Child care institutions come up short

State-run child protection institutions and the corresponding units in the private sector in Greece are characterized by the lack of a uniform framework and minimum national standards for staffing, operation and provision of care, according to research conducted by the National Center for Social Research (EKKE) on child protection institutions in Greece between July 2020 and May 2021. 

The report, published last week, said that the checks carried out at the units mainly concern hygiene and safety conditions, noting that social advisers, if they do carry out an inspection, make their own subjective judgments without observing any specific and uniform criteria. 

Moreover, the staffing needs of the institutions are often determined by decisions of the director, without a framework and an organizational chart.

In many cases, the staff is inadequate and inappropriate, undermining efforts for the adoption and fostering of children – perhaps out of fear that a reduction in the number of children will also lead to a reduction in staff. 

Furthermore, the report said government support for institutions is not consistent and that facilities often rely on volunteers and donations. It surmises that existing institutions work under internal norms that they devise, while when it comes to public institutions, the employees are evaluated like all other public employees. In the case of a private institution, the “assessment” is carried out by the directors.

The research was conducted in the context of the effort to strengthen the policy toward deinstitutionalization since, as its authors said, “the long-term residence of children, adolescents and infants in closed institutions is associated with serious psychiatric problems and chronic stress, which is mainly due to the conditions of upbringing in a non-normal environment.”