Does the child care system meet the best interests of children in care?

There are 10,600 children in care in Lithuania, which accounts for two per cent of the total number of children in the country. Every year about 2100 children are deprived of parental care. In response to such socially sensitive situation, the National Audit Office conducted an audit to examine efficiency of child care in Lithuania. “Unfortunately, the existing child care system is not efficient and fails to ensure that children’s interests are always protected and needs are properly met,” said Auditor General Giedrė Švedienė summing up the audit results.

Studies show that care in residential care facilities leads to a lower quality of life than in the family environment and, often, even to social exclusion for life. In many EU countries child care systems were reformed more than ten years ago, which significantly decreased the number of children in care institutions. In Lithuania, a reform of this system was launched in 2007, however, most of the expected results were not achieved due to failure to adequately plan and implement the required measures, and the deadline for implementing the reform was postponed for a dozen of years.

The number of children in residential care institutions has not been going down for many years (about 4000). One third of the institutions suffer from overcrowding. For example, there are 120 children in Alytus Child Care Home, though the number permitted under the established care standards may not exceed 60.

The auditors found that the current system does not encourage child care in the family: there is no motivation of guardians, who also lack social services. As a result, the number of guardians trained every year is almost seven times less than the number of new children who become in need of care. The child care allowance (LTL 520) has not been changed for almost 15 years, and the allowance itself is not differentiated according to the needs of the child (age and health status). Besides, there are differences in the average cost of a child care per month: the cost in a child care institution is LTL 2 530, in a foster family – LTL 1 040, and in a family – LTL 520.

Another problem pointed out by the National Audit Office is failure to ensure consistent provision of services close to the place of residence of families and foster families. For example, there are no certified social workers in 36 municipalities, so the guardian has to go another municipality for training or consultation. For this reason, a number of people do not take part in training courses thus losing the opportunity to become the guardians of a child.

In the auditors’ opinion, the process of selecting child’s guardians has significant shortcomings. For example, there is no obligation to take into account whether or not the family of the guardians stands on the list of social risk families, to evaluate all persons who are going to live with the child. Therefore, there are cases where persons with alcohol dependence live with the child's guardian, who are not motivated to have a child in care in their family. In addition, the staff of child rights protection divisions of municipalities have to carry out independent evaluation of such data as the guardian’s income. Due to subjective evaluation, cases were identified where, for example, the guardianship was entrusted to a person whose income was LTL 440, meanwhile one of the reasons why the court refused to return the child to his natural mother on the basis of the conclusion submitted by the child rights protection division in the same municipality was the mother’s income of LTL 451.

Another problem is failure to check the motivation of close relatives and their readiness to take care of the child. As a result, close relatives of the child account for the major share of the guardians divested of custody.

The assessment of the environment of child care homes showed that the situation is getting worse, the number of various irregularities due to non-compliance of premises with the established standards or failure to meet the needs of the child has almost doubled over the period from 2010 to 2013. For example, children lack personal care products, there are still cases where boys and girls have to share toilets or use translucent shower cabins, pre-school children wear shared clothes.

The National Audit Office issued recommendations to the authorities responsible for family policy making and organising child care on how to encourage the care of children in families, select suitable guardians, and implement measures to ensure more efficient protection of the most important interests and needs of children in care.