Protecting children in the child protection system

According to UNICEF, children in institutions find themselves at a higher risk of exploitation, abuse and neglect. Violence against children in residential facilities takes a number of forms:

• violence within residential care. Child-to-child violence is often not less significant than that perpetrated by the staff. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has recently notified Romania of its concerns about violence in care facilities. In Bulgaria the number of incidents of violence of older over younger children within institutions is so alarmingly high that the impression is that violence is the basic mean of communication. We can assume that such high incidence of physical violence is related to other forms such as verbal violence.
• unwarranted and/or inappropriate placements. international research overwhelmingly shows that for children under three-five years of age, placements in residential (as opposed to family-based) facilities because has long-term detrimental effects can be qualified as “acts of violence” in themselves.

The specific objective of the project proposal is the empowerment of social care providers (local public authorities and not for profit organisations) operating in the areas of the partnership so as to increase their capacity to prevent, detect and manage these types of violence suffered by children living in residential care.

The results achieved are the following: violence suffered by children in residential care will be properly assessed by social care operators; project target groups will be trained in accordance to identified failures and gaps; lessons learnt will be disseminated in each country context.

The available products are:

• publication about the research and the exchange activities;
• training;
• manual for care operators with tips and activities for preventing, detecting and managing violence inside residential structures for children;
• civil society meetings.