Any person who wants and has the capacities and conditions needed for temporary accommodating one or several children, but not more than three at a time, for helping them receive training, socialize and return to the biological, extended or adoptive family can become professional parental assistant, IPN reports.
Under the legislation, the persons who want to become professional parental assistant must go to the social assistance division of the municipality or district where they live. The applicant is to present the copy of the identity card, a certificate about the state of health and civil status, including previous marriages, and a thorough description of the children and adult members of the family and of the children who are not members of the family, but live in the applicant’s house.
The future professional parental assistant must also describe in detail the living conditions, the religious convictions and the capacity to look after a child with other religious beliefs or with particularities of origin, culture or language. This will also provide information about the previous and current jobs and occupations, leisure activities and hobbies and previous experience of looking after the own or other children, as well as the criminal record.
The parental assistants are paid and have an employment record book and can also gain seniority. Their salary is of about 2,000 lei. Also, each child gets a lump sum payment on placement of 250 lei to 3,000 lei, depending on the type of placement (temporary, short-term or long-term), an annual allowance of 3,000 lei for clothes, shoes and personal hygiene products, monthly maintenance allowances of almost 30 lei a day as well as a lump sum of 1,000 lei when turning 18. The lump sum on placement, annual allowance and monthly allowance in the case of children with disabilities are by 30% higher.
For the first time, this service was launched in the municipality of Chisinau at the end of 2000. In 2003, it was extended to the districts of Cahul and Ungheni, in 2005 to Orhei, while in 2007 to Soroca. Afterward, it was extend to cover most of the districts.
According to the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, in Moldova there are 445 families of professional parental assistants and parent educators who raise almost 1,000 children. Recently, CCF Moldova – Child, Community, Family, which represent UK’s Hope and Homes for Children, the Ministry of Labor and UNICEF Moldova launched a nationwide campaign to recruit about 20 professional parental assistants who will offer a family environment to children aged between 0 and 3 and children with disabilities.
