Foster Parenting Supported by Mtel

Over 5,600 Bulgarian children lived in child institutions in 2012. Bulgaria is the EU country with the biggest number of abandoned children aged 0-3 years. One of the solutions is promoting foster care service so kids receive the best care and opportunities for development in a family environement. Telecom operator Mtel has supported foster parenting for 2 years now.

Mtel’s project titled Raise a Child. Create a Future provides financial aid to at least 200 kids placed in foster families. The support is worth 200 leva per child, and 300 leva for a special needs child. The one-time allocation goes to foster parents as soon as a child is placed with them. Thus Mtel seeks to back foster families in meeting the first expenses that arise whenever a child is placed with them.

The efficiency of the project is based on a foster care survey held in late 2012. Respondents who were foster parents quoted as an issue the financial load families experience in providing for the child at the very first stage of their service. They only get their foster care salary some two months after the arrival of the child.

The survey also showed foster parents in Bulgaria felt foster care was widely unpopular in this country. This is why in 2013 the project also involves a fund-raising campaign. In seeking to raise awareness of the cause, it strives to encourage foster parents to contribute to the kids’ opportunities for development.

Within the first year of its existence, in 2012 Mtel’s Raise a Child. Create a Future project provided a total of 100 foster families with extra financial support worth 100 leva per month. Children aged from 2 months to 16 years were placed in foster care. Five of them had special needs, and seven families raised two or more siblings. A national  information campaign was also carried out in 2012 in promotion of foster care service and its efficiency.

Foster care is an opportunity for children whose parents are unable to care for them to live in a family environment, build emotional relationships with their foster parents, socialise and develop their potential. This social service, an alternative to child institutions, is a key element in improving the current child welfare system.

The project is carried out in partnership with the local ministry of labour and social care, the National Network for Children, Bulgarian Donors’ Forum and the State Agency for Child Protection. Raise a Child. Create a Future works in support of the national strategy that envisages the closure of the existing 137 child institutions in the next 15 years and the prevention of abandoning children in the first place. Mtel’s project meets the need of foster care service promotion and support.