RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN SMALL FAMILY-TYPE CHILDREN’S HOMES is not ensuring that children’s mental health be maintained in good order; the children’s susceptibility to stress is not taken into account and no State programmes are run to provide the children with psychological/psychiatric assistance and appropriate psycho-social rehabilitation. Lack of these measures results in complicated adaptation to the existing social environment, emotional and behavioral disorders, difficult and violent behavior and, sometimes, even in the turning of these children into criminals. Psychological assistance is confined to individual consultations of psychologists. The children’s mental problems are identified with delay or remain unidentified at all. Psychiatric assistance is provided only after the situation has grown into an actual crisis. The State is not providing the children under its care who have been victims of violence with psycho-social rehabilitation and legal protection. There are no State standards governing children’s psychological assistance. NEEDS IDENTIFIED AT INDIVIDUAL SMALL FAMILY-TYPE CHILDREN’S HOMES QQ (MENTAL HEALTH) The situation at the “Way of Future” (a charity home run by the Poverty Reduction and Urgent Assistance Foundation) is unfavorable for the beneficiaries’ psycho-emotional and cognitive development. Children are not treated with individual approach. The staff lacks appropriate knowledge, experience and skills to manage the beneficiaries’ behavior. No behavior management model exists and the upbringing process is chaotic. The monitoring group noticed the educators’ violent attitude to the beneficiaries, in particular, the use of physical force against and disregard of the needs of the children. Discriminatory attitude has also been noticed. The educator we interview was unaware of any traumas experienced by the children under his/her care. The number of educators is disproportional to the number of children. No records are maintained to allow finding out what services are provided to the beneficiaries. The staff does not possess skills required for identifying mental health needs of the beneficiaries. Therefore, the children’s situation in this regard is unfavorable. During the monitoring, we were unable to find out whether the children’s home is served by a psychologist. According to the educator, a psychologist is visiting the children on a systematic basis but none of the children corroborated this was true. The situation at a small family-type children’s home run by the Association “The Child and the Environment” (located at Baratashvili Street No. 19-30, Rustavi) is unfavorable for the beneficiaries psycho-emotional and intellectual development. The children are not dealt with using an individual approach and the attitude to them is formalistic. Although the educators have been trained in violence prevention and children’s rights, they do not possess the knowledge, experience and skills to manage the beneficiaries’ behavior. The institution does not have a clear model of behavior management. Some of the beneficiaries we interviewed feel being disregarded. Some of the children are happy with the conditions at the house and the staff ’s attitude towards them – something that may be indicating unequal treatment of the beneficiaries. The staff does not have an understanding of general issues of mental health. Except in very serious urgent cases, they are unable to identify and timely respond to problems. We believe the children’s right in this regard is being violated. Based on the impression of our monitoring experts after they monitored a small family-type children’s home located in Kurdgelauri (run by the Humanitarian Charity Center “Apkhazeti”), we think the situation calls for a deeper examination. The tensed relations inside the personnel and the demonstrated occurrences of emotional pressure upon the adolescents create unfavorable psychological environment for the beneficiaries. 2013 The system of punishments and rewards is completely based on either threats (that the staff will call the police) or limitation of access to the computer. This doubles the risk of children developing difficult behavior and computer addiction. NPM Report 67