Carta Social

07/06/2023

The government wants to reduce the number of children and young people in residential care to no more than 1,200 by 2030. This is one of the goals of the Bases for the Qualification of the Child and Youth Reception System, presented in Lisbon by the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, and the Secretary of State for Inclusion, Ana Sofia Antunes.

In response to the journalists, Ana Mendes Godinho said that "the objective is to promote family care in full harmony with what is the law" and "this means that, with the distribution of the ages we have in the reception system, if we can walk towards the younger children being covered by family care at first, we will be able to reach these numbers by 2030".

The Minister also highlighted the "great campaign", now presented, "to promote family reception" and launch the challenge "to all families to join". According to Ana Mendes Godinho, this is "an alternative answer, but one that guarantees the personalization of the answer for each of the children".

The "countrywide spread" of Family Support and Parental Counselling Centres, the qualification of residential care and the promotion of responses to empower young people who are institutionalised, are the other objectives. At this point, Ana Mendes Godinho also said that "60% of the young people who are in educational centers - for young people between the ages of 12 and 16 who have committed a crime - came from the reception system".

Regarding the qualification of residential care, Ana Mendes Godinho stated that she will review the reimbursement model, and the residential care ordinance is already under review in order, on the one hand, to redefine the requirements themselves and, on the other hand, to "ensure that there is much better qualified monitoring capacity".

"Today the bases were presented, my goal is during the month of June to be working on such requirements so that at the end of June I have a proposal for everyone to be able to participate," he said.

The Secretary of State, for her part, said that it is important to reflect on the reception model:

"We want much more to privilege the model that bets preferentially on family care rather than residential care," said Ana Sofia Antunes.

According to the Secretary of State, this goal is mainly aimed at children in the early ages or up to 12 years and the Government has already defined the goal it wants to achieve in the next seven years.

Source: portugal.gov.pt