The newly adopted Law on Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child regulates the rights, duties and responsibilities of the child’s parents or other legal representatives of the child. A novelty introduced by the Law is that the child’s parents or other legal representatives must make sure that the child up to 6 years of age is not left alone, for no objective reason, without supervision of the people older than 14 years.
The Law enshrines two threat levels with respect to the child. The first level of threat is set when the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service or its authorised division does not identify any risk for the child’s safety, health or life, but identifies risk factors related to the child’s functioning and social environmental as well as risk factors related to the child’s parents or his legal representatives and their relationship with the child. The first level of threat is also set when the child’s parents or other legal representatives fail to ensure the child’s rights and satisfy his legitimate interests.
The second level of threat to the child is set when the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service or its authorised division establishes the risk to the child’s safety, health or life, which is linked to the risk factors related to the functioning and social environment of the child and the risk factors related to the child’s parents or his other legal representatives and their relationship with the child.
In order to maximise the protection of the child, the child rights protection system has been changed by centralising it.
It has been established that the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour is the institution in charge of the policy of the protection of the rights of the child and its coordination; formation of family policy and coordination of its implementation. The territorial units – territorial divisions of protection of the rights of the child – directly protect and ensure the rights of the child and represent the rights and legitimate interests of the child in the part of the territory of the municipality assigned to them.
The Law establishes setting up of 11 mobile teams — groups of professionals of the above Service who will swiftly provide medical, psychological, social and legal assistance to the child and the family in crisis.
The Law also regulates the activities of case managers – social workers coordinating case management process, who are appointed by the municipal social service centres or other bodies authorised by a municipality, for the provision of social services to families.
Individual mobile teams will operate in the 10 Lithuanian counties and the country’s biggest city Vilnius. They will deal with specific cases when contacted by case managers.
The Law provides detailed regulation of the response to the notification about a potential violation of the rights of the child. The State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service or its authorised territorial division, in response to a report on the possible use of violence against the child, the potential risk posed to the child’s safety, health, life or the existence of the child in an unsafe environment, will have to carry out all the actions on the day of the receipt of the notification, but no later than within 6 hours from the moment of the receipt of the notification.
Upon identifying the presence of the child in an unsafe neutral environment, which poses a threat to the child’s safety, health or life, the child will be swiftly taken from an unsafe neutral environment.
A case management plan will be worked out on a case by case basis. The analysis of the situation in the family and parents’ efforts to address the crisis will be followed by a decision on the future of the child.
