Ending the placement of children under three in institutions: Support nurturing families for all young children

On November 21-22 2012 the ministerial conference ‘Ending the placement of children under three in institutions: Support nurturing families for all young children’ took place in Sofia (Bulgaria). Having the conference in Sofia was symbolic since Bulgaria has embarked on one of the most ambitious programmes of child care reform in Eastern Europe.

The conference helped to articulate a strong political commitment to continuing and accelerating work in the area of child care reform, especially towards:

• reducing the number of infants abandoned at birth
• reducing the number of children below three years old deprived of parental care and placed in
institutional care
• increasing the number of children with disabilities maintained within their families.

250 top-level governmental representatives across various sectors from 24 countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia took part in the conference and twenty of them made public statements at the conference regarding their current and future efforts in child care reform. 

The conference aimed to support governments in conducting the necessary reforms. Its specific
objectives were to:

1. take stock of governments’ commitments to address the issue and progress achieved in selected
2. countries
3. reaffirm the importance of a family environment for child development and the child’s right to live in a family environment
4.  build synergies at the highest political and technical levels between governments in the region
5. share promising practices and positive steps taken in preventing both the separation of children
6. under three from their families and their placement in residential care
7. reinforce the dialogue among the different partners supporting governments in these reforms.