Desperate shortage of foster carers in Prague: The municipality will launch a campaign to recruit new people
According to the approved document, by the end of next year, the city needs to ensure that there are at least 80 people and ideally 100 people in the temporary foster database, with 42 people now engaged in temporary foster care. In the case of long-term foster care, 44 people are currently waiting for their children to be placed in foster care, 60 would be ideal according to the municipality. “Foster statuses must be maintained at this level continuously,” it says in the document.
Campaign
The city will now set up a working group to prepare the campaign. The next procedure should follow on from the campaign that PR Konektor agency discovered for the city from autumn 2020 to the end of last year and which, apparently according to the municipality had an impact on the year-on-year increase in the number of applications for inclusion in registered foster parents to roughly double. Next year, according to the material, the city’s campaign is expected to cost two million crowns.
For example, a website was created in the campaign www.novipestouni.cz or a facebook page that should take over the city. The plan is also to collaborate with Czech Television on the production of a documentary film Full nest on the topic of foster carewhich television is preparing for each of the regions and the capital and which should gradually be broadcast next year.
The city recently established the Social Foundation of Prague, which, among other things, can also be used by foster parents. Through the fund, the municipality can provide them with money for services that are not covered by state benefits. They can apply for contributions for, among other things, their professional development, therapy services or leisure activities for children in their care. Both people who currently have children in their care, as well as temporary foster parents who are not currently looking after a child, but are ready to accept them, can apply for support.
According to the reports of the Ministry of Labor, there were 11,80 long-term foster parents in the Czech Republic at the end of last year. Of them, more than half were grandparents, a fifth were other relatives and a tenth were other relatives. There were a total of 9,500. Less than a fifth, i.e. 2,300, were mediated foreign foster parents.