Description of the current system

The data for this section has been compiled with the kind help of our colleagues from Člověk hledá člověka, o.s. Thank you!

The child care system in the Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic there are more than 24 000 children who are growing up outside their biological family, mostly in institutional care. The specific problem of a child living without its own parents or outside a family is just one of the aspects of the wider question regarding a child’s satisfactory development and life. Following the Czech Republic’s entry into the EU there was a need to seek out new ways of helping children not only as part of international conventions. In 2006 laws that deal in general with the care for these children were amended, for example the Institutional and Protective Care Act, the Children's Social and Legal Protection Act, and the Family Act, and in 2007 the Social Services Act also became valid. Nevertheless there are still many flaws, especially in how laws are applied in practice and the Foundation will continue to point out these flaws and support their removal.

A child’s upbringing in a well-functioning family is undoubtedly the best way of preventing any later difficulties which may affect the child’s development, whether they be physical (digestive disorders, weak immune system), mental (deprivation, problem behaviour, child neurosis) or social (child criminality, drug dependence). When a family does not fulfil its responsibility towards a child, it is important for a new family environment or a new family to be found as quickly as possible, through substitute family care.

Substitute family care - a form of child care where the child is brought up by “substitute” families in an environment that is as close as possible to life in a natural family. In this country this mainly involves adoption and foster care.

Family - the natural environment

Social and legal protection determines the relationship that a democratic state and its bodies have towards the family and parental responsibilities. The Declaration of Children’s Rights, passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20th November 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child declare the family to be the basic unit in society and the natural environment for the growth and welfare of all its members, in particular children. It must be entitled to the necessary protection and such help that enables it to fulfil its role. In accordance with these international documents the child, due to its physical and mental immaturity, needs special guarantees, care and the appropriate legal protection before and after it is born. Article 32 of the Bill of Rights deals with children and the family and places parenthood and the family under the protection of the law and guarantees children and young people special protection. The Child Care System Act therefore also respects one of the basic principles of how a family should work, namely the right and obligation of parents to jointly raise and care for a child and, if necessary, to ask for help. Any encroachment on privacy and family life can only be made if the parents or persons responsible for raising the children request it or if they are unable or unwilling to care for them. The Child Care System Act therefore specifies social incidents and the level of authority that the state and its bodies have over privacy and family life. Therefore it is necessary for a legal prerequisite to be created for the bodies implementing social and legal protection which will enable these bodies to implement social and legal protection effectively.

The central state administrative body

is, according to Czech National Council Act 2/1969 Coll., on the creation of ministries and other central state administrative bodies of the Czech Socialist Republic, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which is responsible for family and child care. The competence of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the social and legal protection of children is also embodied in Section 4 of Act 359/1999 Coll. Following the reform of public administration where due to subordination it can no longer intervene in the activities of individual subordinate offices, the ministry is left with creating a concept and policy for the child care system, creating secondary legislation, managing child care system administrators and its role in the budgetary redistribution of funds. The fragmentation at central level is most especially apparent in institutional care where the central administrative body for social care institutions is in fact the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Authority regarding all other institutions is shared by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

Competence of the regions

The Regional Authority, as the state administrator, has appellate jurisdiction over first instance decisions in administrative proceedings. It also has significant powers in arranging adoption and foster care, in creating records of suitable persons for these purposes and in organising advisory activities for foster parents. The Regional Authority also has a significant role with regards to non-state entities that are involved in the child care system: it gives them authorisation for these activities and monitors these activities. Following the reform of public administration the regions are also leading founders of institutions providing institutional care. The regions (like the municipalities) have separate responsibility to create the conditions for cultural, sporting and other special-interest and educational activities for children. This is a teleological obligation, practically unenforceable and more or less proclamatory.

Competence of municipalities with extended competence

The competence of municipalities with extended competence, or their Municipal Authorities, is the most important in the actual implementation of social and legal protection. All fundamental measures (with the exception of adoption and foster care, see above) are passed at “small district” level. The majority of the competences from the abolished former state administrative bodies with general powers - the District Authorities - have passed to these Authorities. These Municipal Authorities, or their child and family care departments, are the actual guarantor for the child care system in individual cases. Here they keep records of children and their families where a risk of danger to a child has been ascertained (for example, as a result of notification by an observant neighbour); these Authorities, as the public custodian, are appointed the children’s guardian in the relevant proceedings and carry out actual or designated supervision of minors. One of the most important competences is the right to initiate court proceedings regarding educational measures, in particular prescribing institutional care, and also to propose a preliminary measure to entrust a child to a particular person.

Competence of municipalities

It is the role of Municipal Authorities to find endangered children, to work with participants (parents, children) in order to remove any faults, to notify the Municipal Authority in a municipality with extended competence, to check whether bans are being breached with regards to children’s visits in an environment that is harmful to them, in adopting measures with regards to children’s upbringing (if the courts have not done so). Primarily their role involves initiation and control activities.

Competence of other entities (non-state organisations/accredited entities)

Accredited entities, which are mainly non-state non-profit organisations, play an important role in preventive and advisory activities and in providing other social services. Unlike abroad the potential of these entities is not yet being fully used in this country which on the other hand is also the reason for their insufficient capacity so far. A separate chapter looks at administrators of institutional upbringing.

Abandoned children > Description of the current system

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