This report gives an overview of the documentary reality TV series, “Life as it is-foster families,” which UNICEF in Bulgaria launched in 2010 as a part of its agenda to stop children under 3 years of age from being placed in institutions and to close the infant homes for institutional care. The TV series filmed real life stories of 11 foster families for about seven months, showing the positive outcomes for the children living in foster care as well as challenges foster families face to take care of a child who is coming from an institution.
The TV series aimed to raise public awareness about the harmful effects of institutional care on child development, educate the audience of the importance and benefits for children to live within families, promote foster care and foster parents as a better alternative to institutional care, and continue the fundraising efforts from the telethon, Magnificent Six, organized by UNICEF and bTV.
12 episodes were broadcasted during a 3-month period, one episode per week, on the largest Bulgarian national television channel, bTV. A hotline for people interested in becoming foster parents received twice as many calls after the series aired. Approximately 250 foster families within 220 children in foster care existed at the end of 2008. As a result of the popularity and resonance of the TV series, as proven by the high television ratings, more than 270 foster families were approved during the airing of the TV series and more than 330 children have been place for a short or long period of time.
