As a child, Christina Malandraki faced serious health problems. At that time, her family needed the help of the Church to overcome the problem. Years passed, and the danger passed – leaving behind a small disability, but also a great sensitivity to children who at some point in their lives needed support outside the family. The idea of ​​adoption has always been close to her heart, but the attempts associated with it have gone unnoticed.

“I have always thought about older children, because I always thought that they deserve to be given a second chance, as they gave me. But the first attempts made were negative. Last June anynet.gr digital platform “matched” Ms. Malandraki with a 12-year-old child from “The ark“. The Foundation replied that he liked it there and did not want to leave. According to him, not only Kivotos, but not a single private legal entity supports this rumor. deinstitutionalization.

negative attitude

“The problem concerns most private organizations”, notes on “K” lawyer at the Supreme Court Asimina Filiopoulou, who for a number of years was a lawyer for the child protection institution “Municipal Kindergarten of Thessaloniki – Agios Stylianos”, where a foster care program has been operating since 1998. According to him, many agencies do not enthusiastically support foster families because they are interested in keeping children in their institutions and showing many beneficiaries. “That’s why there was so much backlash when they were asked to place all the beneficiaries on the platform. In many cases, they also make the wrong choice, with the result that foster families do not perform well and the children return. Twice, once at the end of the 21st and once on the 22nd, I called the ministry for exactly this kind of Ark case. This was a 5-year-old child from the Pogoniani structure who had brothers, sisters and parents who retained the right to communicate with him, but were given to a foster family in Thessaloniki. “He was forcibly separated from his siblings, which created problems for him and his foster family. The choice was rash on the part of the social worker, and when I asked if they had a child psychologist in their structure, she said that there was one in Athens. On the way, they behaved extremely aggressively towards the contractors, did not help at all, and created problems. From all my communication with them, I understood the complete disorganization and bad mood.

However, according to other sources, before the creation of the electronic platform, the “Ark of Peace” was considered to be structures that “given away” many children for education and indeed without much control.

According to Lena Georgiou, president of the network of foster parents and volunteers for extra-institutional social care for minors “Right to a Family”, the electronic interface put a “brake” on foster care. “In the past, you would go to an institution and say you wanted a child for adoption, or ‘Mother’ would come out and communicate his needs, and people who were consciously interested would go. From there, the agency, along with the county, conducted a suitability test. Then they said that you would all go to the platform and ask the guys there. But how will communication be done when we have 50 stakeholders for every 700 children? The system is made for transparency, but what kind of transparency is there when there are no interested contractors? Most of all, children over 6 years of age, whom no one asks for, are in need. Accordingly, they are characterized by children with very mild disabilities, as a result of which they are left behind.

Study

Problems were also identified in the EKKE study (Child Protection Institutions in Greece: Problems and Perspectives, 2022): “One of the main reasons for the underperformance of the foster care system in Greece is the widespread use of institutional care. This choice, among other things, hides a) the fears of the staff of institutions that deinstitutionalization programs may entail the loss of jobs and labor achievements and b) the inadequacy of the social services of the regions to support deinstitutionalization programs, which certainly require greater mobilization, responsibility and vigilance” .