Adventure

"Becoming a foster parent is both a challenge and an adventure," Shalapatova said, noting that patience was a vital prerequisite quality for candidates. "This applies to the application procedure, the approval period, everyday life with the child and all the specialists who will work with the family."   

And here comes the first challenge. A candidate foster family has to wait four months for approval. "Our experience shows that this period can prove too long for most candidates who are usually driven by emotion and desire to start taking care of a child in need immediately, something which cannot happen. After all, we are talking of a child’s life whose history must adapt to the foster family’s history. "That’s why there is a need for meetings, conversations and interviews with all family members and this takes time."   

The procedure also requires training of foster parents to prepare them for what is about to happen. "Most candidates feel that as long as they have managed to raise their own children they would have no problems doing so with someone else’s child," Shalapatova said. "By the end of the four-month period, however, candidates themselves often say that the period is too short and should be longer."

In most countries with decades of tradition of foster parenting, this period is at least six months. Romania, for example, has a six-month period of assessment, training and approval which more or less has become academic. "This is required because professional foster parents are expected to take care of some of the most difficult and complicated cases of children deprived of parental care," Shalapatova said.

The procedure
All aspiring foster parents should have an overriding ambition to take care of a child in trouble, Shalapatova said. Then and only then comes the issue of paperwork. This can take a month to be processed by the authorities.

Candidates have to prove that they are in good health and can provide a stable environment for the child. Meetings and interviews with all family members then ensue. "This is necessary because every family member becomes a foster parent to the child and we need to have everybody’s consent for that. We should not assume that if the foster family’s own children are very small that they would not understand what is happening because there are ways to inform them that they will have a new brother or sister," Shalapatova said. "Otherwise there is a great risk that the foster care could fail."     

Significantly, there’s no age bar for candidate foster parents. However, social welfare services have the right to assess if older candidates are capable of taking care of children with special needs. After selection comes the training which should address what happens after the foster child comes to his or her new home and what his/her needs and problems might be.  

Subsequently, the assigned social worker prepares a report before the respective municipal children’s committee who has the final say on whether candidates can become foster parents and take care of the child.

"We fully support this procedure because we know that it is being done for the sake of children. Some may view the four-month period as too long but it is important for the child because it gives everyone – the child, foster parents, social workers and experts - a certain sense of security that this particular family and child will be the best possible match," Shalapatova said.    

Challenges
At the October 25 meeting foster families put forward a list of demands from the institutions. One was for an increase in the pay that foster parents get because the 250-leva monthly salary professional foster parents receive does not encourage others to follow suit. Families have also asked that the state - in the form of the three-month old government of Boiko Borissov - should pay them in advance.  

"Since the start of the new Government’s term we have been invited to a number of meetings to discuss the most pressing problems of children’s welfare. We believe in an open dialogue with institutions because solving problems can only happen after we acknowledge their existence," Shalaptova said. "Today, the state is showing that it is planning and prioritizing issues which is a main ingredient to success," she said.  

Another demand was the requirement for foster parents to sign labour contracts with social services - without forfeiting the right to another employment contract - so that they could have another source of money.   

To facilitate better organisation, foster families also asked for a state body to be set up with its focus on parental care in Bulgaria. To match this demand, foster families decided to set up their own organisation called the National Foster Care Association because "we are convinced that with joint efforts we can raise awareness of foster parenting problems and solve problems," Shalapatova said.