Authors: Hope and Homes for Children
Date: September 2015
Over the past 18 years, Hope and Home for Children Ukraine has created opportunities for children to grow up in a family environment and fulfil their potential; we have also developed viable models and services for supporting families and children that can be extended beyond our projects to other regions of the country.
But to eliminate institutional care in Ukraine, the efforts of our organisation and those of our colleagues are not enough; the same is true for simply demonstrating successful practices. What is needed is a change in the way our child protection system works.
It is important to answer questions about what is wrong with the current system and why it doesn’t work, what the causes are for preserving institutions and what the scale of this phenomenon is. An analysis of the capacity of government bodies and structures to ensure the rights of vulnerable children are protected is also needed.
We have tried to answer these questions through conducting a comprehensive study of the child protection system, the findings of which are presented in this report.