family support and social protection
TRANSCRIPT
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Children, Families and Social Protection in CEE/CIS
Elena Gaia, Regional Office CEE/CIS
Expert Consultation on Family and Parenting Support
Florence, 27 May 2014
This presentation
Children & Families in CEE/CIS: some trends
Social Protection: is it supporting children and families?
Promising practices
Going forward
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Fewer women under 20 give birth compared to 10 years ago, with the exception of Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Fertility rates among 15-19 year old women
in these countries, as well as in Romania and Bulgaria are over 30 per 1,000 live births.
More than 170,000 children were left without parental care in 2011 in 19 countries, half of them in the Russian Federation* and almost half girls. More than 60% of children left
without parental care in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan were boys. Disaggregated data are not available in all countries.
Children are left without parental care due to different reasons. While in Hungary it is predominantly due to temporary inability of parents to care for the child, in the Russian Federation and Belarus it is deprivation of parental rights. Abandonment of children is
more common in Montenegro and Kazakhstan.
More than half of young people in Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were unemployed in 2011.
Evidence suggests that in some countries disability is one of the main reasons for a child to be left without parental care. Close to 90% of children in Serbia and 60% of children in the Czech
Republic who were left without parental care had a disability.
Not many countries have records on the type of care solutions for children left without parental care. Among countries, where data are available, placement in residential care is
more common in Armenia and Tajikistan. About 15% of children in Georgia and Kazakhstan left without parental care were adopted in 2011.
More than 1.4 million children in 26 countries were in formal care in 2011. Half of these children are in the Russian Federation. The ratio of children in residential care to those in
family-type care is still high in some countries. A positive change in this ratio over the last decade is particularly noticeable in Bulgaria. The overall rate of children in formal care decreased in Latvia, Belarus, Romania, Estonia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
between 2002 and 2011.
Out of the total number of children having left public residential care , the proportion who were re-integrated to their families or placed in family type care varied from 16% in
Kyrgyzstan to 79% in Slovenia. On average 27% left residential care alone.
Social Protection in CEE/CIS
UNICEF Integrated SP Framework includes family support services as one of its four components
Cash transfers not sufficient to address the vulnerabilities a child or family faces
‘Social services’, broad term, varying definitions Focus on those services which aim principally to
reduce social and economic vulnerability of families and children to poverty and deprivation
Family and child support services, including social work, and home-based care
Keeping Families Together: role of SP
http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/2012_on_social_protection.pdf
Systems over-reliant on institutional responses fail to provide individualized support
Not designed to stimulate and help families overcome difficulty When asked why their children were placed into care, many
parents said it was because they could not find or access other forms of support
Weak outreach, leading to low take-up Excessive administrative barriers No institution responsible for supporitng families and children as a
whole Limited guidance to local governments on how to plan, finance and
implement services Social workforce small, not trained, low paid Funding and perceptions still favour institutional care
Social Protection in CEE/CIS: effectiveness
Gaps data availability, and lack of assessments of the impact of social protection on children; lack of programmatic evaluations and impact studies
Low value of cash transfers and low coverage of children and families in need, leading to limited poverty reduction
Social support and care services underdeveloped and underfunded
Fragmentation and lack of coordination As currently structured and administered, SP not
effectively relieving deprivations and vulnerabilities of children, and often unable to reach those most in need
• Young child wellbeing & home visiting – child protection, ECD and health
• Second decade, second chance – services for youth
Cross-sectoral approaches and interventions
Promising practices: Integrated Social Services
Single point of entry Comprehensive family assessment Joint case planning and management Co-location of services (or referrals) Sense of partnership, focus on meeting needs Based on ‘territorial social plans’ to determine
provision of services Provision of counseling, rehabilitation, financial
assistance, in-kind assistance, temporary shelter, social care at home and in residential care, legal aid
Armenia
Serbia: Family Support Services Model family outreach service in four cities, reaching 400
families with over 1,000 children in the coming 2 ys Contributes to preventing removal of children from families and
helps facilitate returns, through addressing challenges of poverty, disability, mental health, substance abuse or neglect
Technical support to development and standardization of new community services enabling family-based care: in 41 municipalities, tailor-made support and coaching to model the application of national standards
To increase parental skills and awareness about the early years, model parenting support centres in Belgrade and Nis: peer and professional counseling and programmes to build parenting skills for new parents (model assessed in 2013)
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Equitable reforms: the number of children with disabilities should decline at least at the same rate as the total number of children in residential care. In Serbia, the proportion of
children with disabilities in residential care decreased from 66% to 48%.
Source: UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS, TransMonEE 2013 Database (www.transmonee.org) .
Trend in total number of children in residential care and number of children with disabilities in public residential care, Serbia, 2000-2011
Albania: House of Colours Centre for specialized support to children and families in difficult
life circumstances, Tirana Municipality (since 2011) Target group: 500 children from 7 Roma and Egyptian
communities in Tirana, living on the streets and engaged in petty street jobs
Outreach team works directly with the communities and in the streets to identify cases of child abuse (2,500 families)
Provides emergency 24hrs services for most severe cases of children in street situation, including temporary accommodation
Children and their families are supported with psycho-social, legal, health services; also, meals and educational activities
For mothers: vocational training, job opportunities, assistance during legal and administrative procedures, and referral to other social services
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Bulgaria: Community-based outreach services for young children and families
Three Family Centres established in Shumen region, inter-sectoral service, providing outreach integrative social, health and educational services and measures for prevention and support of small children and families at risk in most marginalized communities
The design is tailored to address the real needs of children from excluded families and to utilize all potential entry points for making difference inside segregated Roma communities
Flexible and adaptable services, based on the assessment of risks and needs during the mapping of vulnerable communities
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Romania: Multifunction Centers for Early Childhood Development
Model: 17 centers developed, with start-up costs estimated at € 5,000
For each class of 20 children there are 5 Roma children fully integrated with all costs supported by local community
Multi-disciplinary teams in place Parents participating as volunteers Communities aware and fully involved in the Centers Guide to establish Multifunctional Centers developed and
distributed Model to be expanded possibly through ESF
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Romania: Community Based Integrated Services
Social protection, education, health for all children 0 to 18 and their families
Contribute to prevention of violence, neglect and exploitation, keeping families together and in their communities, increase access to health care and education
Model independently evaluated as successful and cost efficient
To be scaled up in the North-East region (the poorest region in Romania) through ESF
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Family: what value added for the SP and child rights agenda in the region?
• New insights into existing evidence for better policy design
• Impact of investment in preventative social services compared to responsive policies and economic aid
• Can drive analysis & adjustments in SP regulations to accomodate changing nature of family structures, e.g. LGBT
• Helps to expand focus beyond 0-3 into second decade• Allows for wholistic understanding of the family: role of
kinship care, pensions• Helps balance child rights with gender equality issues by
giving weight to rights of individuals, e.g. parental leave, support to employment for parents, etc.
• Resonates well with increasing focus on social norms
• Can better resonate with certain political and philosophical views, e.g. activation
Further inquiry
• Impact of preventative services on child outcomes• Cost benefit of investment in preventative social
services compared to responsive policies and economic aid later on in life
• Intra-household dynamics and political economy of care
• Implementation at the decentralised level
