More than half of Bulgarians (54.2%) would entrust their children to the care of a foster family if unable to take care of them. These are the results of a survey about the quality of foster care in Bulgaria, organized by Gallup International and ordered by the National Foster Care Association with the financial support of the Mobile operator Mtel.

The survey shows that Bulgarians know what foster care is. Nearly 70 % of the interviewees associate foster care with a temporary care for children, deprived of parental care in a family environment. The survey results, presented by Alexander Milanov from the NFCA, also show that 37 % of Bulgarians are prepared to become foster parents if they receive child support and a salary, 20 % feel apprehensive about becoming foster parents, while 11 % state that the financial support would not really matter if they decided to become foster parents.

Bulgarians would become foster parents if:

• They had enough time to get to know the child before they take them home (41.2%)
• The child has no illness or disability (33%) and no behavioral problems (23.3%)
• The future foster parents are able to choose the age of the child (31.7%) and his ethnicity (27.2%)
• The future foster parents can decide whether to foster a child coming from institutional care or from the biological family (11.2%) 

“The societal fears that some people would take advantage of at risk children and use foster care as an easy way to earn money are groundless”, stated Alexander Milanov from the National Foster Care Association. It becomes clear that a leading reason for a significant number of Bulgarians to become foster parents is the remuneration and the provision of financial support for the children. “There is nothing alarming about this. It is a fact that foster parenthood is a job and a worthy occupation, but we are against social workers and the employment office convincing people to become foster parents as a means of coping with unemployment, adds Alexander Milanov.

The National Foster Care Association works in partnership with the mobile operator Mtel to realise the initiative “Foster the Future”, which included the current survey, executed since 2014. Only in the last year the mobile operator has invested nearly 90 000 BGN. These funds have reached over 200 children in foster care. Thanks to to Mtel’s support, the National Foster Care Association has implemented two youth camps, provided legal assistance in 13 cases of children at risk and conducted more than five different events for young people. More than 200 foster families received Christmas and Easter packages of products of first necessity with the financial help of Mtel. Mtel and the National Foster Care Association plan to continue their partnership by organizing a scholarship program for first graders in foster care, camps for younger children, etc.

“The idea of the joint initiative “Foster the Future” is to help children, deprived of parental care to find families which will bring them up with love. Children are our future, which is why we at Mtel will be working even harder for this good cause in the future”, said Iliana Zaharieva, Director of Corporate Communications at Mtel. 

As of March 2015 there are 2362 foster families with 2304 in their care in Bulgaria. The majority of the foster families are situated in Shumen (187), Varna (175), Pleven and Montana (144) and just 63 in Sofia. Nearly 600 of the foster parents have no children placed with them with the largest number of “empty” foster homes being in Pazardjik Province (46). 446 of the foster families have been expunged from the records for two main reasons: some of them become adoptive parents of their foster children and others fail to cope with the separation from their foster children due to lack of support and are thereby declared “unsuccessful” by the system.

A survey of the NFCA shows that the children in foster care are mainly little girls from Bulgarian ethnicity between two and five years old. Two out of three children in foster care are of Bulgarian ethnic origin and an increasing number of children are removed from their parents to be placed in foster care, because of violence, neglect or poverty. The NFCA has established that the typical foster family in Bulgaria is a couple between 40 and 50 years old, with high school education, which has raised at least one child of their own. The leading motive for accepting a child deprived of parental care into their home is the personal understanding of foster parents that at risk children must be helped.

In Bulgaria a significant part of foster parents face bad and purely formal and administratively oriented treatment by social workers. At the same time a lot of the foster parents are anxious about the societal attitude toward Roma children and the incompetence of schools and kindergartens to work with children coming from institutions or violent homes. Another distributing fact pointed out by foster parents is the lack of social services for children reaching adulthood and leaving the care system. Most foster parents are not willing to take care of children with disabilities, because of the lack of social and health support. More and more foster parents report that they have not received a full medical history of the child. This makes it harder to diagnose a certain disease and, in other cases, treatment is delayed. 

The civil contracts* concluded between the municipalities and foster parents are seen as a serious obstacle for the further development of the foster care system. In response, the National Foster Care Association has made the proposition to change the existing contractual relationship with an employment contract* through the home based work scheme. At the same time it is necessary to increase the quality of foster care and to introduce specialisations – this means the creation of specialised foster families, qualified for taking care of disabled children, infants, children in conflict with the law and juvenile mothers and their babies.

* According to Bulgarian labour law there two forms of employment contract. The so called civil or work contract outlines the terms of part-time work. The rights of employees are limited under this form of contracting. The employment contract is a full-time contract with better terms and conditions for employees. Click here for more information!