The new advisory body – the Council of Adoptive Families – will operate under the Ministry of Social Policy, the head of the department, Oksana Zholnovich, said. The minister believes that the council will help identify the problems and needs of families who have adopted or taken children under their care, and quickly respond to them.
The selection of members of the advisory body will start soon.
“We believe that the Council of Adoptive Families will help the Ministry of Social Policy to regularly and systematically see the needs of such families and respond to them in a timely manner. We are considering the option that the Council will have a regional principle of representation, because we need to better see both issues related to the problem in general and certain regional aspects”, Oksana Zholnovich said.
The idea to create a council arose after the successful experience of cooperation between the Ministry and the “DiyMo” Office. This consultative and advisory body under the Ministry of Social Policy consists of youth and children who have experience of being in institutional institutions, i.e. of persons who are directly familiar with the problems and needs in this area.
We will remind you that the adoption procedure has been simplified in Ukraine. In particular, some documents needed by adoptive parents can now be obtained electronically. This is much faster than the procedure for obtaining traditional paper documents.
In addition, a number of innovations are planned in this area. For example, a draft law is currently being developed, which provides for the reorganization of family forms of education. In particular, it is about granting family-type orphanages the status of foster families without losing rights and having to redo documents.
In 2023 in Ukraine adopted 927 children. At the end of last year, 15,687 children were registered for adoption. 11,014 of them have siblings. The largest share among these children (approximately 11,000) are those who have reasons for adoption, but because of the age from 11 to 18 years, they rarely find families. 11,045 children who are in foster families, family-type children’s homes and under care are also waiting for adoption.
