Gatekeeping has been widely promoted as a key strategy to combat the unnecessary institutionalisation of children. This paper by Andy Bilson and Cath Larkins provides details of research into the gatekeeping system in Bulgaria for children under three and examples from recent Bulgarian and international practice, with a particular focus on the experience in Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). The authors note that although gatekeeping remains a central approach to reduce institutionalisation, and numbers of children living in institutions have fallen in many countries in the region between 2000 and 2010, “there appears to be a system effect in which formal care increases despite efforts to introduce gatekeeping and where institutional care is replaced mostly with fostering and guardianship rather than support to birth families.”
The authors review pathways into and out of infant institutions in Bulgaria and assess the strength of the gatekeeping system in that country. They find that despite considerable progress in developing a system, a comprehensive legal system and procedures for assessment and decision-making being in place, and a national social work service being developed, there remains many issues with implementation, including limited numbers of staff in child protection departments; poor practice, variable commitment to deinstitutionalization and lack of training of social workers; a shortage of foster care; limited support for kinship care and community alternatives to support families, among others. Not least among the challenges is the overall increase in children entering formal care.
The authors suggest that gatekeeping could benefit from a social development orientation that would place its focus on assessment and service provision within a frame that promotes support for birth families and includes responses to the specific elements of poverty and social exclusion that lead to breakdown in families. They provide examples of how a social development orientation might be incorporated into gatekeeping strategies. According to them, improving the system of institutionalization in a country requires the development of legislation and services as well as a change in the way the state and others respond to the problems faced by families.
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