In Mykolaiv, the head of the Department for Children’s Affairs of the Mykolaiv City Council, Yuliya Kravchenko, spoke about difficult cases of rescuing minors from dysfunctional families and criticized a bill that, in her view, will complicate child protection, as she reported on Facebook.
The official gave the example of a foster family from Mykolaiv that currently raises 9 children: to the 4 wards of the family-type children’s home the family additionally took in another 5 brothers and sisters who were removed from one family due to critically inadequate parental care.
According to her, social services repeatedly worked with the biological parents and tried to help them overcome difficult life circumstances, but none of the measures produced results.
After the children were removed, these parents gave birth to another 1 infant and left the baby at the maternity hospital, which, Kravchenko believes, indicates complete indifference to their own children.
The greatest shock for specialists was the children’s health: all were found to have problems that had gone without medical care for years, and during ear cleaning for one of the children doctors removed a cockroach from an earwax plug. She did not disclose other details of their living conditions, stressing that the stories told by the children are extremely traumatic.
Kravchenko thanked the foster families who take on the care of such children and help them recover physically and psychologically after what they have experienced.
At the same time, she criticized the new bill on improving child protection mechanisms, noting that the proposed provisions could seriously complicate procedures for terminating parental rights in cases of severe neglect of duties.
The official explained that under the draft, guardianship authorities would have to prove in court that parents received the full scope of necessary social services, and if this is confirmed, responsibility could fall on officials, up to criminal liability — while the provision of social services under the law is built on the principle of voluntariness, and many parents who abuse alcohol or drugs refuse any help.
In her view, priority should be given to strengthening responsibility for negligent parents themselves, rather than shifting risks and pressure onto guardianship workers who try to protect children in critical situations.
Previously we wrote:
- Children can literally be “taken to Senkevych”: Mykolaiv critically lacks patronage (foster) families
- There is a house, but not enough parents: the reality of Mykolaiv
- Social services in Mykolaiv saved children from a negligent mother
- In Mykolaiv, children are taken from negligent parents: how to take them into care
- There have been more cases in Mykolaiv of children being removed from parents who do not fulfill their duties
