Communities have engaged more than the planned number of foster families

Foster families provide temporary care for children in difficult life circumstances whose biological families, for various reasons, cannot take care of them. The project "A Family for Every Child: Development of Family Foster Care" had planned for Ukraine to have 500 foster families by the end of July this year. In reality, there are now 559. These families are caring for 1,065 children.

Leading in the number of foster families are the Kharkiv (60), Cherkasy (53), Zhytomyr (43), Dnipropetrovsk (38), and Chernihiv (36) regions.

The project continues because the current number of families in Ukraine is still insufficient to meet the needs of about 7,000 children — the number who require temporary alternative care each year.

The presence of foster families in a community ensures that children grow up in a family environment. According to statistics, out of 1,529 children who left foster care since the beginning of last year, 96% did not end up in institutional care.

• 648 (42.4%) returned to their biological families;
• 694 (45.4%) were placed in new permanent families (adoptive families, family-type children's homes, guardianship families, adoptive families);
• 130 (8.5%) reached adulthood, started education, or were temporarily placed with relatives, etc.;
• 57 (3.7%) were placed in institutions.

Yevhen Bondarenko is one of Ukraine’s foster parents. In 2022, he and his large family relocated from Donetsk region to Cherkasy. For the past two months, the family has been caring for a 14-year-old girl in need of temporary support.

"I believe that changing society for the better and ensuring that every child lives in a family and is happy is simple. All it takes is the willingness to share what you have with them. I know we can show her an example of a real family and pass on important values. We don’t expect gratitude — we just do good because we know it comes back," says Mr. Yevhen.

What motivated him to become a foster parent was a personal conviction that aligns with the main goal of foster care — to ensure a child’s right to grow up in a family environment.

The project "A Family for Every Child: Development of Family Foster Care" is implemented jointly by UNICEF in Ukraine, the international charitable foundation "Partnership for Every Child," the Ministry of Social Policy, Family, and Unity of Ukraine, the State Service of Ukraine for Children’s Affairs, the National Social Service of Ukraine, and the @Coordination Center for the Development of Family Upbringing and Child Care, with financial support from the European Union, the Embassy of Austria, and the Government of the United States of America.

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