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Residential institutional care has long-term negative consequences for children’s physical, psychological and emotional well-being. Yet some parents are driven by economic, social and cultural pressures to place their children in institutions. In 2010, following national and international outcry over the poor conditions in children’s homes across the country, the Government of Bulgaria adopted the Vision for Deinstitutionalization of Children in Bulgaria. This five-year national strategy sought to end children’s institutionalization and move towards a more family-centric system of care.
To…
Abstract
Objective
Violence against children is a global public health concern. Researchers are increasingly using self-report measures of physical, psychological, and sexual violence and neglect for population-based surveys. The current gold-standard measure, the 45-item ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool has been used across the world. This study assesses its adequacy for measuring abuse across countries.
Methods
Multiple group confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the configural, metric and scalar invariance of the measure across nine Balkan countries. Data were…
The two-year project ‘Leaving Care – An Integrated Approach to Capacity Building of Professionals and Young People’, has aimed to build the capacity of professionals working with children and young people who are leaving care as well as to strengthen support networks for young care leavers. The project has been coordinated by SOS Children’s Villages International and implemented in cooperation with SOS Children’s Villages’…
As India recovers from the second wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it has resulted in a severe impact on children and families. According to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, GoI, 577 children have been orphaned since May 2021. The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has shared that over 9,3000 children have lost parents or have been abandoned since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
In the backdrop of deaths in families, extended periods of shutdown and loss of employment opportunities, the pandemic has pushed families to the…
An estimated eight million children still live in institutions across the world. Deinstitutionalisation involves strengthening and developing services to prevent children being separated from families. It involves closing down institutions; including children in society and in their communities; and giving them their right to a family. This film from Lumos is about the people who know that there is an alternative to institutional care, and who are working hard to make it happen. These are their stories, in their own words.
The video highlights work to transition institutions in…
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Experiences of abuse and violence have devastating consequences for children, and in some cases, these consequences are lifelong. Loss of trust, feelings of rejection and abandonment, trauma, fear, anxiety, insecurity, and shattered self-esteem are just some of the impacts of ill-treatment on the wellbeing of children. Consequences are far-reaching, extending well into adulthood, and they include increased prevalence of mental health issues, a higher likelihood of experiencing violence from a wider range of perpetrators and high socio-economic impacts and costs. Further,…
Abstract
In recent years in Bulgaria the type of institutional care for children at risk is changing giving priority to family and close to family environment. The will to implement this process of all involved responsible agencies, institutions and non-governmental organizations has found expression in a number of regulations, strategic and program documents, as well as innovative and successful practices. Economic, political and social changes that accompany the transition has led to new problems and exacerbated existing problems. Current study makes analyses of the national strategy for…
Introduction
According to the 2011 UNICEF report, the situation of the children in Bulgaria is worrying. Even though decreasing, the number of children in the specialised institutions continues to be high (more than 5000 children) and the poverty is determined as the major factor.
It is also important to take into account the general decrease of the child population in Bulgaria, which indicates that the relative decrease of the number of children in specialised institutions is not at all that drastic and the number of Roma children –still high.
In the recent years significant changes…
According to this report from Lumos, in 2010 there were more than 6,700 children living in institutions in Bulgaria. This rate was higher than the international average. In 2009, 3,000 children in Bulgaria were admitted into institutions. Lumos reports that conditions were particularly poor in disability institutions and mortality rates were unusually high.
In 2010 Bulgaria launched many reforms in order to lower the number of children entering and living in institutions. The reforms involved strengthening social services, foster care development programs, and…
Published jointly with UNICEF, this new BCN Working Paper focuses on the role of gatekeeping in strengthening family-based care and reforming alternative care systems. Gatekeeping refers to systematic procedures aimed at ensuring that alternative care for children is used only when necessary, and that the type of care provided is suitable to the individual child. This Working Paper reviews different approaches to gatekeeping in five countries--Brazil, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Moldova, and Rwanda--to consider what has and has not worked, to analyze lessons learned from practice, and to…