Allowances for children placed in family-type children’s homes have been doubled

The monthly allowances for maintaining a child in family-type children’s homes were increased from 180 lei for children of preschool age and 200 lei for children of school age to 450 lei for a child. A relevant Government decision came into force after published in the Official Gazette on October 19. Under the decision, the yearly allowances will be raised from 1,000 to 3,000 lei as from January 1, 2008. This is the first rise in allowances after the Government Decision regarding the maintenance of orphans and children without parental care in family-type children’s homes was adopted in 2002. The family-type children’s home is an alternative to the residential childcare institutions and represents a large family that brings up at least three and at most seven children, including its own. The families that open family-type children’s homes receive a salary and the length of service is included in the work record book. There were 26 family-type homes in Moldova with 137 children accommodated in them at the start of this year. Now the number of such homes has increased to 40. The development of alternative services is one of the priorities of the reform of the residential childcare institutions carried out by the Government of Moldova with support from UNICEF and the European Union as part of the EU-funded project “Development of Integrated Social Care Services for Vulnerable Families and Children at Risk” implemented between 2006 and 2007.