Don't have children if you're going to leave them, says the 24-year-old Stefan Gerić, who spent most of his life until adulthood in an institution for children without parental care and in the Ljubović Center for Children and Youth. For Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) he told the shocking story of how he ended up in the Mladost Children's Home in Bijela. His mother, he says, did not want him, and his father ended up in prison.
"From the first to the eighth year, I was in Bijela, there was a lot of aggression and peer violence. To this day, I still have trauma from those events," says Stefan.
At the Home in Bijela, there were six suicide attempts in one year, the director of this institution announced Marela Savić, in July of this year, in the Parliament of Montenegro, during the joint session of the Committee for Human Rights and Freedoms and the Committee for Health, Labor and Social Welfare.
The Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography (MSSD) told CIN-CG that they do not know about suicide attempts in the House in Bijela, although their representatives were present at the session of two parliamentary committees.
"We are not aware that six children at the Mladost Bijela Youth Center attempted suicide in the past year," the Ministry stated.
The Office of the Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms (Ombudsman) told CIN-CG that they visited the institution in connection with the suicide attempt.
"The protector will assess whether the failure to act on the recommendations contributed to this problem or whether there are other reasons and initiate the appropriate procedures," said the office for CIN-CG.
The Ombudsperson has repeatedly drawn attention to the inadequate working conditions and capacities of this institution, noting that there are serious problems in the functioning and provision of protection services for children without parental care.
"Every child who is placed in an institution due to family situation or life circumstances has multiple problems, often trauma, and needs help and support to the highest degree that can be provided in institutional conditions. The Protector states that the Children's Home, at this moment, does not have the capacity to ensure that," the office of the Ombudsman for CIN-CG emphasizes.
I Marija Ružić Stajović from the non-governmental organization Juventas points out that children come to the Home from unfavorable life circumstances, and that the system must prevent and react more urgently in order to protect these children.
Dom Mladost is the only institution in Montenegro that cares for children deprived of parental care and children whose development is hindered by family circumstances.
In Montenegro, the exact number of children without parental care is not known. According to UNICEF data, in the last four years, approximately 20 children have been placed in the Home in Bijela.
Head of the UNICEF representative office in Montenegro Mike Servadei for CIN-CG, he says that almost half a million children in countries across Europe and Central Asia live in residential institutions.
Scientific research has confirmed that raising a child in an institution is harmful to physical and emotional development. That is why there are recommendations to provide children with alternative accommodation, outside of institutions, in foster families, with relatives, in small group communities, if they are not lucky enough to be adopted.
The government is late in adopting the Deinstitutionalization Strategy, and there are still many challenges to implement. Although conditions have improved in recent years and the number of children in institutions has decreased, the process of looking for alternative accommodation is still at the beginning.
And in the latest report of the European Commission for 2024, it is pointed out that not enough progress has been achieved in Montenegro in the transition to community and family services, and the Deinstitutionalization Strategy is still awaiting adoption.
"Centers for social work still lack adequate staff, organization and capacities. The Institute for Social and Child Protection does not have enough human capacity to ensure quality and professional supervision," the document emphasizes.
More children with behavioral problems in the Home
The Director of the Home for CIN-CG appeals that six suicide attempts in one year must draw attention to the state of mental health of the youngest.
Savić states that similar situations have happened before, but that now there are many more of them, as there are more children with mental problems.
"About 25 percent of children have serious mental health problems, which require constant supervision by a neuropsychiatrist and constant therapy, and there are also children with combined problems," says the director of the Home.
She pointed out that this is why they established cooperation with an external employee who comes once a week. The director also says that the reasons for the suicide attempts were various - from immediate anger, to falling in love, but also despair at not being able to be with the family.
The fact that an increasing number of children, as young as 12-13, use psychoactive substances and have a sex life inappropriate for their age is also worrying, according to the office of the Ombudsman.
"The challenge is represented by children with unacceptable behavior, whose number is noticeably increasing within this institution," they state.
The Director of the Home for CIN-CG claims that children do not bring alcohol and narcotics into the Home and that they are constantly discussed with them about their harmfulness.
"The children are monitored, and in all cases where there is even the slightest suspicion, drug testing is done."
She explains that unacceptable behavior is punished by temporarily confiscating the mobile phone, banning evening outings and confiscating pocket money, in such a way that this money is paid into the child's current account.
Savić says that there is "zero tolerance for violence" in the work of the House.
"Most of them had a model of violence in their families, we have rare cases of violence among children," says Savić.
The Protector, however, visited the Home twice due to reports of employee violence against children, but did not establish that this actually happened. In the opinion of the Ombudsperson from May 2021, it is written that it was not established whether violence occurred, because the employees refuted such suspicions. In the report, it was stated that violence against children by teachers is continuously happening in the Home, as well as that there is frequent shouting, blackmail and intimidation.
"Earlier, based on the conversation with the children, the defender got the impression that the children do not trust them to report any unacceptable behavior to anyone within the institution and that they are afraid of reprisals if they report something that bothers them," the Ombudsperson's opinion states.
Residents do not even trust their social worker.
In another anonymous report to the Ombudsperson for Violence from 2019, it is written that physical punishment of children is used daily, and that children also apply this pattern of behavior to each other. At that time, in the opinion of the Protector, it was pointed out that the inspection did not conduct an interview with any resident about the reported violence, but noted that the two employed professional associates did not have a work license.
Director of the Center for Autism, Developmental Disabilities and Child Psychiatry Ivan Krgović claims that the wards did not complain to him about the teachers, but that there is violence among the children.
He adds that it happens that a child who has been moved from a primary family to an institution self-harms because he wants to return home. Krgović points out that it happens that young people come to the Home with a developed personality disorder, as a result of suffering serious problems in family relationships.
"Such a condition, if not corrected, can lead to an antisocial personality disorder and because of this they may be inclined to commit a criminal act," explains the doctor.
The new psychiatry clinic in Podgorica has not yet opened the long-announced department for minors. The lack of staff is also a problem. There are currently three child psychiatrists working in Montenegro, who cannot cover the needs of the citizens. Many minor patients from Montenegro are referred to the Institute for Mental Health in Belgrade. There, too, they had an insufficient number of child psychiatrists, which they solved by including general psychiatrists in the examinations of adolescents, which, according to the interlocutors, could be done here as well.
Children end up in Ljubović without having committed a crime
The Basic Court in Herceg Novi tells CIN-CG that there are currently no ongoing proceedings in which residents of the Home in Bijela are injured or accused. In the last five years, however, there were eight final verdicts in which the users of the Home were guilty of thefts, fights and some other offenses.
After the first eight years of his life spent in the Home in Bijela, according to the decision of the Center for Social Work in Herceg Novi, Stefan returned to his parents, but unfortunately, he says, the violence continued at home, so he ran away.
"I went to the police and reported my parents. The Center for Social Work sent me to Ljubović, although they were not allowed to send me there, because I had done nothing wrong. There, from the age of 12 to 14, I went through Golgotha, bullying by my peers was everyday".
After Ljubović, the Center sent him to live with his father, the parents separated in the meantime.
"My father was good to me when I came back, but he died soon after."
After that, he says, he was left to the streets, he started using psychoactive substances, but also stealing.
"I managed. Nobody cared about me."
So, this time, he says, for a reason, he ended up in Ljubović:
"Then several employees helped me. The court approved my wish to spend some time in a monastery during my sentence. There I weaned myself from harmful habits."
The child does not want to do something bad, but there is no one to take care of him, says Stefan, and he appeals to the centers for social work to help these children, and not that, as he claims, most of them, when they leave the institutions, end up on the street and in prison.
When he served his sentence, almost no one, he claims, was interested in what happened to him.
"I only had support from two professors from Ljubovići, but not from those who needed it - the state, the ministry, the centers. I am mentally unstable, I have health problems, all of this has consequences," says Stefan sadly.
From the Center for Social Work in Herzegnov, CIN-CG did not receive answers to numerous questions, including why it happens that they send a child without parental care to Ljubović, without having committed a criminal offense.
The Center for Social Work in Podgorica claims that this can only happen with them if it is necessary to place a child somewhere immediately, but only temporarily, never for a long time.
Strengthen families not to send their children to the Home
In the Mladost Children's Home in Bijela, the structure of the children staying in that institution has been completely changed, so more than half of the residents have developmental disabilities.
Although the number of children in the Home has halved in recent years, the number of children with developmental disabilities has almost doubled in the last three years alone.
The home in Bijela has changed a lot, the director points out, stating that up to 200 children used to stay there, of which only a few had diagnosed developmental problems.
"Children with developmental disabilities are six to 30 times more likely to be institutionalized compared to children without such disabilities," Servadei tells CIN-CG.
He points out that at least 50 more social workers should be hired, who would work with families at the local level.
The Center for Social Work in Podgorica points out that they have 12 case managers who work on 1.400 cases.
"One follows about 140 families, and the recommendation is to follow 30 to 40 families," say the Center.
Given that foster care for children with developmental disabilities has not been developed in Montenegro, and the Ju Zavod Komanski most, which takes care of adult citizens with disabilities, is already full, a serious problem is where the wards will go when they turn 18.
Komanski Most did not answer CIN-CG's questions about the institution's capacities, whether they are full and how long the waiting list is.
Both the director of the Home in Bijela and Ružić Stajović point out that the situation in the Home warns that families should be strengthened so that they do not send children to homes, especially when it comes to children with developmental disabilities. From Juventas, they propose to systematize the service of a family associate, and the director of the Home proposes the introduction of the so-called a "parenting break", like in Norway, which, he says, doesn't require a lot of money.
"Sometimes the parent is just too tired. In Norway, children live in their biological families, and parents have the right to place the child in an adapted environment once every 15 days or a week, for two or three days," says Savić.
Krgović pointed out that his experience also shows that the most challenging cases in the House are children with intellectual disabilities.
"Inclusion means that we don't look at them as if they have some deficiency, but that society is defective because it doesn't have the conditions for them," the doctor points out.
As of 2019, a small group community for children with developmental disabilities in Bijelo Polje, which does not yet have a license, has been operating within the Doma Mladost since XNUMX. Savić explained that in Bijelo Polje, most of these children are immobile, and that our system lacks a health-social institution for children with severe disabilities, without parental care, as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia have.
Most children have parents, there are no adoptions, not enough foster parents
More than 90 percent of the children staying at the Youth Center have parents, director Savić told CIN-CG. He explains that parents cannot take care of them due to various problems - from psychiatric illnesses, addictions, vagrancy, crime, violence, poverty, forcing the child to beg...
In the past five years, between 71 and 86 children have been placed in the Home in Bijela. The institution has eight housing units, each about 250 square meters, and the children are divided according to gender and age.
The youngest ward is two years old, and the oldest is 19, but the majority are of older school age. The Social and Child Protection Act of 2013 prohibits the placement of children under the age of three in social and child protection institutions, except in exceptional circumstances. The deinstitutionalization strategy foresees that this limit be raised and that children up to the age of seven do not stay in homes.
Not a single child from the Home in Bijela has been adopted in the last five years, Director Savić tells CIN-CG. It also explains that adoption requires the consent of the parents or deprivation of parental rights.
"There is always interest in adoption, but it is not easy to reach, if there is no consent of the parents, a final court verdict," says Savić.
In the Deinstitutionalization Strategy, it is written that only 2020 children were adopted in Montenegro from 2023 to 12.
"The adoption rate has halved compared to the first decade of the 2000s and is the lowest in the entire Central and Eastern Europe region," the document says.
In Montenegro, kinship foster care is the most developed, while non-relative and specialized foster care is significantly less.
According to MSSD data, last year there were 332 children in relative foster care, 88 in non-relative foster care, and 10 in foster care with intensive and additional support.
The deinstitutionalization strategy, among other things, foresees that the number of foster families will increase by 2027 percent by 15.
In the Strategy for the Development of Social and Child Protection, it is emphasized that the foster care system is not sufficiently developed, the assessment and preparation of foster parents and children is inadequate, and the number of foster families is insufficient.
The Center for Social Work in Podgorica says that in the last two years the number of applications for foster care has decreased. They also emphasize that it happens more often that children from foster families end up being placed in a Home, than that children from the Home go to foster parents. They expect the Center for Foster Care to significantly improve the development of foster care, but also relieve the work of centers for social work.
Although the transformation plan of the Home from 2020 to 2024 envisaged the establishment of a Foster Care Center in Bijela, this was abandoned.
According to MSSD, foster care centers will soon be established, one in Podgorica and two regional units in the north and south.
"The new model of foster care should respond to the needs of all children, because it develops different forms of foster care with a special emphasis on specialized foster care, and thus the number of foster families will increase," the department assesses. Damir Gutić.
The Ministry will propose, they claim, a new Law on Social and Child Protection in 2025. It foresees the improvement of services and material benefits in order to improve the quality of life of children without parental care. The new law, says Servadei, should provide for more generous financial support for foster parents.
Insufficient support after leaving, no one interested in working in the Home
"In the last five years, no one has enrolled in college, they barely even finish high school," says the director of the Home.
What we have here now, warns the director, are children who are even 12 years old, and who have never gone to school, or as if they didn't:
"It happens that they have a certificate that they finished the fourth grade, but they don't know how to pick up a pencil. It takes a lot of effort to get these children interested in school."
The ombudsman assesses that their educational achievements are at the expected level and due to the lack of staff within the institution.
There are no interested people to work in the House, claims the director.
"In the last two months, the House has advertised twice for educators and professional workers, and no one responded".
The office of the Ombudsman for CIN-CG says that they see great engagement of all employees, but that this institution does not have the conditions to reach the minimum standards for adequate work and treatment.
"It often happens that one teacher is assigned to two families (around 17 children), which represents a special challenge when one takes into account the multifaceted nature of the user's problem," the office said.
The director of the House also proposes that the new legal solution simplify the conditions for employment, that is, to give a deadline of one year for passing the state exam, and not to ask for it in advance.
The competence of the House should not be to take care of the employment and accommodation of adult wards, but municipalities and centers for social work should take care of this.
"Even though it's not our job, we still look for residents to find an apartment and a job," says the director.
"The home provides certified training for waiters, tailors, manicurists, lifeguards on the beach, cooks. Children who have stayed here for five years have the right to provide for their families," says Savić.
The Ministry claims that every child who leaves the Home receives psychological support for leaving the institution. The Podgorica Center for Social Work says that they have two apartments available in Podgorica for adult residents of the Home, but that no one lives in them at the moment. They confirm that in practice it often happens that the House provides them with conditions for leaving.
"A child who stays longer comes out with thousands of euros in life," says Savić.
However, it happens that when they get out, they use that money irrationally and quickly run out of money.
"We talk to them and explain that the money should last them".
Juventas assesses that this problem could be solved through programs aimed at preparing children as best as possible for leaving the institution - teaching them how to manage a budget, skills required for work, communication skills...
In the Analysis of the position of children and young people under institutional protection, which was done by Juventas, it is written that of the nine interviewed young people who left the Home, five of them are unemployed, and most of the others do not have a fully regulated work status.
The head of UNICEF believes that local governments have an important role in providing accommodation, while the private sector can help them with employment and scholarships.
Stefan, from the beginning of the story, lives in Serbia today. He has a job and an apartment, but not thanks to the institutions.
"First I got a job and accommodation from a man I met when I was in the monastery. Then through a famous singer I met a gentleman from Serbia, who literally adopted me and I consider him my father. I have been living alone for three years, but he it helps me", emphasizes Stefan.
Despite the difficult story, he managed to deal with adversity, but also to translate the pain into lyrics, like a rapper.
"I would like to work in an organization, to help children staying in homes," concludes Stefan.
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