The changes we are proposing limit the role of institutional forms of foster care in favour of family forms. What is important, they are in line with the directions set by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other European recommendations and legal acts - says Marlena Maląg, Minister of Family and Social Policy.  

The most important changes in the draft act provide, inter alia, for:

• increasing the minimum remuneration for professional foster families and those running family children's homes,
• changes with regard to paternity leave, maternity leave and parental leave to which an employee who, with the court's consent, has adopted a child is entitled. As a rule, these entitlements are currently granted until the child reaches the age of 7. The proposed amendments extend these entitlements until the child reaches the age of 14,
• introduction of an IT record comprising a list of children placed in foster custody and persons who have reached the age of majority while in foster custody. The record will also contain, inter alia, the list of persons with negative and positive initial qualification opinion concerning the ability to fulfil the function of a foster family or to run a family children's home, the list of candidates qualified to fulfil the function of a foster family or to run a family children's home, the list of foster families, the list of family children's homes,
• introducing a substantial ban on creating new care and educational institutions of a socialisation, intervention and specialist-therapeutic type, regional care and therapeutic centres and pre-adoption intervention centres, while leaving the possibility of transforming the institutions within the framework of not increasing the number of places in institutional forms in a given district or voivodeship respectively.

Other relevant issues included in the draft act

Furthermore, there are proposed changes in the rules of transforming non-professional foster families into professional ones and the introduction of certain elements of decentralization of family foster care.

In addition, the draft act introduces uniform criteria for access to a single benefit of PLN 4,000, resulting from the Act on Support for Pregnant Women and Families "For Life" for biological families and families adopting a child.

It is envisaged that the act will enter into force on the first day of the month following the lapse of 3 months from the date of its announcement.