2.
A child’s right to a supportive and caring family environment
While vulnerable children in CEE/CIS are more likely to grow up in a family environment than they were a decade ago, this region still has very high rates of child institutionalization. Of the 1.3 million children in formal care in the region7 625,000 were growing up in residential institutions in 2010.8 And while more than half of all children in care now live in family-like arrangements, measures to keep children with their own biological families are still insufficient.
A child’s right to a supportive and caring family environment
No large-scale institution can provide the one-to-one warmth and care a child needs to develop properly. These institutions are particularly damaging for infants and young children, who may develop lifelong problems due to lack of social and intellectual stimulation in their earliest years. Shut away from mainstream society, these children are also vulnerable to neglect and abuse.
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© UNICEF/ALBA000265/Pirozzi
With support and guidance from UNICEF, 20 countries in the region have initiated reforms and started to develop services that include family and child-support services, family-based alternative care and individual case management. Croatia and Serbia have approved laws to prevent infants being sent to institutions, as has Romania – the country with the greatest experience of reform on this issue in the region. In Georgia, child care reform led by the Government