The professional parental assistants will be provided with work record cards according to the framework regulations approved by the Government on November 28. The salaries to parental assistants and the allowances for maintaining the temporarily placed children will be paid from the state budget. The Government established the categories of children that can benefit from professional parental assistance. These are the children younger than 18 years, the children at risk, those that are temporarily or permanently deprived of their family environment, the children that cannot be maintained by the biological family, are or can become victims of violence, human trafficking, abandonment or negligence. Minister of Social Protection, Family and Child Galina Balmos told the reporters that the salary that the state will pay to parental assistants and the allowances for children have not been fixed yet. The expenditure will be approved later by a Government Decision. Parental assistance services will be set up at local level, under the district social assistance divisions. The Ministry of Social Protection, Family and Child says that the lower number of families as result of poverty has led to an increased institutionalization risk for more children. The professional parental assistance is an alternative to institutionalization. The children are not placed in children’s homes, but in families for a certain period. The aim of the service is to temporarily protect the children in difficulty, to socialize and reintegrate them into the biological, extended or foster families, Galina Balmos said. The parental assistance service was developed by pilot projects in the municipality of Chisinau and in the districts of Cahul, Orhei, and Ungheni. There are 45 families of professional parental assistants in Moldova at present. Sixty children have been placed with foster parents, but 27 of them have been successfully reintegrated into their biological families. The salaries of the parental assistants and the allowances for maintaining the temporarily placed children are paid by the local authorities and by the NGO EveryChild.