Formal care refers to all children in institutional care or substitute family-based care
(usually foster care and guardianship) and reflects a group of children deprived of parental care
and in need of some kind of protection through an intervention of the state. Early childhood,
the period from 0 to 3 years, is the most crucial developmental phase in life and placement in
formal care – thus, the separation from their parents of children of this age group – can have
a devastating and lasting impact.
In Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEECIS),
prior to the transition, the child protection system of most countries was characterized by
centralized planning and reliance on residential institutions. In the 1990s, economic conditions
deteriorated for many families, creating a larger group of families in need of state support. It
became urgent to reform the child-care system in order to adapt it to the new political setup
and to cater for the needs of a growing number of children at risk. Unfortunately, the
worrisome finding, when analysing statistical data from the TransMonEE Database, which
contains government data from 21 countries in the CEECIS region, is that although major
progress has been achieved in the reform of child-care systems, these have not yet been
translated into the capacity of social protection systems to prevent family separation, as
illustrated by the fact that the aggregated rate of children under the age of 18 in formal care
has remained relatively stable since the year 2000. The absence of data on children under the
age of three in family-based care precludes saying whether this general trend is also true for
these children, but other findings must keep our attention.
First, overall, fewer children under the age of three have been placed in institutions
during the past ten years. This decrease is uneven, however. Three countries (Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Tajikistan and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia1) are experiencing
an alarming increase in the rates of institutionalization of young children; four countries have
extremely high rates of institutionalization of children under the age of three (Belarus, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Russian Federation); and one country (Russian Federation) is
totalizing half of all children under the age of three in institutions in the whole region. Such
conclusions have been drawn based on a review of TransMonEE data from 2000 to 2009.
Regarding the situation in TFYR Macedonia, an analysis of the data between 2004 and 2009
shows a downward trend of children below three years placed in institutional care.
Second, foster care, which is the main alternative to institutionalization for young
children who cannot live (either temporarily or permanently) with their parents or extended
family, is barely used for children under the age of three. Indeed, in at least six CEECIS
countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan), no
systems of family foster care for children under the age of three have been developed. In at
least ten other countries (Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro,
Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, TFYR of Macedonia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan),
such systems are only at the very early stages of their development.