Child Welfare Reform Project

closed

The Child Welfare Reform Project protects children's rights in Bulgaria. There are four project components. The first provides for technical assistance and training for capacity building, management, standard setting for the state agency for child protection, and for the provision of social services at the local Child Protection Department. This component will also support monitoring and evaluation of all project activities, development and implementation of a management information system, and a public awareness campaign to support reform implementation. The second component will support the Bulgarian government in improving child welfare through identifying, financing, monitoring, and evaluating sub-projects targeted at preventing abandonment and institutionalization of children, leading to the de-institutionalization of children in residential care and an improved quality of residential care. It establishes instead alternative community-based services such as community support centers for family counseling, parental education, foster care services, staff training, counseling services for young offenders, and community development activities as well as temporary shelter for young, single mothers and their babies, and small group homes. The third component focuses on interventions aimed at preventing child abandonment in high-risk communities, like the Roma community. The last component identifies, finances, implements, and monitors sub-projects that target street children.