Program “Alternative Care and Rights of Children in Serbia”

A research carried in 2011/2012 through young people of Serbia by International Organisation SOS Children’s Villages and under sponsorship of European Committee has shown that young people that have been growing up within the programs of care, have lower results in sense of education level, possibilities for finding jobs and health condition. Furthermore, they are still facing with bigger social exclusions comparing to their coeval grown up within their families. Willing to contribute advancement of life quality of children and youngsters without parental care, as well as their social inclusion, in March 2018, we have stated up a project “Alternative Care and Rights of Children in Serbia”

This project will be dealing with rights of children in care centres, through development and implementation of practical and interactive trainings designed for professionals that are taking care of children within the system of social protection, foster families and other organisations which take care of children. The realisation of this project will bring further results:

• Better law and rights enforcement of children growing up in some of the alternative ways of care: (alternative homes and centres, foster families or similar)
• Qualitative education for trainers and professionals from system of social protection, in order to increase their capacities and approaches to children rights
• Delivering a set of recommendations and sustainability plans for education of employees within the system of social protection, which will be published by National managing centre. Group will be made of key participants on national level, and their work will involve children and adolescents.
• This project represents a continuation of a pilot project which was organized by International organisation SOS Children’s Villages, European Council and Eurochild organisation with support of national partners, taken in eight EU countries. This is why, within the first phase, trainers from mentioned countries, will organize trainings for 80 professionals of child care, using their experiences and know-how. In the next phase, 20 chosen trainers will share their knowledge with 200 professionals from system of social protection.

Within the project, a lot of public events will be organised in order to increase target group’s conscience about importance of human rights, and especially the importance of children’s rights. Final, two-days lasting conference, will be held in Belgrade at the end of 2019. The results of the project and suggestion for sustainable training for professional dealing with children care, will be presented at the conference.

Remark: The contents of this text is exclusively responsibility of Foundation SOS Children’s Villages Serbia and do not represent, necessarily states of European Union.