RESIDENTIAL SOCIAL CARE FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS - Placing children and adults from a family environment in an institution should be a last resort protection measure. The NPM recommends to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy to propose an integrated approach for support of the relatives of children and adults at risk of being abandoned. - Conduct an expert assessment of the process of deinstitutionalization and the need of additional social services in the community such as daily centres for children and adults with disabilities, public support centres etc., and ensure sufficient numbers of personal assistants. - Regular and effective control by the competent institutions over the providers of social services for children and adults. - Improve the material conditions in the residential social services for children and adults, avoid overcrowdedness and ensure adequate premises in easily accessible locations. - It is necessary to adopt clear criteria and medical standards for admitting people in residential social services for adults, as well as a requirement for regular update of the persons’ health condition prior to their admission. - Invest in education, training and decent remuneration for specialized staff in residential social services. - Reduce the period of stay of children in residential social services. - It is necessary to increase the remuneration of employees working in the field of social services for children and adults. - Prevention of dementia through early diagnosis and professional care to extend patient’s life expectancy. Over the recent years the main recommendation of the NPM in relation to the inspected residential social services for children and adults is the lack of qualified staff to take adequate care of those accommodated there. The budget for 2020 for state delegated social activities in the municipalities for current expenses amounts to BGN 290.9 million, an increase by BGN 30 million on the funds allocated for 2019. Allocated are funds for increasing the cost of staff by 10 %. The standards have been increased on a differentiated basis: for specialised institutions providing social services by 10 %; for social services provided in the community the average increase of the standards is 14 %. The biggest increase of 20% received standards for familytype accommodation centres for children/adolescents with disabilities who need constant medical care. The standards for protected homes for people with disabilities and for family-type accommodation centres for children/adolescents with disabilities were increased by 15 and those for day centres for children and/or full age children with disabilities were raised by 10 %. Despite this, the actual increase of the remuneration of the qualified staff is less than 10 %. An example can be given with the pedagogues, nurses and social workers working in residential social services in Lovech Municipality, whose remuneration increased from BGN 630 to BGN 650, which is close to the amount of the minimum wage in the country (for 2020 the minimum wage is BGN 610). The salaries of unqualified staff are linked to the increase of the minimum wage. Thus in practice the salaries of qualified and unqualified staff are almost equal. This leads to lack of motivation, high staff turnover and in some places to deterioration of the quality of the residential services provided. 38