Organizaţiile neguvernamentale din România active în domeniul protecţiei copilului. Analiză generală [Romanian Nongovernmental Organizations Involved in Child Protection. General Analysis]

he NGO sector in Romania has evolved in the last years, becoming a very important part among the social service providers and, due to the communist legacy, child protection is still one of its main domain of intervention. The research questions aim to identify the distribution of NGOs active in child protection among Romania’s counties, according to some criteria: the number of services provided, the main legal constituency forms and the ownership of a «public utility statute». As an exploratory research, it is based mostly on quantitative data which were analyzed according to a series of manifest variables. While the number of Romanian NGOs involved in child protection represent 58% of the NGOs providing social services, the countrywide distribution is heterogeneous, based mostly on the county’s human and financial resources to sustain organizational development. 767 nongovernmental organizations provide over 1600 services in child protection, most of them being legally constituted as associations. A new type of private services is provided by self-employed practitioners and social work cabinets. Only 11% of the organizations owning the „public utility statute” are involved in child protection, a very low percentage considering the importance and benefits of their work. Even though the NGO sector active in child protection is still in a development phase, it is a reliable and comprehensive service provider in Romania.

Keywords: nongovernmental organizations, child protection, evaluation of social services