The Social Problem of Child Abandonment in Romania. The Social Workers’ Perception

Assuming that child abandonment is a social problem our country is facing, this article presents a qualitative study of child abandonment in Romania, seen from the perspective of social workers. The study was applied to the territorial area of Bucharest-Ilfov and addresses issues such as: the causes and determinants of child abandonment in Romania, the abandonment consequences on the psychosocial development of the child, the implications of maintaining the abandoned child relationship with the parents or the extended family members, the role of specialized services in order to overcome the traumatic experience, the abandoned child resilience and the personality description of the child who has managed to accept and overcome the life he or she has, the identification of the factors that lead to the abandoned child’s resilience, the social workers’ perception regarding the social problem of child abandonment and the measures that should be taken in order to reduce the number of the abandoned children. Fourteen social workers, working in the child protection system, as case managers, were interviewed. In addition, in order to prove the point of the article, the document analysis method and the method of observation were used.



Keywords: child abandonment, traumatic experience, social problem, child development, child protection