Our news and views
Unlocking EU Funding
21 December 2011
Since 2004, the European Union has expanded to include many countries of Central and Eastern Europe. With EU membership, comes eligibility for funding programmes known as 'Structural Funds‘ or 'Cohesion Funds‘ with many millions earmarked for projects to improve the social and economic infrastructure of each country. With an estimated 1 million children living in institutions across the European region - many of those in EU member states - such funding offers a huge potential to reform the systems of social care and bring to an end the systematic institutionalisation of children.
However, in many cases these funds have not been used to design and deliver a root and branch reform of children's services but to make superficial improvements to existing institutions (for example renovating the buildings). Ironically these additional funds can perpetuate the existence of unsuitable institutions and make no tangible difference to the quality of life for the children who live there, which in effect wastes the golden opportunity to bring about real and lasting change.
Lumos has been working intensively at the European Union level, calling for the EU to pro-actively encourage countries to use this funding for effective deinstitutionalisation processes. We are a founder member of the European Expert Group on Deinstitutionalisation - a renowned group of European NGOs active in this area. Through this group we have raised awareness of both the magnitude of the problem and the potential role that the European Commission can play to provide and fund effective solutions.
Now is a crucial time for this debate as the EU will soon agree its next budget for 2014-2020 including the rules governing the Cohesion Funds. Lumos has been working hard to keep the issue on the agenda of the EU at this busy time. The first signs are that our work at EU level might be bearing fruit.
On 5 October the first draft of the regulations governing the allocation of these funds for 2014-20 was released by the European Commission. For the first time they contained several explicit references to, "Transition from institutional to community-based care" which would give a strong legal basis for deinstitutionalisation to be funded. This is just the first step of a long legislative process, but we will be working hard to make sure that this commitment remains and that EU funds can be used to bring about an end to these large, residential institutions, where children are segregated from society.
