Bulgarian deinstitutionalisation – failure or success? Results from a national study of the process conducted in the period 2020-2021

Type:Report

Organization:Know-how Centre for Alternative Care for Children, New Bulgarian University

Authors:Know-how Centre for Alternative Care for Children, New Bulgarian University

Year:2022

Summary:To people for whom deinstitutionalisation is a programme to deliver a set of outcomes from planned projects, it is successful and complete. For people for whom guaranteeing the human rights of children (including providing opportunities for full development and protection from abuse), parents and professionals is the framework through which deinstitutionalisation is evaluated, it is a failure.

Purpose:The main recommendation formulated by the study is the following: there is a need for a holistic vision on how to address the challenges related to both the separation of children and families and the quality of alternative care for children, so that the successes of deinstitutionalisation as a reform to ensure the rights of vulnerable children are recognised and reported in 2025 not only by the Bulgarian government, but also by the wider circle of partners and observers. The final stage of the process should focus on people and the relationships they develop, not on building infrastructure as the previous two have.