Priority of the Labour and Social Policy Ministry was to step up the process of de-institutionalisation of children in social homes, Deputy Labour Minister Ivanka Hristova said on October 10.

The announcement was made after a meeting between Hristova, representatives of the Association of parents of intellectually handicapped children and the foundation Movement of Bulgarian mothers.

Labour and Social Policy Ministry would propose to the Committee for the Operative programme Human Resource Development a 10 million leva restructuring project for social institutions for children, including increasing the quality of services, Hristova said.

At the end of 2006, some 8653 children were in specialised institutions. Over the past years trends have been to decrease the number of children who are in institutions and to increase their care in family circumstances. Compared to 2001, there were now 31.4 per cent less children in institutions, Hristova said.

Institutionalisation should only be a last resort when all other options for care had been exhausted, Hristova said.

For children in the social home in Mogilino, about whom a documentary on BBC television had provoked reaction of shock, Hristova said that in the home there are currently 67 children, 37 of them under 18, with a staff of 60. The evaluation of the children is renewed and until the home would be closed down, solutions are being sought by placing children in family circumstances where specialised professional help and social services would be available.