Social Assistance Agency has recently become one of the busiest departments in the state. Firstly, people of Ivaylo Ivanov are to meet an important government contract by the end of 2013 to provide a new residence for the children from the homes for medical and social care in Pernik, Plovdiv, Montana, Gabrovo, Ruse and Sofia. This is really necessary, because the current social budget was allocates by 16.3 million levs less than the required sum for a relatively normal life if the institutionalized kids. The Agency, with the active assistance of government, did a lot of work to remove the damage from the flood in the village of Biser, but this can hardly be said of the effects of the earthquake in Pernik. Many people in the town and villages in the region are still shivering with cold without roofs over their heads.
Not very smoothly runs the project for foster care for abandoned children, for whom significant financial resources of 15 million levs is provided. Recently, the National Foster Care Association sent a protest letter to Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, who was directly criticized by the agency for having declared a silent boycott of adoption. It turned out that 600 families are waiting for becoming foster parents of kids and many of them have been frustrated by the bureaucracy in the system and wanted to quit the programme. They argue that quality foster parents are replaced by those that operate on a principle pay for my child to be fed and dressed, the rest is not my business, adding that more often they have to struggle with social workers, rather than receive help from them.
Many would think that the main reason for the delay in this and other projects is in the low income and the lack of motivation among social workers to do their work well. This is somewhat close to the truth, but does not cover it completely, because the salaries of these employees were still raised by 20% in mid-2012. Far more plausible sounds hypothesis that the Social Assistance Agency lacks the necessary capacity to deal with such problems. Otherwise, the management would hardly have allocated over one million levs on training staff from key departments. The project for Strengthening the capacity of the social support to improve the quality and effectiveness of social work, financed by the Operational Programme Development of Human Resources, has a budget of 1.06 million levs.
Of course, it is indispensable that employees from the Child Protection Department should know how to work with families at risk as well as to act appropriately against domestic violence and trafficking of children, and to know the specifics of foster care.
The BANKER
