Children Rights In Out Of Home Care and Related Legislation

Researches show there is increased number of children growing up without adequate, high-quality and constant support and those children are in need of alternative ways of care. Numerous are the reasons which bring the situation as it is, however, in domain of government is to strengthen up parental capacities through different prevention programs and prevent children from entering alternative care systems. In Serbia, previous years have been marked by reforming processes in social protection, with efforts to make biological family stronger, to decrease the number of children in alternative care and to reunite children who are for a long period of time out of family system with their biological families respectively. All this requires extensive investments and efforts from both decision makers and the public to modernize services for children and their families, restrict institutions for children, and introduce new standards and procedures in work and education of professionals and by all these to drastically decrease the number of children in alternative care systems. By enforcing foster-care in Serbia and increasing the number of fostering families the dominant way of children’s care changes, but the number of children who don`t live with their biological parents does not decrease. By promoting UN Directions in alternative care within professional education program Alternative Care and Children’s Rights in Serbia we inspired professionals to reflect and change their focus toward children’s position, to recognize their rights, respect and fulfill them, and, finally, serve as a platform for getting the focus back to the child, who is and should be in the center of social care.