Minister Galina Balmos: More parentless children demand more professional parental assistants

Moldova needs more professional parental assistants to solve the problems of the children lacking parental care. The conclusion was reached at a meeting on Thursday, May 15, between the Minister of Social Protection, Family and Child, Galina Balmos, and a group of social assistants, professional parental assistants and parentless children from Orhei district, Info-Prim Neo reports. The parental assistants describes, in detail, the difficulties they face as being discriminated by society, lacking money and problems linked with the deficiencies in the initial education of tutored children. The children taken care of by parental assistants say they feel better within a family environment than in an orphanage. However, they say they miss their relatives, who, as a rule, are abroad, in jails, are alcoholics or dead. The activity of parental assistants is part of a pilot-project carried out in 5 districts. Their services have been rendered to 123 children, from which 76 were reintegrated in own families or are adopted. Earlier in May, 2008, 49 assistants were registered in those five districts, who now take care of 46 children. Financing the parental assistants implies monthly allocations of 300-500 lei per child, plus the salary of 540 lei. The monthly expenses to keep a child in an orphanage run up to over 1,500 lei in Moldova. The professional parental assistance is intended for the children without parental care. The service was first launched in Chisinau in 2000, while in 2003 it was extended to the districts of Cahul, Ungheni, Soroca and Orhei.