Prevention of child abandonment at birth in the Ungheni rayon (extension)
6/1/2007
—
5/31/2009
All objectives were achieved
The project purpose
This project was a continuation of the work started with the support of the World Childhood Foundation in Ungheni and Andreas A David Foundation in Chisinau. As result of the evaluation in the life of the 2 projects mentioned above new important areas of involvement have emerged aiming to strengthen the best practice achieved:
- Building the capacity of the services providers and multi-disciplinary groups of professionals working on the prevention of child abandonment at birth in both regions;
- Development of a nationwide referral mechanisms to prevent child abandonment involving local authorities from which bigger numbers of children are abandoned in Chisinau Republican Maternity;
- Establishing a Psycho-Social Service which will support parents as well as children who spend a lot of time in the republican hospital.
Result
During the project implementation the success rate of child abandonment prevention constituted 89% in Chisinau and 96 % in Ungheni rayon. All beneficiaries (parent and baby couples) at the end of their placement in the residential facilities were ultimately reintegrated within their communities of origin. In the vast majority of cases the women’s attitude towards their own children changed, they acquired childcare and independent living skills; they developed strong attachment with their babies. Within the Republican Maternity Hospital a Psycho-Social Assistance Service was established to provide multi-disciplinary support to parents and children in difficult situations. So additionally to the existent multi-disciplinary team (which was established in the previous project) consisted of one social worker, one psychologist and one lawyer additional professionals were included in the new service such as 5 psychologists, 6 speech therapists working in the medical institution and the second social worker was recruited. EveryChild Moldova has built the capacity of the multidisciplinary groups including social workers, family doctors, hospital staff from Ungheni and Chisinau to be able to develop efficient and sustainable child and family protection social services, to embrace child abandonment at birth into the national referral system developed by the Ministry of Social Protection and non-governmental bodies in Moldova.