What should be the policy of the EU regarding children at risk who are in state care? How is the UN Convention applied in the member states of the EU? The answer of these and other questions was attempted at the Eurochild meeting of the work group on child policies.

The meeting was on a European level and was held on the 26th and 27th of January in Brussels. The key messages of Eurochild to the European Committee are to try to overcome poverty by empowering the children themselves, and providing access to qualitative services, equal opportunities for everyone, prevention and early intervention, support to vulnerable children, enough resources, family support, assessment of the policies, etc. Eurochild also put a start to its campaign "The End of Child Poverty". SAPI will support this campaign and will provide information about it on a regular basis. One of the initiatives of Eurochild and the thematic work group "Children in alternative care" was to organize a round table in the building of the European Parliament on the 27th of January between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. The theme of the round table was "The children of Europe in the childcare system - what is the role of EU? Participants in the meeting were the vice president of the European Parliament Mrs. Roberta Angelli, vice minister of the Development Commission Mrs. Korna Kretu, a Parliament member from Romania, Parliament members from Poland and Austria, the president of Eurochild, as well as experts such as Kevin Braun, Jan Jarab, a representative of the regional office of the United Nations, youth representatives, etc. The study of Eurochild "Children in alternative care", which was carried out in all countries members of Eurochild, was presented at the meeting. For Bulgaria the study was prepared by SAPI. For the final published version of the study SAPI was supported and helped by SOS and Foundation "For Our Children". The process of deinstitualization as a common European problem was one of the main topics discussed at the round table. What do we understand behind the concept of deinstitualization? Can we define the movement of children from large residential care homes into smaller community-type residences as deinstitualization? The common view of both experts and politicians was that for Europe it is important to make the transition from institutional to family-type care mainly through the provision of support for the biological family and through the development of foster care. A meeting of the thematic group of Eurochild "Children in alternative care" was held on 28th of January. Discussed were some term-problems, new documents, and action plans for the year. Representative from SAPI at the meeting was the chairperson of the MB Mrs. Nelli Petrova.