RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN SMALL FAMILY-TYPE CHILDREN’S HOMES QQ To verify the health status of beneficiaries of small family-type children’s homes; to inspect whether the appropriate medical documentation (Form No. IV-100/A-S) is maintained and whether diagnosing and treatment are adequately carried out; QQ To help increase physical activity of the beneficiaries and implement a healthy way of life in small family-type children’s homes; QQ To fully observe infection control requirements and to make educators and beneficiaries aware of contagious diseases; QQ To ensure that small family-type children’s homes store medications safely and document any sending or receiving of medications. NUTRITION AND DAILY RATION QQ Pursuant to the Childcare Standards, small family-type children’s homes providing 24-hour services are obliged to feed the beneficiaries with healthy food four times a day. The monitoring revealed that the children’s homes do not always fully observe nutrition norms. As in the previous year, there is a lack of information about healthy, safe and sufficient nutrition. A majority of educators say that they have no guidance or normative documents to follow to ensure that the children get sufficient and balanced nutrition, which should be age-sensitive and should include all the ingredients it should include. According to the information we received from the Department for Social Protection of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection, the Government has not issued any nutrition-related guidance to the service providers because there are no established standards governing food rations. In fact, in determining children’s daily food ration, the educators use their “family experience”. At almost all of the children’s homes, bread consumption is above the accepted norms. Usually, the children’s homes’ administrations simply do what children ask for feeding them mostly with sausages, frozen khinkali and sweets. This practice contravenes the principle of the best interest of the child, which is to live a healthy way of life. Children under State care must be provided with sufficient amount of food taking into consideration their age requirements. The monitoring showed that food menus at a majority of small family-type children’s homes are not meeting these requirements. Often times one may doubt whether some of these menus are truly an accurate representation of the actually offered nutrition. Usually the written menus provided by the children’s homes are formalistic and uniform; the list of meals is long but does not match the actually served food. The ration is imbalanced. Three instead of four meals are provided. The meals are overly stuffed with sausages. The children’s homes are not keeping records about food consumed/not consumed/replaced. It is hard to discern whether the “sufficient amount of food” requirement under the Childcare Standards was met. The menus are not adapted to the beneficiaries’ schooling timetable. However, we want to mention some good practice applied by the “My Home” children’s home: the nutrition system is well organized; the home employs a cook; meals are provided four times a day and the feeding hours are consonant with the beneficiaries’ schooling timetable. At another children’s home we detected the following violation: during interviewing the beneficiaries, we found out that the educator’s (foster father’s) relatives were often times eating together with the beneficiaries, at the children’s home; as a result, the beneficiaries were not getting sufficient amount of food. According to the Childcare Standards, service providers (small family-type children’s homes) shall not use restrict food as a measure of discipline. In this regard, we have detected various violations; for example, pursuant to the regulations at one of the children’s homes, “If a child consciously skips the breakfast, we will not keep the meal for him/her, but they can always take a bite at the kitchen.” As the beneficiaries told us, “if a child does not wash his/her plate, he/she will be punished. The punished child will have to go u to his/her room on the second floor and stay there until he/she apologizes and agrees to wash his/her plate; sometimes the punishment will last until the evening and the punished children will remain without their supper.” 2013 At one of the children’s homes, food products were not proportionally distributed. The menus did not include fruits but we did find some fruits in the warehouse (apples, oranges and mandarins). NPM Report 65