Prague, Feb 28 (CTK) – The number of children growing up in foster care has more than doubled during the past ten years, while the number of infant and child homes is not markedly decreasing, according to the statistics the Czech labour, education and health care ministries have released.
There were 5000 children living in foster care in 2006, now there are more than 10,000 of them now.
The Czech Republic has repeatedly been criticised by domestic experts as well as international institutions for a high number of children placed in institutes and for care of children being fragmented.
Three ministries are in charge of endangered and abandoned children. Foster parents, child protection and organisations for immediate temporary care are within the jurisdiction of the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry.
Homes for children over three years of age fall under the Education Ministry and homes for children under three years of age fall under the Health Ministry.
Petra Kacirkova, director of the Czech branch of Lumos NGO, said the numbers of children growing up outside their own family show that the Czech Republic lacks a network of services for families and social housing.
“It is alarming that a mere 5 percent of the total spending on care of endangered children goes to field social work with families, while 33 percent of the money is designed for child and infant homes and 48 percent for foster care. It is necessary to say in this respect that almost three times more children live in foster care than in child and infant institutes,” Kacirkova said.
According to the Child and Family association, the Czech Republic is the last country in Europe in which it is possible to send children under three years of age to child homes.
In 2012, the former government approved a strategy of care of endangered children. According to it, children under three years of age were not to be sent to institutes as from 2014 and children under seven years of age as from last year. However, this has not been pushed through.
The incumbent coalition government of Bohuslav Sobotka agreed with this as well as with the unification of care under one ministry last November. However, it is unlikely to manage pushing through the changes by the October general election.
