External Assessment of the Ministry of Social Affairs Project

EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT OF THE MINISTRY OF SOCIAL AFFAIRS PROJECT

‘TRANSFORMATION OF INSTITUTIONS OF

SOCIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN’

(Strategy of Transformation of Institutions for Placement of Children and Adolescents and Development of Alternative Forms of Care in the System of Social Protection in Serbia)

Terms of Reference :-

As part of the Project Agreement between the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Child Rights Centre in Belgrade and UNICEF, it was stipulated that an external assessment of the Project formed an integral part of the Agreement and was to be undertaken at the completion of the first phase of the Project.

Methodology :-

The methodology for carrying out the external assessment of this action-orientated project includes desktop review of selected materials and documentation produced by the Project; interviews with all of the Project’s general and special teams, field visits and interviews with relevant staff and children in all of the 5 institutions involved in the Project.

Purpose and Objectives :-

This assessment will focus on the implementation phases of the Project, pinpointing

achievements and obstacles as measured against the project description and plan of

activities.

Specifically, the external assessment will evaluate the proposed models of

Transformation prepared for each Institution involved against the background of a child rights approach and comment on the feasibility of realising the precise transformation aspirations and intentions within the available timeframe and context.

Based upon analysis of findings and interviews whilst in Belgrade, the Evaluation will conclude with concrete and specific suggestions and recommendations on the next phases and future direction of the Transformation process of institutions for children in Serbia.

Specific suggestions and recommendations will be targeted to all 5 institutions and be addressed to all stakeholders in the Transformation project

Description of the Project of Transformation in summary :-

This Transformation Project is at the core of the reform programme of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Transformation of family support and child protection services are vitally important in Serbia at the present. It is vitally important that the effects of a decade of pauperisation when children are victims of transition and social upheaval and during which time there was a stagnation of the social protection system.

Furthermore, a combination of poverty and the iron grip of centralisation of funding and decision-making destroyed the very few examples of alternative forms of care.

Over the past decade in Serbia, the ability of communities in Serbia to absorb social problems has been seriously eroded and community-provision has withered. That this is the case is well illustrated by reference to the balance of children in public care, where the ratio of children in institutions as compared to family forms of care is 70% -30% and by reference to a situation where 65% of children under the age of 14 in State care are in institutions.

Decentralisation of funding and of decision-making are a crucial part of reform in Serbia if family support and child protection services are to be effective and sensitive to local needs.

Transformation in the context of this Project concerns the following :-

Rationalisation of existing institutions in Serbia to make them more child-orientated and child friendly
Development of alternative forms of care and identifying the contribution of the institutions for children in this process
Utilising methods for the early detection of children at risk
Supporting vulnerable birth families to help them maintain their children at home
Improvement of services of care and protection provided to children and adolescents for whom placement is the only possible form of care

Relationship with other projects in the social care sphere in Serbia

It is of vital importance that the transformation of Institutions of Social Care for Children have an appropriate relationship and link with other current projects in the social care sphere in Serbia. These projects in the social care sphere include :-

Foster care – not supported by the donor community
Social Protection Project- ended, but Mike/Dragan Innovations project and Life Story Books element of the Project continue
Development of Professional Standards in the Social Work Centres
Relationship of Legal and Professional Procedures in Centres for Social Work
Development of integral social protection model in local communities – “Social Welfare Centres and the Local Community Working Together Towards the Promotion of Social Welfare”
Review of system for Categorisation and Classification of Children with Special Needs.

These initiatives must have a working relationship to each other.

Background, context and principal baseline directions of the Transformation of Institutions of Social Care for Children Project :-

rationalistion of the existing institutions making them more child - orientated and child-friendly
development of alternative forms of care
providing conditions for supporting the natural family and early detection of children at risk
improvement of services provided to children and adolescents for whom placement into institutions is the only possible form of care – (need to specify those)
review of admission and discharge procedures to and from institutions involving children, parents, institutions and the Centre for Social Work.

It is the intention that these changes should be informed by best contemporary practice in child protection, based on the best interests of children.

While there is exhaustive analysis of the reasons for the pauperisation of the country, with children as the principal victims, those involved in the project manage to rise above gloom and despondency and make realistic and optimistic proposals as to the way forward. In examining recent history, the point is made that the crisis in Yugoslavia over the past 11 years not only led to stagnation of the social protection system but led to distinct adverse trends in protection of children and adolescents.

Whilst not all families in poverty are dysfunctional, most dysfunctional families tend to be in poverty.

Outcomes of general pauperisation included :-

children with two parents placing children in institutions for reasons of poverty alone
potential for municipal and community involvement in family support and child protection strategies was denied by absolute centralisation of funding
Guardian ship Teams of the Centres for Social Work used institutional forms of care as the first option, due to a tendency of demotivated staff tending to resort to the easiest option and to the disintegration of alternative forms of care such as fostering, leading to an unfavourable ratio between institutional and family care of the order of 70% - 30%
Consequently large numbers of young children are being brought up in residential care, with well-known consequences for development, attachment and achievement
There will always be some children for whom residential care will be required, as practically the only way of providing for their very specialised needs. The indiscriminate use of institutional care in Yugoslavia has led to an inadequately specialised residential sector for those small numbers of children and young people for who specialised care in Institution is required. On the other hand, institutions for children and young people with a wide range of developmental difficulties suffer from having excessively large numbers of clients (580 in Vrdnik) with ages ranging from 7 to 40 years. Anything approaching good practice is not possible where children are warehoused in such large numbers.
. The State is not in a position to support adequately the parents of children with pronounced developmental difficulties to maintain their children at home, by means of specialised support services and respite care services and financial aid; a situation that has encouraged parents of such children to opt for placement of their children in institutions. Such parents are often encouraged by medical professionals to place their children in institutions. Over-reliance upon and recourse to institutional forms of care has also discouraged the growth of community care of children with special needs and specialised resources being available in the community
Professional staff in Centres for Social Work are not conversant or comfortable with modern techniques of working effectively with seriously dysfunctional families, which has led to recourse to institutional forms of care instead of intensive support and supervision of at-risk families designed to keep families together
The current process of categorisation children with special needs by Commissions for Categorisation needs urgent reform as children are over-classified with a number of consequences, one of which is that parents are convinced that the handicaps of their children are such as to make their caring for their child at home well-nigh impossible, which precipitates their placing their children into institutions

Summary of Aims of the Project

To focus on institutions with the following aims :-

improving the standard of residential care for children and young people and as a consequence improving their quality of life whilst in the three different types of institutions concerned in the Project
pinpointing and facilitating the possible contribution of these five institutions to the development of alternative forms of care for children and young people
rationalistion of the existing institutions making them more child-orientated and child-friendly
development of alternative forms of care
providing conditions for supporting the natural family and early detection of children at risk

These aims will only be achieved if there is a willingness on the part of the Government of Serbia to support the funding of improving standards in residential care and alternative community-based forms of care

Special objectives of the Project can be summarised as follows :-

formulation of individual care plans for all children in the 5 institutions concerned in the Transformation Project
definition and elaboration of international standards of professional work with vulnerable children, both in improving regimes in residential care and in measures required to safely reintegrate children to family forms of care from institutions
identification of alternative or innovative forms of care within the institutions themselves
analysis of potential needs of the local community for services such as – foster care, day care, patronage with the option of the Institution itself being the active initiator and participant with local Centre for Social Work

Strategies employed for Project implementation :-

analysis of the situation of children in the institutions concerned
active participation in activities of the reform process
mobilisation of staff in institutions concerned in the Project to develop 5-year development plans for the respective institutions
organisation of training courses for staff after due consultation

During a meeting with Dobrila Grujic and Milena Kukic from Ministry of Social Affairs and members of the Project Team, the pearls and pitfalls of fostering in Serbia at present.

During discussion of the Project on foster care, which is not yet funded, but which may attract finance from UNICEF or the Social Innovations Fund, I repeated my concerns about the dangers of foster care being introduced in environments where poverty-driven considerations lead to children being cared for away from home.

The dangers of introducing foster care in nations in transition includes “net-widening” by simply using it because it is there. The real danger is that resources are diverted away from beleaguered birth families to developing foster care. At all costs, Ministries and Municipalities need to give financial, practical and moral support to vulnerable families to stay together unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise.

Planning is also needed on the expertise required to fill the vacuum created when “fosterable children” move out of institutions to ensure that those children left are to gain maximum benefits of staying in an Institution. This raises the question of what precisely is residential care for? Undoubtedly, residential care needs to be more specialised and technical assistance is needed to build the capacity of staff working in specialised institutions to meet the needs of children with special needs.

Redeployment

There is some potential for staff in Institutions for Children without Parental Care to be redeployed as foster carers and to a range of community-based resources as alternatives to institutions. Fostering will be developed but as a first priority, to care for children from “failing” families, with the following rationale :-

to avoid the child having to be placed in a residential/institutional setting
to offer the birth parents the support of the foster family during regular contact between parent and child at the foster home
to allow the Centre for Social Work staff to work intensively on the problems of the family with the direct aim of improving circumstance at hoe so that the child/children can return home

Consequently, foster care in this context will essentially be a temporary arrangement.

Dobrila Grujic and Milena Kukic pointed out that Centres for Social Work need to get into case management and away from shared team decisions. (Perils of team decisions illustrated by the maxim that a camel is a horse designed by a committee). One further proposal is that children in their last year of institutional care be placed in a family to prepare them for independence (such families exist in Vovodina)

Findings from visits and from review of written materials concerning the Project

The Correctional Institution for the Education of Children and Youth – Belgrade (popularly known as “Vasa Stajic”). Director - Zivorad Gajic

This Institution is one of four such institutions in Serbia, comprising the main Institution (Treatment Centre) and a Shelter (Admissions Centre) The main Institution has capacity for 96 children, with 20 bedrooms with 5 children to a room. The Shelter, evidently unique in Serbia, has 4 bedrooms with a capacity for 30 children. More children tend to populate the Shelter in winter rather than in summer. Overpopulation creates problems with personal space and for a life of dignity.

Prior to 1990, there were 3 separate institutions in Belgrade in separate locations dealing with the different needs of children sentenced by Courts as being in conflict with the law; those from dysfunctional families and with problematical behaviour and those who were lost, runaways or “vagabonds”. In 1990’s a decision was taken to bring the three establishments together, which effectively had the result of bringing children with a wide range of different needs and problems together. There is therefore a mélange of children who have broken the law, neglected and abused children, homeless and runaway children, all with different needs.

Children in the Institution receive education at primary and secondary school level, with a few children receiving education in schools in the community. The provision of education within the Institution has the effect of further marginalising these children and shutting them off from outside influences enjoyed and experienced by other children. There appeared to be no compelling reason as to why the majority of these children could not be educated in local communities.

Referral routes

Children are sent to these institutions as part of a sentence handed down by a Court of law or by Centres for Social Work. Those under sentence of the Court are required to remain in the Institution for at least 6 months and no more than 3 years. The Centres for Social Work typically send children to the Institution who are neglected or abused or who have broken the law but are under the age of 14. It appears that a variety of community-based measures have been attempted and failed before recourse to the Institution is taken. (This would include supervision by birth parents, supervision by parents or supervision by another family, enhanced by support from staff of the Juvenile Team of the Centres for Social Work. It is said that some 40-45% of children in the Institution in Belgrade are sent there from Institutions for Children Without Parental Care and some 50% from foster families. (This raises the question of the criteria used by Institutions for Children Without Parental Care and foster families for deciding that these children can no longer be sustained where they are and the decision-making processes of the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Centres for Social Work).

For example, it is not clear what the trigger is for sending children from both these settings to the Institute for Education and Youth.

This also raises the question of the rights of these children involved in such welfare networks. Children below the age of 14 are deemed to be below the age of criminal responsibility. As such, they are not entitled to have access to due process of law or to other forms of legal protection – no right to a lawyer, no right to go before a Court, no right to appeal.

It may be welfare, but is it justice? (Loss of freedom, privacy, education, health, opportunities) Contravention of several Articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Every third child in the Institution has multiple developmental disorders. The crimes committed by the children are many and varied and as to be expected, closely related to birth families with serious and intractable problems. The children have been failed by their families and failed by the system.