ZAGREB, 22 May 2022 -  Marin Piletić who became the Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy Minister in late April, has said in an interview for Hina that the priority of the social policy of this Croatian cabinet would be supporting children without adequate parental care.

Piletić said in the interview which Hina published on Sunday that the focus would be on scaling down the institutional accommodation for children and enhance fostering. To this aim, his ministry will launch a nation-wide campaign promoting foster parenting for the aim of child well-being.

The minister presented some statistical data showing progress in adoption and foster care.

Last year, 145 children were adopted, which has been the highest number in a year to date. So far in 2022, 58 children have been adopted.

The registry of prospective adoptive children has recently included 220 children that have met all the criteria for their adoption.

The minister also promised the streamlining of the procedures for foster care and for adoption, and underscored that the overhauling of the social welfare system is aimed at making this system more efficient.

The ministry is going to set up a working group tasked with analysing the state of affairs in  institutionalised homes and in providers of accommodation for beneficiaries of social welfare.

Concrete solutions will soon be defined, said Piletić underscoring the advantages of supported housing. 

Supported housing is typically defined as a housing service where housing, support and/or care services are provided to help people to live as independently as possible.

"Croatia and Europe have opted for the process of deinstitutionalisation, and this completely changes the principles of doing business in social welfare services", said Piletić.

"The process will take some time and the policy of deinstitutionalisation and strengthening social mentoring and other services in social welfare are some of the priorities of this government, and sizeable funds are envisaged for this purpose under the 2027 European Social Fund", he explained.

"We in cooperation with services providers and institutions are defining the best locations for the specialised supported housing and we can expect the employment of necessary staff in the coming period as well as the increase of the capacities in this form of housing", he added.

The minister recalled that the amended law on foster care had additionally strengthened the status of foster carers.

There are 2,500 foster carers, with a half of them caring for children and a half who are caregivers for adults, being eligible to higher allowances under the amended legislation.

"They are also entitled to grants to cushion off the energy price hikes", the minister added.

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ZAGREB, 30 Oct, 2021 - The association of family-run retirement homes on Friday called on members of the public to join in public consultation on amendments to the Social Welfare Act, noting that the proposal to abolish family-run retirement homes would cause uncertainty for both their users and employees.

"We are against the abolishment of family-run retirement homes which we consider a good type of the social service of providing accommodation for elderly persons," the association said, calling on members of the public to join in consultations on the amendments, to last until 3 November.

It notes that the Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy Ministry had not conducted analyses of the work of family-run homes for senior citizens and the alternatives for their users and employees.

"Family-run retirement homes provide accommodation for more than 6,000 beneficiaries and employ more than 2,000 people," the association says.

Under the new social welfare bill, family-run home for senior citizens have a deadline of five years to reorganise into institutions that are part of the social welfare system, thus complying with requirements on spatial and personnel conditions.

For homes with a smaller number of users, the bill offers the possibility to change to providing foster care.

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ZAGREB, 6 April, 2021 - The Minister of Family and Social Policy, Josip Aladrović, on Tuesday announced amendments to the Foster Care Act to facilitate foster care for children.

The minister made the announcement after meeting with representatives of the "We Have Something to Tell You" initiative Marta Divjak and Antonija Skender. Divjak and Skender were also received by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković.

Aladrović said that the two representatives presented a good initiative to address several key issues to relax adoption and foster care procedures.

Aladrović said that the duration of adoption or foster care cases showed how difficult it was to adopt or foster a child in Croatia. He said that he would initiate amendments to the 2019 Foster Care Act to promote deinstitutionalisation and make it easier for children staying in care homes to be taken into foster care.

As for the adoption of children by same-sex couples, Aladrović said that this issue would be put to public consultation. "The child's interest comes first and that's how it will be with the social care system."

Aladrović said that the meeting also focused on possible legislative and procedural changes concerning the social care system, as well as future cooperation on legislative amendments and ideas.

Divjak said that she herself had been adopted and her colleague Skender had been raised in a foster family. They had launched this initiative to raise public awareness of problems faced by fostered and adopted children.

Divjak said that they raised nine issues and that Prime Minister Plenković said that Minister Aladrović would take a position on them within the next three weeks. Among the issues raised, she cited the need to speed up the adoption procedure, establish a family court to deal with the interests of children, and promote foster care.

"We are leaving this meeting with a lot of expectations and hope that this will be the first government that will manage to fully reform the social care system," Skender said. 

Speaking of the case of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl from Nova Gradiška who had died from severe head and bodily injuries inflicted by her mother, Skender said that they could not speculate what had gone wrong because they did not have the information on the criteria the biological family had to fulfil.

"It is certainly not encouraging to take a child from a foster family in which it feels good and send it back to the medium-risk biological family," she added.

Aladrović condemned the graffiti on the wall of the Social Welfare Centre in Nova Gradiška calling social workers "murderers". He said that such calls for a lynching were inappropriate and would not help improve the system.

"The system needs reforming, but reforms will not happen by lynching and violence. Reforms will not be successful unless all social stakeholders are satisfied," the minister said.

The adoption support organisation Adopta issued a statement on Tuesday emphasising the need for a comprehensive reform of the social care system that would include regular annual reports on its work, civil oversight and amending the 2015 Family Act.

"Croatia needs a comprehensive reform of the system so that any child without adequate family care can get maximum government support in seeking a family," Adopta said.

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