Social Protection of Children in Public Care in Romania from the Perspective of EU Integration

Challenging dominant representations of residential childcare in Romania: an exploration of the views of children and young people living in the care system

“…They lived in institutions according to their age and level of intellectual development, receiving education on the premises. A harsh regime of government censorship prevented the media and public gaining knowledge of the work of the homes (Lataianu 2003;Macavei 2006b). In addition, severely disabled children were accommodated in isolated locations.…”

“…Following revolution, devastating images from these institutions were presented by the media across the world. Thus, Romania became internationally known as a country where abandoned children were exposed to major risks in terms of their physical and mental health, and personal safety (Lataianu 2003). It remains the case that even though, in the last 20 years, significant progress has been made in developing more responsive policies and practices to support the development of children in care, public perceptions are still largely dominated by images of the 1990s (Porumb 2010;Rus et al 2011).…”

Success in slow motion: The Europeanization of Romanian child protection policy

“…The same review concluded that there is "no doubt" that adoption out of Romanian orphanages is a "powerful" intervention (Maclean 2003: 860. See also Parker and Nelson 2005;Zeanah et al 2005;Carlson and Earls 1997;Kaler and Freeman 1994;Lataianu 2003).…”

“…Here, the UN was important, not because it had leverage over Romania-it did not-but because the CRC provided a substantive focal point for reforms. Romania had signed the UN CRC in 1990, yet prior to 1997 its legislation had only very partially responded to CRC imperatives (Lataianu 2003). An early signal of DC readiness had come just before the elections, when Emil Constantinescu of the DC acknowledged in a letter to child protection NGOs that more could be done for children in need and that he would support NGO efforts to respond to EU calls for changes in the system (USAID 1996).…”

“…In 1999, the Commission allotted twenty five million Euro to develop alternative services at the local level (Delegation of the European Commission in Romania 2005a, b: 2-3). These projects aimed to decrease the number of children living in old-style mass institutions, assist families at risk of abandoning children, develop local networks of social workers specialized in childcare, and sustain foster families and other alternative activities (Lataianu 2003). Combined with the support to prop up the old system, EU aid exceeded 100 million Euros between 1990 and 2000, with humanitarian aid amounting to 60 million and grants for reforming the child protection system accounting for the remainder.…”