The amendments oblige the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service to respond expeditiously to the situations posing a threat to children. Upon receiving information on possible violations of children’s rights, the State Child Rights Protection authority will be obliged to assess the validity of the information and take immediate action to protect children’s rights and transfer the child to safe environment. The new provisions bind all the institutions directly working with children, to inform the Service about observed violations of children’s rights, the threat posed to children or inappropriate behaviour towards them.
The amendments to the accompanying Law on Social Services validated a trained professional on-call caregiver, who will undertake to accept the child into his family and take care of him until the child’s return to his parents’ family or his transfer to his guardians or adoptive parents’ family.
The on-call caregiver will provide care for the child deprived of parental care or the child at risk in accordance with the cooperation and service agreement concluded with the caregivers’ centre.
The amendments define the time-frame within which the social risk family will have to correct their behaviour to enable the return of the child to a safe environment. If, within a period of two months following the child’s removal from the family, the parents do not change their behaviour (they will not accept the proposed aid or refrain from their addictions), the Service will have to turn to the court with a request to temporarily restrict their parental rights. If, during the whole six-month’s period, the parents will not start caring about their child, the Service will be entitled, as a last resort, to apply to the court with a request to transform the temporary restriction of parental rights into permanent restriction, thus opening the way for an adoption.
It has been decided to revise the list contained in the Civil Code, according to which a priority right is granted in cases when several persons wish to adopt the child. The priority will be given according to the following procedure: to persons adopting their spouse’s children and adopted children; relatives; persons, adopting siblings; persons in the family where the child to be adopted is placed under permanent guardianship/curatorship; citizens of the Republic of Lithuania; persons whose permanent (principal) place of residence is in the Republic of Lithuania, and spouses.
The new provisions provide for the same leave to the adoptive family that all parents have after the birth of the child. In order to encourage adoption, facilitate the adaptation period and ensure financial support for the children of the adoptive families, a new kind of benefit – child adoption allowance –will be introduced in the Law on Benefits to Children, which will be paid from the state budget. Following the adoption of a child, one of the child’s adoptive parents will, in the course of 24 months, receive a payment of the size of eight basic social benefit payments (EUR 304) per month. It will be paid no longer than until the child reaches the age of 18, except in the case when the adoptive parents will be entitled to parental allowance and its size will be no less than the size of the child adoption benefit.
In addition, working age adults of both sexes, properly prepared for adoption, will be able to become adoptive parents. Until now, 50 years has been the maximum age for an adoptive parent. Persons convicted of intentional crimes will not be allowed to adopt or foster children even after the extinction of a previous conviction.
The legislative amendments also provide for the centralisation of child custody financing to create conditions for care and adoption of children from all over Lithuania, rather than from aparticular municipality, where the child’s adoptive parents or guardians reside.
The legislative amendments will enter into force on 1 January 2018.
