The Tzuby’s Kids Association has recently concluded a partnership with the Children’s Heart Association, the “Maria S. Curie” Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children, the Anchor of Hope Association and the General Department for Social Assistance and Child Protection, Sector 4, whereby proposes to participate in a pilot project in order to identify and monitor children diagnosed with serious medical conditions at risk of abandonment or leaving the maternity. The expected outcome is an effective care model that facilitates rapid intervention and an integrated approach that can be expanded nationwide.

Specifically, what will the Tzuby’s Kids Association do in this partnership?

The “Tzuby’s Kids” Association is involved in monitoring the processes and activities related to the protection of the abandoned abandoned child in the neonatology department of the “Maria S. Curie” Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children from the mother nurses requesting this transfer. The project involves an integrated, inter-institutional approach, among partners being both MS Curie Hospital and the General Department for Social Assistance and Child Protection Sector 4, the Children’s Heart Association and the Anchor of Hope Association.

When does the activity actually start and how long will it take place?

The project has already begun and we are at the stage where, together with the project partners and the National Authority for the Protection of Child’s Rights and Adoption, we define the processes and working procedures.

What resources are allocated to Tzuby’s Kids Association?

“Tzuby’s Kids” Association provides expertise for defining processes and allocates a social worker who will follow, for half a year, specialized interventions to solve the social situation of children, on a case-by-case basis.

How will all these institutions collaborate when there is a case. Are there certain procedures?

Yes, and where we do not exist, we define them. We expect this project to be beneficial to the entire national socio-medical service system and to generate good practices that can be extended as working procedures for all hospitals receiving transfers of children with maternal health problems.

In Romania only in the year 2017 there were committed 9 children in state protection. What does this say about the medical, psychological care given to these children?

Most of these tragedies take place among institutionalized children. As much as we increase the level of medical and psychological services, we will never be able to replace the feeling of affiliation and psycho-emotional stability that children can have in the middle of a family. We have cases in which the physical recovery of children with disabilities was impossible in an institutional setting, but it had a miraculous progression when the child came to a family.Clearly, there is room for improvement in the services provided to children in the protection system, but the substantive issue of psycho-emotional disorders can not be addressed as long as the child is held in an institution, whether it is a social apartment, house family type (with shift workers) or other placement centers.

You may read the full article here (please note it has been published by a Romanian magazine and the link provides a google translation).