RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN SMALL FAMILY-TYPE CHILDREN’S HOMES
programme as a basic tool to be guided with.139 Our monitoring showed that, in most cases, the children’s homes
do not have such programmes as a single document.
Some of the children’s homes either do not have internal regulations or where they do have such regulations, they
are defective.
With a view of receiving feedback, there are complaints boxes installed at children’s homes. Both complaints
boxes and comments boxes are usually empty. The children’s homes are keeping journals to register any measures
implemented in response to feedback or comments received. Where they do have such journals, they are kept formalistically or are empty. At some of the children’s homes, journals on any measures taken in response to feedback
received contain some entries but there is no indication as to when the measures were implemented or what the
result was.
Accident registration journals are often times empty as well, which creates the impression that they are maintained
only formalistically.
In some cases educators denied any occurrence of accidents but the documents maintained at their institutions
(handover journals, personal files, Medical Form No. IV-100/A, notices about medical appointments) prove to the
contrary.
For the most of time, the journals to register measures implemented in response to violence are empty as well.
The small family-type children’s homes must be maintaining journals for the registration of admissions to and discharges from specialized institutions.140 In contravention of the established standard, these journals are not always
filled out in a complete manner.
Journals for registration of temporary leaves from the children’s home are kept also in violation of the established
rules.
Individual approach to services
Article 25 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child prescribes the need for a periodic review of the treatment
provided to children under care and obliges the States Parties to protect the right of children placed under the care
of competent authorities to have the care conditions evaluated periodically.
We would like to note that that it is the obligation of social workers, before the child is actually allocated to a children’s home, to inform the service provider as much as possible about the prospective beneficiary’s case. As the
educators say, normally, this does not happen in reality.
At children’s homes run by the Association “SOS Children’s Villages Georgia”, we identified that State-employed
social workers have delegated their rights and obligations to other social workers employed within the “Family
Enhancement Project”. Sometimes the social workers of the Association pay visits to the beneficiaries’ biological
families at their own initiative to study the children’s family conditions despite the fact that they know they are not
authorized to do so.
139 The Childcare Standards, Article 1(2)(a.b).
140 Annex 3, Order of the Minister of Labor, Health and Social Protection No. 52/N dated 26 February 2010 approving “Terms
and conditions of admission to and discharge from specialized institutions”.
2013
Within the monitoring, the Special Preventive Group examined the beneficiaries’ personal files maintained by the
children’s homes. Although all of the files include decisions of local competent authorities admitting the children
to a children’s home or extending their stay at the children’s home, the beneficiaries’ documents are often times
incomplete. In particular, the individual development plans and individual servicing plans are drafted formalistically
containing scarce and incomplete information. The plans do not describe in detail objectives to be achieved, activities to achieve the objectives, achievement indicators and timetable. The plans do not envisage the beneficiaries’ individual needs, objectives and activities. The language used in the plans is usually the same for all plans. Any results
achieved or implementation progress are not indicated in the plans. The records do not provide information about
the views of the children, their caregivers and the service provider about the plans and the progress of their implementation. Whether the beneficiaries’ were consulted about their own plans cannot be discerned from the records.
NPM Report
71
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