Requirement for education and age, as well as the introduction of specialty in foster care was offered by Alexander Milanov from the National Foster Care Association during an information workshop within the project "Foster Me 2015", which is developing foster care in Bulgaria. Within his presentation in front of the social workers, the administrators of the project and the supervisors of the teams in foster care in the country, Alexander Milanov stressed that gaining professional expertise in foster care is not possible without meeting basic criteria. The first drafts for professional criteria were prepared and communicated with NFCA coordinators in the country and validated in consultation with foster parents, members of the association. A competency model for the profession "Foster Parent" and for participants in the process will be outlined in 2017. It aims at ensuring proper understanding of the skills, tasks, education and behaviors, by which the performance of social workers and foster parents is being evaluated. As part of the Advisory Council of Experts, which manages the project, the National Foster Care Association will participate in the creation of rules, according to which the new foster parents will be selected, as well as in the preparation of standards for foster care.

Within the three-day meeting in late October the project manager Ognyan Hristov presented the results to date, the upcoming activities and the expectations of the overall project implementation. As is known, the concept of management and provision of the service "foster care" by teams, formed on regional basis, was adopted by the Advisory Council of Experts (ACE) within the project. This happened after a thorough analysis of the regional needs for accommodation of children at risk, the respective numbers, as well as and the location of foster care teams. The objective is greatly reduced cost of service and the possibility of national coverage for its provision, by including all municipalities, on the  territory of which "foster care" service is provided and which are eligible for partnership on the project "Foster Me 2015".

The first actual results after launching the second phase of the project on November 1, 2016 are now available – the municipalities partners in the project are already nearly 150. At the beginning of its operation in December 2015 they were only 82.

The monitoring of the quality of foster care, the trainings of the teams, the work organization and the accountability were also part of the meeting. In a discussion mode the participants were able to place all their questions.  Two information meetings in similar format are planned for the next year.