Nowadays, we discuss the quality of foster care more often than ever. It is a known fact that new foster parents who receive accreditation are fewer than those who are expunged from the foster parent record. Meanwhile, the number of people who point a finger at foster parents to instruct and reprimand them is increasing.

My analysis is the following:

The quality of foster care decreases ever more because good foster parents are being removed or withdraw on their own. Foster parents in Sofia start the process being excited about the possibility to do something good and to leave lasting positive marks on the upbringing of children in need. After they start looking after the first child however, they realize that things are much more difficult than they’ve expected. They do not get obedient and grateful children, but rather little beasts who lead a war against them without realizing that the parents sincerely wish them well and want to help them.

Winning the trust of a child who has been lied to and rejected throughout their entire life is a difficult task.

The so-called support organizations, as implied by their name, should provide support but in fact they only point fingers and threaten the parents that they will take away their children if they do not “behave”. The overall attitude toward foster parents resembles that toward low-paid servants who can be replaced at any point. On top of that, after having gone through so many trials and ordeals to help a child, it is very often that their charge gets adopted or sent back (reintegrated) to a home where they feel miserable. Foster parents often appear to be the only ones who notice that the children do not feel well in their new situation. If the foster parent gets involved and voices their concerns they suffer a great deal of criticism. The usual reaction is that the foster parent does not possess the necessary education and qualification and that they have treated the child too well, hence the big attachment the child feels toward them. The foster parent is all of a sudden condemned by all institutions to have hindered the child’s integration or, respectively, the adoption process. This in turn ends the individual’s “career” as a foster parent.

And in the cases when things get rough (for example when the child manifests self-aggression in an attempt to protest against their removal from the family), the foster parent is prosecuted to make sure that none of the social workers are accused. In other words, the foster parent has not only been made to feel incompetent and uneducated, but also a criminal.

I wonder, if there are any good foster parents in Sofia, who would be willing to subject themselves to all of this? If they are just looking for employment, they’d better sign up for babysitting jobs and get better pay for 4-6 hours of work per day without even caring about the children’s development, their health, school performance, clothing and their emotional state. As we know, the working hours of a foster parent are 24/7 and the responsibilities are even more than those of biological parents.

I wonder whether all of us who work for NGOs haven’t started to see ourselves as institutions with all the negative connotations that the word “institution” has? When people turn to us for help, do we not remain silent and hide behind phrases like “positive attitude”; we categorize some cases as “isolated” and deem them to be outside of the scope of our “bigger picture” strategic goals? Have we forgotten that each “isolated” case actually represents the destiny of a child, and is not just a file? Don’t we realize that when it comes a child’s life, there are no isolated cases?

That is the Case.

And even when we submit alerts and receive formal responses, don’t we conceal some comments, so that we don’t spoil our institutional relationships? Don’t we remain silent when others treat the foster parent mission with disregard and even disdain? Aren’t we hiding behind the convenient phrase “positive attitude”when advising the non-conformists to calm down so as not to make the atmosphere tense?