This presentation to the 2012 Sofia Conference by Brankica Janković, State Secretary, Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Policy, introduces the achievements and challenges faced in altering the attitude of professionals working with children with disabilities from preferring institutions to family-based care systems.

In the attached document, Lumos reports that 8 million children worldwide are in institutions globally.  

This literature review by the Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education at the University of Oxford was undertaken to identify the ways in which carers’ children might be more effectively prepared and supported when their families are fostering.

The second of two important presentations by Dr. Stela Grigorash, the Director of Partnerships for EveryChild Moldova, on the important work and lessons learnt in reforming the care system in that country.

This study compares the data on young people transitioning from out of home care from 9 non-communist European countries examined in the INTRAC document with 14 post-communist countries reviewed in the SOS and INTRAC publications. 

This report provides a summary of work undertaken by Lumos - together with governmental authorities, international partners, local medical professionals and families - to ensure that all children born with hydrocephalus receive the life-saving treatment they need, and which is their fundamental human right. 

This Report from the international ministerial conference, held in Sofia, 21–22 November 2012, entitled 'Ending the placement of children under three in institutions: support nurturing families for all young children', brings together the presentations, political commitments and priority actions identified by the participants, including 20 governments from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

This study funded by Big Lottery and undertaken in partnership between the University of Bristol and Buttle UK, a grant-giving charity for vulnerable children, aims to fill gaps in understanding about the experiences of children living with kins, and in particular how children in informal kinship care view their situation.

The objective of this study was to determine whether children's characteristics and/or institutional characteristics were predictors of severe punishments (including beatings) and/or frequency of punishments that children received from staff in Romanian institutions. 

This graphic provides a visual representation of the causal framework of children’s institutionalization in Moldova. It was developed as part of the USAID/DCOF-funded project “Protecting children in Moldova from family separation, violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.”