Romania
Although the Government actions aimed to reduce the number of institutionalised children, a delicate issue in what concerns child protection is still given by the problems of formerly institutionalised children and also of the ones that are still in residential institutions. Even if the number of children abandoned at birth diminished in the last years, from 5,130 in 2003 to 2,216 in 2006, not all the cases that are entering child protection system can be solved through the adoption system.
Starting with 2001, an intense deinstitutionalisation programme is carried out. In the last years, as a consequence of the governmental strategy, a large number of children were deinstitutionalised. Statistics offered by the National Authority for Protecting Children's Rights revealed that in March 2007, 26,599 children, representing almost 36% of children separated of their parents, were in institutions and 47,194 children (almost 64%) were protected in substitute families (foster care or care offered by relatives and other families/persons). Also, in the same month, were functioning 1,615 placement centres, of which 1,206 were public and 409 private.
In 2007, at the end of the first trimester, 11,016 children with disabilities received protection in public (approximately 95% of cases) or private (almost 5% of cases) institutions.
A problem that remains still unsolved is the social reintegration of children and young people that are leaving the residential system, due to the insufficient scope of the social reintegration services. At the end of 2006, only 2 centres for the development of independent life skills were mentioned in the statistic report of the National Authority for Protecting Children Rights. Considering all the above, the child protection system can be considered insufficient prepared to assure a proper environment for child development in accordance with the principle of social reintegration at the end of the protection measure.