Abstract:

Institutional care in Latvia is one of the ways of caring for children who, for various reasons, are not living with their families. In 2013 there were introduced concept of deinstitutionalisation in Latvia. It refers to the process of developing community-based services, with family-like and child-friendly environments, including preventive measures to prevent the need for institutional care. Since then there has been many changes introduced in the system. The children’ s voice has become of great importance in making any decision about a child. This research tends to answer the question: do children in Institutional care - children's homes - in Latvia have the opportunity to take part in making decisions about their own lives? From the widely known research we can learn that children in institutional care face many challenges. Many of them have a complex history of trauma, such as physical and sexual abuse or witnessing domestic and community violence. After placing them in institutional care they may not feel as though they have much control over their external world. Therefore, it is important that those children engage in decision-making about their lives, even in small things. This paper will present ongoing research curried out by University of Latvia in close cooperation with the State Inspectorate for Protection of Children's Rights of Latvia. There have been good cooperation procedures with Inspectorate established since the beginning of the research, created a theoretical background of the research, semi structured interviews questioner developed. 85 children from 5 regions of Latvia, 10 children's homes have been interviewed. The data has been collected and processed by AQUAD 7. There has been a qualitative approach used. As the result of the research there will be developing and implementation of new services for supporting children placed in long-term institutional care and social rehabilitation institutions.

Keywords:

Institutional care in Latvia, children’ s voice, decision making.