the reform of the childcare system, as corrupt officials had an interest in keeping a pool of "hopeless" children available for adoption by well-off families in the West. In 2001, a moratorium was placed on international adoptions, and, in 2005, international adoptions were outlawed. The debate continues about whether these should be made possible again, under more restrictive conditions. Reform of the childcare system started in 2001, when the government made child welfare a priority. In 2004, new legislation on children's rights was passed to encourage family-type care in place of institutionalisation. A massive decentralisation of the system followed, with youngsters placed in charge of County Directorates for Social Assistance and Child Protection. According to the National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights (ANPDC), at the beginning of 2008, 73,286 children were under the protection of the state. Only 25,114 of them were in residential centres, while another 2,012 had been placed with foster families. In all 46,160 lived in family structures, mostly with distant family members and maternal assistants hired by the state to raise the children. According to data from the County Directorates summarised in the 2006 study 'Child Welfare in Romania' by the Ministry of Labour, Social Solidarity and Family, between 2000 and 2005 more than 200 houses and more than 300 apartments nationwide were transformed into family-type placement centres for children in difficulty. In the same period, 79 day care centres for disabled children and 102 general day care centres were opened. Close to 10,000 maternal assistants were hired. Fifteen shelters for street children were opened. Partly as a result of some of these programmes, child abandonment rates have dropped considerably over the last couple of years. According to ANPDC, in 2007 only 1,710 infants were abandoned in maternity centres by their parents, as compared to 5,130 such cases in 2003. Mortality rates for children in state care have also decreased. According to the Sanitary Statistics Yearbook of the Romanian Ministry of Health, between 1989 and 2005, the number of deaths of children in state-run units fell by 67 percent. At 'Domino', the 15 children are cared for by seven educators, a psychologist, a social worker and medics, apart from the administrative staff. Nationwide, 41,118 caretakers of all types look after a little more than 100,000 children. Lack of trained staff But still, the main problem in the childcare system is the lack of qualified personnel, says Cristina Vasiloiu, country representative for Romania with the Children's High Level Group, an international organisation working to improve welfare for vulnerable children. The group was founded in 2005 by writer JK Rowling and the British politician Emma Nicholson (formerly a rapporteur on Romania for the European Parliament, Nicholson used to be one of the fiercest critics of childcare in this country). "There is no doubt that there has been a considerable improvement of the whole child welfare system over the last couple of years," Vasiloiu told IPS. Among areas where a lot of work is still needed, Vasiloiu mentions helping 18-year-olds coming out of state care to find jobs and live an independent life; overcoming widespread prejudice against children with HIV, many of whom are in state care; closing down the remaining old-style residential centres; getting all children with disabilities out of residential centres and placing them in family-like structures where they can receive specialised care; and creating more day care centres for infants with disabilities, so that they need not be separated from their families in order to receive professional help. Underlying everything, says Vasiloiu, "is the need to change our attitude towards our children with problems." Mihaela Stefanescu, the psychologist at 'Domino', agrees. "The most difficult work is not with the children, but with the adults, because they cannot admit they make mistakes in bringing up their sons and daughters," she told IPS. "The toughest cases are those when the children have parents but we know they would be worse off returning home than staying with us." Further information
pdf: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42759