Bulgaria (2006-2009)

Our enduring legacy in Bulgaria

When ARK started its programme in Bulgaria, the country had the highest rate of infant institutionalisation in Europe, with some 15,000 children living in large-scale institutions.  It is estimated that only 2-4% of these children are actually orphans.

In 2006, ARK signed a partnership agreement to implement a deinstitutionalisation programme in the municipality of Stara Zagora, home to the highest number of institutionalised children in the country.

This was the first time the government had explicitly committed to the planned closure of an institution and marked a huge breakthrough for ARK and the future of childcare in Bulgaria.

Our mission

ARK recognised that changing the culture of children in care needed social service providers and Child Protection Departments to develop and manage effective, alternative, non-institutional care services.

Three key programme objectives were established:

• Demonstrate the closure of institutions through developing and implementing models of alternative care services
• Strengthen prevention work through developing and implementing a model of integrated services to reduce the number of children at risk of being institutionalised or abandoned
• Establish strategic partnerships for meaningful change.

How we have worked

ARK's Bulgaria programme has transformed the lives of children, enabling them to leave large, abusive institutions to live in families and high quality small group homes. The programme prevented the abandonment of children and demonstrated for the first time in Bulgaria how to close institutions and modernise the child care system. 

In just three years, ARK:

• Closed the Nadejda Home for Children Deprived of Parental Care, completing Bulgaria's first quality institution closure
• Created a successful prevention of abandonment network, including ground-breaking work in Stara Zagora's Maternity Ward
• Launched Bulgaria's first independent regional foster care service, together with local NGO Samariani
• Provided a comprehensive model for foster care which is now being rolled out by UNICEF across eight regions
• Established the first small group home service, now handed over to the Municipality of Stara Zagora and being used as a model by the government.

Our achievements

ARK has worked hard to ensure that its experience and programmes create a lasting legacy for children in Bulgaria. We have:

• Hosted closure events in the autumn of 2009 targeted at other NGOs, municipalities and government agencies with over 750 participants from throughout the country
• Prepared a series of detailed guides outlining its prevention of abandonment, foster care and small group home services and detailing how deinstitutionalisation programmes can be planned, monitored and evaluated
• Prepared a series of short films about ARK's work
• Participated in workshops jointly organised by the Bulgarian government and the European Commission to inform planned EC expenditure on deinstitutionalisation
• Worked with the new government to help develop a strategic document on the importance of deinstitutionalisation
• Provided input to a group developing detailed guidance on how deinstitutionalisation should be managed at a national level.

We organised this programme with an exit strategy in mind. Since we left:

• A small group home service is managed by the municipality
• A foster care team continues operating as part of a local NGO and is supporting national rollout of the model 
• A prevention network is co-ordinated by the Child Protection Department.