In Romania there are over 200 child protection institutions caring for several tens of thousands of children, teenagers and youth.
In Romania there are over 200 child protection institutions caring for several tens of thousands of children, teenagers and youth. Millions of euros are spent every year on running these centres, and the length of adoption procedures, of up to several years, is unfavourable to the children.
Many kids have ended up in care centres because of the demographic policy of the communist years, others have been abandoned in maternity hospitals, while others were found abandoned in the street. The fact is that, as soon as they leave these facilities, the lives of most of these children take a downward turn, because they have no direction to follow.
Some have moved on however and launched an unexpected challenge for the Romanian society. They have set up the Association of Adults from Childcare Centres called "Federeii", which has filed for the investigation of abuses committed in such facilities for the past five decades. The president of this Association is Daniel Rucareanu, who lived in two childcare centres and survived the system. He is now 37, has graduated from university and wants to help abandoned children:
"I think the number of people who lived in such facilities is very large and they have no one to represent them. We have a number of objectives. The first is to showcase the history of childcare facilities. So far there has not been such a project, regarding the establishment of a museum of care facilities, and the publication of the stories of the people who have lived this kind of experiences. We also want to set up a network of adults who have grown up in such centres, to enable them to become the partners of the public child protection authorities."
The effects of child institutionalisation are devastating, as Daniel Rucareanu remembers:
"Living in those mammoth institutions was by no means easy, especially if we keep in mind that the kids who got there already came with a severe trauma caused by the separation from their families. Over the years, new traumas would build up, which were related to the lack of emotional attachment, the trauma of institutionalisation as such, and which many of the children who grew up there never managed to get over. I lived in this kind of institution for seven years, one in Ploiesti and another in Busteni. I was lucky, because when I was quite young, at 8 or 9, I met a family from Buftea, an older couple who grew to love me and gave me the guidance I needed. They never adopted me. They would take me to their home during school holidays, and this is how I managed to get over that institutionalisation trauma and to avoid failure. Few institutionalised children manage to graduate from high school and to go to college. The percentage is around 2 or 3 per cent... I only knew my mother, I have never met my dad. I was taken to a childcare centre because of domestic abuse, and before that I used to live in the street for a long time."
According to the goals laid down in the 2014-2020 Strategy for Child Protection, Romania is to close down its old care facilities and to find solutions to have children reintegrated with families. The Hope and Homes for Children Romania Foundation has been working in Romania since 2000, and ever since it has been giving hope to orphan, abandoned or vulnerable children, helping them to grow up in foster families and homes. Here is Otto Sestak, the manager of the training programmes of Hope and Homes for Children Romania:
"After the 1989 Revolution, both the Romanian and the international community began to realise the scope of the problem of institutionalised children and the terrible conditions in which they lived. That is when the first images and televised reports on these children were made public. The reform of the system of child services started at some point in 1996 in Romania. This reform does not mean just replacing previous institutions with foster homes. Instead, it is about changing the paradigm of social services and their offer. Before, when noting that children were at risk in their own families, the authorities could only separate children from their families and to put them in foster care. Many believe that Romania's 100,000 institutionalised children in the early 2000s were in fact orphans. In reality, some 80 to 90% of them did have parents. They were not orphans. It's just that there was no coherent alternative at the time allowing them to stay with their families".
Since 2000, when the Hope and Homes for Children Foundation started operating in Romania, over 6,000 children were taken from institutions. 21,000 children were saved from being abandoned, while 47 foster homes were shut down forever. Overall, some 30,000 children are now enjoying a better life. Some were reunited with their families or were placed with a foster family. Others were integrated into family-like homes. Otto Sestak told us more:
"Our plan is for every child to have a home and a family. We want to give a home and a family to every child, we don't want to build foster homes, because then we are essentially doing little to change the type of care. We want to bring children closer to their families and to integrate them into a family-like environment. We will do this by shutting down old institutions and developing community and family oriented services. Indeed, part of our activity is linked to building these types of family-like homes. They offer a temporary alternative to children who cannot return to their families. On the one hand, there are children whose families are bad for them, who abuse their children. Other children are in need of long-term specialised care. For them, it's more useful to have access to a set of residential services. These are designed as a temporary solution and aimed at solving the children's problem, so that they may be able to return to their families later or be placed with a foster family".
The Hope and Homes for Children Foundation also takes an active role in the social integration of young people who are no longer in the state's care. So far, the Foundation has helped 456 such youngsters to find a purpose in their lives.
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