ON the eve of the launch of the European Union's monitoring report on Bulgaria, Save the Children produced their own "Alternative Comprehensive Monitoring Report on Bulgaria 2005", focussing on issues of child welfare. The report highlights three key areas for attention:
* children in institutions and the development of alternatives to institutional care
* education, a key to social inclusion: the on-going educational segregation of children with disabilities and ethnic minorities
* adoption.
Iva Boneva, Save the Children country manager, Desislava Koleva, Programme Officer for Inclusive Education and Latinka Ducheva, Communications Officer, spoke to The Echo about their organisation's approach to child welfare in response to Orphanages: the vicious circle (The Sofia Echo, issue 46, November 11) which examined some of the issues raised by the EU report.
They see their first task as communicating the basic message that having children living in institutions is a problem. Rather than viewing this as a problem in terms of "orphans who need hot lunches", Boneva says that people need to become aware that this is a systematic problem. She reiterates what is stated in the EU report - that most children living in institutions are not true orphans, but children who have parents and families. "Two per cent of the future of Bulgaria is institutionalised for no clear reason," says Boneva.
"If you ask a Western European about the plight of children in institutions, everyone will speak about Romania," says Koleva. "But, in terms of numbers they have [a population of] about five million children and approximately 40 000 are in institutions. In Bulgaria, we have [a population of] 1.5 million children and about 30 000 children in institutions on a permanent or temporary basis."
"The basic problem is that our society doesn't see institutionalised care as something bad that harms the child and has raised costs in terms of the state budget," says Koleva.
Boneva, Koleva and Ducheva believe that in spite of good intentions on the part of directors and staff, institutions are intrinsically damaging to children. "Even if they do their best, an institution cannot replace a family and harms the child forever," says Ducheva.
"Of course directors of institutions believe they are doing their best," says Boneva, "but they can't love and hug every child. Also they have a vested interest in keeping more children in the home because every child brings them money ... If the number of children falls under a certain number, you'll have to close down the institution or make some staff redundant." She says she heard of cases in which staff from institutions go into 'mahalas' where Roma communities live, to encourage parents to leave their child in the institution for the winter, with the appealing offer of clothing and feeding the child. When spring comes the institutions make it difficult for the parents to take the child back. "They want to keep the money, they want to keep the staff, but they think they are doing their best for the children," says Boneva. She says that because people have been working within the system of institutionalisation for so long, they don't perceive it as a problem and that it is also the case that "very often the parents who leave their children in orphanages come from orphanages themselves." Thus, the system is self-perpetuating.
So, how can the cycle of institutionalisation be broken? "The way out of institutions is alternatives to institutional care. One is foster care, one is prevention and one is re-integration, where the child is returned to his or her family. Prevention works best," says Ducheva. She cites as an example their experience in prevention work in Rousse. A social worker in a maternity ward talked to women who were planning to put their child in an institution or up for adoption. Women who remained convinced that they wanted to leave their child were provided with help in correctly completing the necessary papers to help the adoption process. Those who were planning to leave their child for financial reasons or because of a lack of support from their families were offered help and support in terms of clothes, toys, and contributions from an integration fund on a case-by-case basis. "In this way, working in Rousse they managed to reduce the number of children entering institutions by 30 per cent over two to three years," says Ducheva.
In cases where it is not possible, or not in the child's best interest to be reintegrated into their families, Boneva believes that adoption or foster care provide good alternatives. She says that the "legislation framework has been in place for two or three years and foster care works everywhere including Romania, but people don't want it to work. When we say institutions are very profitable, we are talking millions and millions of dollars." She says that institutions employ about 12 000 people in Bulgaria and that "12 000 people becoming redundant is a very serious thing, even in the eyes of the EU because it will increase our unemployment rate by percentages and now we are fighting to reduce it." However, Save the Children's "Cost of Exclusion" research shows that it is much cheaper for children to be kept at home and the family given some support, than for them to stay in institutions and she is positive that these alternatives to institutional care would be able to cope with the de-institutionalisation of the estimated 30 000 children currently living in institutions in Bulgaria.
In order for this to happen, she says, two basic things need to happen. First, funds tied up in institutions need to be reallocated into foster care or kinship care (where the child goes into the care of its extended family) and improvements need to be made to the adoption process, namely the formation of a national register (at present there are 28 registers). Second, there is a need to change people's mindset regarding institutionalisation and alternative care. Ducheva says that the majority of people think that foster care is taking a child home for Christmas and then returning them to the institution. "These are young, intelligent people. They just don't have the information."
A way of achieving this change in mindset and also a key part of the de-institutionalisation process is inclusive education. About 5 000 children are currently living in 'special schools' and more than 10 300 in 'auxiliary schools'. Special schools are run under the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and are mainly for children with severe physical disabilities. Koleva argues that children at these schools do not get any training or education. "Even if they don't have any problems with their mental health, they simply don't get any education, which is absurd," she says. Auxiliary schools are run under the Ministry of Education and are for children with "light mental disabilities". Children are sent to auxiliary schools if their teachers report that the child is unable to cope with the education process in a mainstream school. The Special Commission tests the child to determine whether they should attend an auxiliary school. The tests are conducted in Bulgarian and so a high proportion of children attending auxiliary schools are of Roma origin, as they don't understand the tests. They say that students are also recruited from the mahalas with the offer of board, food and shelter.
"The children basically don't have any prospects for a future if they live in such a school," says Boneva. And, again, these institutions are not regarded as a problem. "A lot of people talk about orphanages and institutions. They don't talk about auxiliary schools. Like the orphanages, these schools are hidden in small villages. This is a very communist approach - whoever is different should be hidden," says Boneva. "We want inclusive education to take place in Bulgaria, both for children with disabilities and children from ethnic minorities. All the children learn together in the classroom and teachers are trained together with support teachers to respond to the individual needs of the children. In this way children are not lacking in social skills. After they have graduated they can have a life. They don't go to institutions for adults and vegetate."
Save the Children is currently providing support and training for 31 'mainstream' schools throughout Bulgaria, to provide an inclusive education programme for 12 000 children, five per cent of whom have learning disabilities and 22 per cent of whom are from ethnic minorities. Save the Children works with the Ministry of Education in the "Index for inclusion programme" to provide resource teachers, training and support to mainstream schools which have showed motivation in implementing the programme.
They hope that in this way, by combining inclusive education with alternatives to institutional care, the number of children in institutions in Bulgaria can be dramatically reduced. Although the Government announced a reduction in the number of children in institutions, Boneva states that this was due to a manipulation of the system, rather than to real change. "We're constantly fighting with the Government about the numbers because they invented this system. They changed the definition of an institution when we were widely criticised two years ago by the EU again about this two per cent of Bulgarians who live in institutions. They changed the definition of an institution to exclude these schools and homes for young juvenile offenders. And all of a sudden from 30 000 children, we have 11 000 children in institutions literally overnight. It was a smart move on the part of the Government - so there is no problem anymore!" says Boneva.
"I believe that one of the underlying principles of most social policies in the world is that a mentally and physically sane, capable adult is responsible for ensuring the best for a child. It's not so in Bulgaria. You are a mentally sane, capable adult and you can abandon your child and somebody else will take care of the child - why?" says Boneva. She urges for a moratorium on new children entering institutions.
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