Parentless and other children without parental care – awareness rising, gate keeping

1. Parentless and other children without parental care – awareness rising, gate keeping and quality standards Bulgaria, Sofia, July 2007

2. Quality4Children – a process and its out-comes • IFCO (International Foster Care Organisation), FICE (Fédération Internationale des Communautés Educatives) and SOS Kinderdorf International are working for decades in the out-of-home care field and they where often confronted with the weaknesses of the child care systems, especially with the lack of the quality standards in this field.

3. Quality4Children – a process and its out-comes • IFCO, FICE and SOS-KDI are strongly calling for the improvement of the care quality in out-of-home care systems. This is the reason why they joined hands, resources and expertise in a project called Quality4Children (Q4C), the results of which are these quality standards that are meant to be complementary to international and national legal framework documents.

4. The uniqueness of the project • The method - Storytelling method guarantees that the standards are rooted in the every-day life of the children, their care givers and those who organize the care process. • The participation and permanent consultation of the key actors – children youth, care givers, professionals coming from the three organizations and their partners at national level.

5. The uniqueness of the project • The power of the synergies – the partnership among IFCO, FICE and SOS KDI • The pan-European character – the process involved people coming from 30 countries and reflects the cross-cutting issues related to out-of-home care on the European continent.

6. How can the developed standards be used by national actors in child welfare reform processes? • The Q4C standards are a tool that supports the broader international and national efforts aiming at ensuring quality care in out-of-care. They can be used complementary to other existing tools at international (see the Recommendations of the Council of Europe, for instance) and national level.

7. How can the developed standards be used by national actors in child welfare reform processes? • Generally, that there are at least two dimensions one can consider when thinking of how the Q4C standards could have an impact on the lives of the children in one country • the level of legislations (in terms of laws, ordinances that regulate the child protection and care filed) and • the level of systems in place developed to implement the legislation

8. How can the developed standards be used by national actors in child welfare reform processes? • the culture of the organizations/institutions (generally child rights oriented, particularly child and youth participatory oriented) • the training of all human resources involved in the protection and care of the children • the practices and measures through protection and care is provided.

9. Q4C standards - a benchmark instrument where national standards already exist • In the same time you can use the Q4C standards as a benchmark tool to assess the existing standards. Countries where the state duty-bearers have already developed their national standards, there is an opportunity now to update them by using the “Q4C”standards. They can do this with the support of the national teams, parents, experts, youth etc.

10. Q4C standards - as an inspiration source for duty bearers when developing national standards • Where national actors have not yet developed standards of care in out-oh-home care, they can consider following the Q4C process and partnering the three organisations (FICE, IFCO and SOS KDI). • We are open for collaboration and since UNICEF representatives have attended the even marching the launch of the standards at European Union level, we would really like to further cooperate and partner for the synchronization of all existing standards in the South-East European countries with Q4C.

11. How can the standards guide the practitioners? • It is crucial to ensure quality translation of the “Q4C” standards into local languages. • The Q4C standards, as they come from praxis and involved to a maximum extent the beneficiaries, can be very well used when monitoring and evaluating existing services provided by different organizations and institutions.

12. Definitively the standards set up requirements of a minimum package of knowledge caregivers and all staff involved in the process of protection and care should own. As such, the Q4C standards offer some concrete indication on what should be such knowledge (on child development, child rights, etc.) How can the standards guide the practitioners?

13. Conclusion • It is up to the national responsible bodies to decide the best regulatory form for these standards in order to ensure effect on the lives of the children. In all cases, the immediate and long term effects should be: • Children who are left without parental care benefit of quality out-of-home care • Care givers are familiar with the minimum standards that should be fulfilled by the child protection bodies and other service providers

14. Conclusion • Child protection bodies and service providers should ensure that they abide to these standards • Monitoring bodies should measure the quality of services by benchmarking to the Q4C quality care standards

15. Further information • Website: www.quality4children.info • Project Organisation: Project “Quality4Children”SOS Children's VillagesHermann-Gmeiner-Str. 51A-6021 InnsbruckTel.: +43-512-3316 – 0quality4children@sos-kd.org

16. Thank you!