Unusual request: “Protect against the arbitrariness of the Department of Child Protection”

Residents of one ward of the Kalvarija municipality appealed to the editorial office. People are asking for help to defend themselves from the self-determination of the Marijampolė County Child Rights Protection Department in Kalvarija. According to grandmother Ona, a week ago, employees of the Children’s Rights Department tricked her 1.8-year-old granddaughter into taking her out of the house and placing her in the Sangruda foster home, after telling her that she needed to see a doctor. The baby is accompanied by her father, the woman’s son. Initially, the son and daughter were allowed to return home for a short time, but during the last days of the week they were no longer allowed to return home at all. The grandmother claims that she does not understand why her son and daughter were forced to leave their home, where the baby has been raised since birth.

Troubles – from birth

According to grandmother Ona, her son’s life was not easy. Even before the baby was born, his wife, who was pregnant with her son, had health problems, tried to injure herself, and after the birth, her condition worsened even more. The woman was admitted to the hospital, where she is still receiving treatment. The son took the newborn from the hospital and asked the mother to accept him to live together, to jointly look after the newborn.

– Of course we agreed. You won’t push your son and granddaughter away when you’re in trouble. It is so difficult for them that they cannot be with their mother. After all, I raised nine children myself, there are still several children living at home, but there is plenty of space, the house is big, we can all fit. We allocated a separate room for my son and daughter. Our house is not a palace, everything is simple, but we take care, we keep it clean, there are all the comforts inside. Everything is enough for the granddaughter. He grew up loved and cared for, said grandmother Ona.

According to the resident, since such an unusual situation arose, the family was constantly visited by social workers from Kalvarija. They got along well, consulted, talked. “Unfortunately, after the change of social workers, we began to disagree. Every time they came to our house, they reproached us for not taking good care of the baby, but they never once asked us what we could do to help, or what kind of help we might need. We felt pressured,” said Ona.

A conflict has occurred

On April 18, according to grandmother Ona, she had gone to Kalvarija to visit her aunt, who was in the Nursing Department. The son was at home with the daughter. “When I returned, I saw that the social workers who had arrived, my son and daughter were walking around the field, they were standing at a distance. There was tension between my son and those women, but I did not interfere. I don’t know why they got angry, but the social workers called the representatives of the Child Rights Protection Department from Kalvarija,” grandmother Ona said.

According to her, two women arrived. There was a commotion in the son’s room. Grandma came to ask what was going on here. One of the workers replied that the girl was sick and was taking her to the hospital. “I didn’t understand what was happening: I had just been healthy. I wanted to explain myself. Then one of the staff pushed me back into her room and closed the door. She took the girl herself and left. Her father, my son, also left with my granddaughter,” said the housewife.
According to her, the police and employees of the Child Rights Protection Department of Marijampolė region arrived later. They also did not understand why the granddaughter was taken out of the house. “The question was, maybe the son was drunk, we said, definitely not.”

When the son called the mother, he said that he and his daughter were placed in the Sangruda foster home, and told him to cook for the girl himself, but there were no products there. When the mother asked why they were not allowed to return home, the mother replied that she had heard from the employees of the Calvary Department of Child Rights Protection that their daughter’s home was not a safe environment.

According to the grandmother who turned to the editorial office for help, at first her son and granddaughter were allowed to return home for a short time, then those returns were prohibited. They themselves go to Sangruda to visit their son, they bring food.

The woman did not hide that this situation is very painful for her. And the son is confused, he does not know what awaits them, it is difficult to adapt in a strange house. And it works on the baby. Sleeps poorly, begs to go home. “The little girl is already so wronged that she is growing up without her mother, now they have also taken away her home,” said Ona.

According to the woman, it is difficult for her to understand such arbitrariness of the Child Rights Protection Department, the display of its authority. “He was angry that we said what we thought, showed who is in power here. It’s just terrible that a child is used as a tool to resolve conflicts, is taken without a clear reason from the usual environment, and is subjected to stress,” said the grandmother.

The goal is to protect the child

The “Suvalkietis” editorial team asked the specialists of the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service (VVTAĮT) to comment on the situation. We received the following response.

Sometimes it becomes unsafe for the child in the family, babies and small children are especially vulnerable, because the daily attention and care of the closest people is often vital for them. In such cases, defenders of the child’s rights take care of the child’s safety and initiate help for the family. What kind of help would help the family overcome difficulties faster is decided after a careful assessment of the family situation. This happened in the mentioned case as well.
Moving a child to a safe environment has one goal – to protect the child, provide him with help, and help the family change so that the reasons that made the child unsafe disappear.

There are cases when the assessment of the child’s situation in the family reveals more serious difficulties related to the danger to the child’s health, life, and normal development – then, when assessing the child’s situation, the child’s need for protection may be determined. When the child rights defender determines that a real risk to the child’s physical and mental safety, health or even life remains, two solutions are possible: temporary custody of the child and the expectation that the parents will change their behavior, or going to court, which decides whether the parents can continue to to be the representatives of the child. After the court approves that the child cannot remain in the family, that is, after issuing a permission to take the child from the parents or other representatives in accordance with the law, the mayor of the municipality is approached for the establishment of temporary guardianship of the child.

There are three possible options for temporary care, they must be discussed with the family, the child’s opinion is very important, if he can express it according to his age and maturity. In the first case, the child remains in the parents’ home, but at the same time, another close, emotionally connected person with the child settles in the family home, who takes responsibility for the child, or the child is placed with a close, emotionally connected person. It is also possible to decide that one or both of the parents and the child temporarily live in a social service institution that provides assistance.

Temporary care of a child in a family can last up to 30 days and, if necessary, extended for another 30 days. Temporary care of a child in a social service institution can last up to a year.”

The answer was signed by Vaidas Zabilevičius, adviser of the Marijampolė child rights protection department in Marijampolė and Kalvarija municipalities.

In order to help parents understand what is wrong in their family, we asked VVTAĮT to repeat how unsafe the environment is in the said family.

The head specialist of the Public Relations and Communication Department replied that in order to protect the child’s interests, it is not possible to comment in detail on a specific child’s situation. “Child rights defenders, like other civil servants, are subject to the highest requirements. This means that families are treated with respect and given all the information they need about their rights and available alternatives to help. We are very sorry that the mentioned family lacked information and remained uncertain about the possibility of receiving help. The mentioned information that the employee may have behaved disrespectfully is really worrying, so this information has been forwarded to the head of the Child Rights Protection Department of Marijampolė County and we will try to clarify this situation,” the response reads.

Help is not given unnecessarily

Oksana Vasiliauskienė, director of the Social Services Center of Kalvarija Municipality, explained that the Crisis Center also operates in the Sangruda orphanage, where the man and his daughter were sent to live. In the crisis center, families are provided with all conditions: a room is allocated, bed linen and dishes are provided, but the adult must take care of the food himself. If he experiences difficulties, he is helped by a social worker. Teaches how to cook, how to take care of a child. Skills are developed, work is done individually.

There is a store nearby where you can buy products. According to the director of the center, it is certainly not the case that the family was brought to the Crisis Center without reason. “No family is unnecessarily subject to the services of a case manager, social workers, and is not visited by the Child Rights Protection Department. Such services have been provided to this family since the birth of the girl. The family is not required to do anything unnecessarily, only to ensure a safe environment for the child to grow up. People may feel this way because their internal problems are deepening.

The husband of the mentioned family had already applied once that the social worker was not suitable for him, we changed her, but she was not suitable either. None of the employees are malicious towards the family, they do not harm them, just if they notice that the environment is not safe for the child, they ask to correct the shortcomings, and the family may think that this is pressure. Full-fledged conditions must be ensured for the child to grow. Some families to whom we provide services accept the help with goodwill, others think that everything is fine with them, and get angry when problems are pointed out, it is called pressure”, commented O. Vasiliauskienė.