Romanian orphanage closure heralds first family Christmas for 72 children

A British charity which aims to shut down all of Romania’s bleak state-run orphanages by 2020 is set to close its 45th orphanage just in time for Christmas.

The last of the 72 abandoned and orphaned children warehoused in the Onesti Orphanage, in Bacau, Romania, will be moved into new loving family environments before Christmas - thanks to the Salisbury-based NGO Hope and Homes for Children.

Working in partnership with Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), SERA Romania Foundation and the Romanian Government, Hope and Homes for Children’s Onesti Orphanage closure is part of an ambitious programme aiming to move every single child out of Romania’s remaining 170 orphanages by 2020, and prevent any other children entering the institutions.

After the fall of President Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Romanian orphanages became notorious for their inhumane conditions. Many of the 100,000 children living in them were there as a result of Ceausescu’s outlawing of abortion and contraception. Now, more than 20 years on, the Romanian government has made huge changes to its child reform process and is committed to putting an end to the institutionalisation of children.  There are now less than 7,000 children in orphanages, however four out of five of them are not actually orphans. Most have been abandoned by their parents because of poverty, a lack of access to health and education services and stigma attached to disability.

Many families which struggle to cope place their children in Romania’s network of orphanages with the mistaken idea that the children might have a better life. In reality the orphanages – or institutions as they are more commonly known - are overcrowded, understaffed, clinical environments which work on regimented routines. They offer little care, attention or stimulation for a child. A large body of research has demonstrated the serious detrimental impact of institutions on children, especially for children under the age of three who suffer irreversible damage.

Hope and Homes for Children has worked in Romania since 1998 and is a world leader in deinstitutionalisation - the process of closing harmful institutions (orphanages) and developing alternative family-based services. This involves reuniting children with their birth families, placing them with adoptive or foster parents, or placing them in small family homes where they can receive specialised attention and treatment. Importantly, it involves overseeing training for local childcare professionals and establishing or supporting services to prevent children entering institutions in the first place. Hope and Homes for Children’s work is recognised as best practice by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that every child has the right to live in a family.

Dr Delia Pop, Director of Programmes at Hope and Homes for Children, said: “The closure of Onesti represents a significant step towards completing the reform in Romania.

“The development of family support and family based alternative care in Bacau dedicated to children with special needs and their carers will not only have a life-changing impact on the 72 children from the institution, but also support other children and parents facing similar challenges.

“Onesti’s closure is the best Christmas present the 72 children - many of whom are severely disabled - will ever receive.”

The Onesti closure has already seen two children reunited with their birth families; five fostered; 61 placed in small family homes or existing alternative services; and two transferred to a specialist home in Ghiocelul due to their serious medical conditions. More than 270 children from the Bacau area have been prevented from entering the institution by establishing social services which help to stem family breakdown. Tragically, due to serious medical problems, two children died during the closure project.

“A child in an institution is one child too many and we will not stop until every institution is closed and every child is in a loving family environment,” added Dr Pop.

“The progress of all of the children we’ve moved into loving homes will be monitored by the 269 childcare professionals we have trained as part of the closure project.”

As well as being damaging for children, institutions are more expensive to run compared to alternative family based services which prevent family breakdown and abandonment.

Research from 2005 (Carter) showed that running institutions is six times more expensive than providing social services to vulnerable families; three times more expensive than providing professional foster care; and twice as expensive as providing small family homes.

As part of its ambitious 2020 goal to support the end of institutional care in Romania, Hope and Homes for Children has just completed a full audit of the country’s current childcare system - mapping out all the remaining institutions, assessing the remaining children’s needs and checking whether the existing regional services to prevent abandonment are effective.