site.btaExhibition Highlighting Life after Foster Care Opens at National Assembly

An exhibition titled The Changed Ones – Life After Foster Care, opened at the National Assembly on Wednesday, highlighting the life-changing impact of foster care on vulnerable children in the country.

The exhibition which features the portraits of young people in foster care was opened by National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova. “This is our way to point our attention to a problem which affects people who need support,” Kiselova said. 

“We want to turn everyone’s attention to this, and I believe that we will all think about it, with our behaviour we must minimize the instances in which a child is left without a home, care or love, because money is not what makes people happy, but other people. The most desired help is an extended hand at a difficult moment,” Kiselova added.

"Unfortunately, the disparity between the coming of age and the moment a person can make his own living independently is not legally synchronized. That is why 18-year-old children with rare diseases need medication, because they are still children, even if they have turned 18. Other children need a home or support for school or university,” Kiselova added and called on institutions to look for possibilities to solve this problem.

“These stories are here, at the National Assembly, not to decorate the walls, but to look us straight in the eyes, to ask us what will we do for them, because every year nearly 200 youngsters leave their foster care families and various institutions, and quite often the coming of age is not the beginning of freedom, but of homelessness, poverty and fear,” said Alexander Milanov, executive director of the National Foster Care Association and organizer of the exhibit.

“The cause of children who live without families is my personal cause,” GERB-UDF Deputy Floor Leader Denitsa Sacheva, chair of the parliamentary Labour and Social Policy Committee, said. “Unfortunately, in the past years foster care has lost society’s trust, falling victim to propaganda and a smear campaign,” the MP said. She added that in the past years political representatives have not been a worthy example to follow, “but the fact is that ordinary people can be the biggest lesson and example for everyone.” Sacheva addressed all parliamentary groups, asking MPs to work together on projects connected to the securing of a better future for children in foster care, including changes to the Social Services Act.