Where is Bulgaria’s “Child Protection”?

Levfem, October 3, 2025

The article examines the problems in the child protection system in Bulgaria, based on interviews with two former long-time social workers from the Child Protection Department in Sofia, who left in the summer of 2024.

The main problems outlined by the former employees are:

• Lack of training and preparation: New employees receive no initial training, relying on more experienced colleagues, with everything being learned on the job. The laws are poorly written and accompanied by numerous regulations.
• Lack of authority: Despite their serious responsibilities, social workers have no real opportunity to intervene.
• Inadequate working conditions and “working on their own account”: Extremely inadequate material resources, lack of basic equipment such as computers and work phones. Workers often pay out of their own pockets for public transport to visit clients in the field.
• Mental and physical strain: The work is very stressful and leads to illness and staff turnover. Workers are expected to be on call around the clock, even on their personal phones. In the field, they encounter verbal and physical harassment without adequate protection.
• Systematic transfer of responsibility from other institutions (”It’s not our job”):
  • When a coordination mechanism for violence is convened, the responsibility again falls entirely on “Child Protection.”
  • The police often do not write their mandatory reports after responding to reports, but require social workers to do so.
  • Schools “abdicate” and say “it’s not our job,” refusing to work with psychologists and educational specialists and instead seeking to “expel” problem children.
  • The court assigns tasks to social workers (even outside working hours for contact regimes) without systematic coordination, and private enforcement agents also transfer the work to “Child Protection.”
  • Non-governmental organizations working with abusers are not required to visit addresses, which again transfers the work to “Child Protection” (”We become shepherds, family therapists, child psychologists”).
• Institutional harassment: Institutional procedures and practices cause additional harm to victims, most often emotional and psychological. Examples include questioning a child in the presence of the perpetrator and repeatedly questioning children about complaints, which hinders prevention and recovery.
• Lack of public awareness: Few people report domestic violence, as society often equates violence only with physical abuse, ignoring emotional abuse.

Recommendations for change, prevention, and protection:

• Changing public opinion about the work of social workers (that they do not take children away).
• Active participation of all institutions: Stop expecting social workers to be “God” and encourage all parties involved to take an active part.
• Adequate prevention programs: Work with non-governmental organizations, psychologists, improve parenting skills, and work directly with families.
• Everyone should do their job specifically and decisively: Institutions should stop abdicating their responsibilities.

Former employees emphasize that for things to happen, you have to “insist, be persistent” and that “The work there is at any cost. At any cost.”

Over the past year, numerous cases of serious violence against children and among children in Bulgaria have come to public attention, some of them even escalating into nationwide protests, as was the case with little Adrian from Plovdiv. However, we know that many other cases remain completely invisible, hidden from society and institutions – or perhaps simply ignored. This has raised many serious questions of public importance: What do we do when violence against children comes from their own families? From other children? Who takes care of children when their families do not? And, of course, where were the “social services”?

We were able to speak with two long-time former employees of the Child Protection Department who were willing to address these and other pressing issues related to the system’s shortcomings. The sector is heavily feminized – that is, women predominate as social workers, which is why we refer to them collectively in the feminine form in this article. The two women we interviewed anonymously worked for six and fourteen years, respectively, as social workers in the Department for Child Protection in Sofia, but left in the summer of 2024.

The difficulties began on their first day of work – when they started, they received absolutely no training or instruction on the extremely sensitive and complex issues they would face. They rely on the goodwill of their more experienced colleagues to share their knowledge and practices, but in any case, they say, they learn everything as they go along. “You are given the laws you have to learn, but when you face reality, you see that the law is not well written. There are a million regulations that seem to have been written at the last minute.” Despite the serious responsibility of supporting children and families in crisis, they have no real possibility of intervening: “You have absolutely no authority.” Meanwhile, society either has enormous expectations or completely ignores their work. “People think, ‘What are these ladies doing there? You’re always out in the field, constantly on the move. You have to check every single report.’”

At their own expense

The conditions offered by the institution do not ease the burden, on the contrary. Workers talk about extremely insufficient material resources for years, the lack of basic equipment such as computers, and the lack of conditions for field visits, which forces them to pay out of their own pockets to be able to do their job: “They give you two departmental cards (for an average of six people) for public transport, because you only use public transport, and we wait or, in most cases, pay out of our own pockets.”

Inadequate conditions and a heavy workload on the shoulders of too few people, and the mental strain is also severe: “The work is very beautiful, very interesting, but stressful. It wears you out mentally.” “Everyone has left. It is very difficult to retain young people because no one wants to do this work. Many people have developed various illnesses, including myself. It is extremely stressful.” In addition to the emotionally difficult cases during working hours, social workers say they are expected to respond to calls regularly, 24 hours a day. “You are not allowed to turn off your personal phone – we don’t have work phones, except for the boss – very often at three in the morning, and at that time I had a small child, they would call me in the morning, ask me ‘can you come in?’ and tell me ‘the parents are arguing, the man stabbed the woman in front of the child’. .

In their field work, they face not only psychological stress, but also verbal and physical abuse. “You have no protection from anyone, anyone can come in and abuse you. When you go to someone’s home, you never know what will happen. Physically, you risk your health every day. We had a case where a man locked us in his house and said, ‘I won’t let you out! They chased us down the stairs, shouting, ‘What are you doing here? Now you’re going to get beaten up!’ In recent years, the police have started to come in cases of violence, for physical protection, but not to provide us with regulatory assistance.”

“It’s not our job.”

The procedures for cases of domestic violence that directly affect children are complex, but according to workers, they present the options for action relatively well. The problem stems from the institutions themselves, which seem to systematically neglect their responsibilities.

“In every situation where there is violence, a coordination mechanism must be convened, such as a council of institutions—Child Protection, municipalities, personal doctors, police, courts, prosecutors, schools—to make the best decision and assign roles and responsibilities. After such a meeting, the responsibilities fall back to Child Protection, and the expectation is that this social worker will practically sleep in the house to prevent any incidents.” However, all parties are inactive and avoid responsibility.

Institutional and administrative problems, as well as chaos, also constitute serious obstacles in resolving cases. “I have often seen how the police proceed – they are required to file a report – and, let’s say, they went two or three times during the night when someone called 112. But they say, ‘It’s not our job,’ and send the case to Child Protection Services. They send everything to the prosecutor’s office, which requests clarification of the circumstances and asks for information. The police did not draw up a report stating that they visited the address, and at some point we received a letter from them asking us to draw up a report on the police visit and what happened to the child.”

The situation is no different in the case of educational institutions that work directly with children. “The school says ‘it’s not our job’ and gives up responsibility. There is no collaboration with psychologists or education specialists. If the child is ‘bad’ or the parent causes problems, they should be ‘kicked out’, according to them. Children change four or five schools because they don’t follow the rules, and the principals talk to each other – the child goes around with the story of “how bad he is,” and the teachers and classes already have an opinion. And then the child no longer wants to go to school – there is no mechanism, he simply does not feel accepted in the class.”

Classroom teachers turn to “Child Protection” when they do not receive support from the parents of a child with problems. The police do not file reports, which is their duty, because it is easier for them to request them from social workers at “Child Protection.” Judges assign tasks to social workers without systematic coordination. Non-governmental organizations working with aggressors are not required to visit addresses and transfer the task back to Child Protection – “We become shepherds, family therapists, child psychologists.” It seems that somewhere, or rather everywhere along the chain, something is not working.

Public opinion about the work of social workers needs to change, because the idea has been instilled that we are the ones who take children away. This is not true. People need to understand the role of social workers.

The court itself expects Child Protection to resolve the issue of parents in conflict. Even things that are not required by law – I have participated in contact arrangements on Saturdays and Sundays, regardless of the time, outside of working hours – most judges, without being required to do so because of their position, order that a social worker be present during contact between parent and child. To monitor whether there is violence, how the child will be handed over, and whether they will be handed over at all. When the contact arrangement “is not respected,” the father hands the mother over to a private bailiff, and they also order “Child Protection.”

Is there any “protection” against institutional harassment?

By “institutional harassment” we mean the way in which the procedures and practices of institutions themselves are used not to help victims, but in fact to cause them additional harm, most often emotional and psychological. We are told of examples such as: “A father abused his child, there is a case, and the court allows the child to be questioned in front of the father. There was a fracture, and the child was questioned in the presence of the aggressor, the parent; the child will not testify in his presence.” “The worst thing is that in cases of domestic violence, the child who is a witness or victim should be questioned only once [in the “blue room”] and immediately, and should not be brought back [to the memory of the violence suffered]. Because very often this child is questioned by anyone and not about what happened. We send them to a psychologist immediately, if necessary. But it is not possible to constantly bring them back to that moment. Our prevention goes to hell.”

Unfortunately, institutional harassment is deliberately used by aggressors as a means to continue to hurt and deprive victims of peace of mind – even from a distance. Children are once again the victims of this phenomenon. “There have been cases, especially in parental conflicts, where one parent has filed numerous complaints. With each complaint, regardless of its frequency, you go to the child’s home and are required to talk to them and find out their point of view. These children grow up with social workers, and we ourselves are violent towards them, entering their homes, constantly interrogating them; this child grows up with us. We had such a case, [at the beginning] the child was five years old – we celebrated his coming of age together. At that time, the conflict was not resolved.”

And where is society?

The lack of sensitivity on the part of the general public is also a factor that hinders the proper application of protection mechanisms. “Domestic violence is, unfortunately, very discreet. Very few people report it when they hear family quarrels between their neighbors. One child was beaten for a long time by his stepfather; the whole school knew about it, and we received information from a witness who saw this man beating the child in front of the apartment building.”

“Most people think that violence is only physical. For some, insults, neglect, and emotional abuse are normal. Everything is very intertwined and very difficult to prove. A woman lives a nightmare for a year, every day she is told that she is ugly, fat, unfit to be a mother. This is a form of violence that ultimately caused the woman to leave, but when something physical happens, it is visible. Emotional abuse can go on for years and there is never any protection.”

Change, prevention, and protection

The small changes that have taken place have again been implemented inadequately, without taking workers into account. “There have been a few training courses on domestic violence, but no Child Protection employees have attended any of them. Only police officers were present. Once again, social workers are responsible for enforcing the entire law, which is impossible. People working in the field are not consulted.” What, then, needs to be done to bring about real and tangible change, in their opinion? The solutions are complex, comprehensive, and synchronized, but categorical.

“Public opinion about the work of social workers needs to change, because it is widely believed that we are the ones who take children away. This is not true. People need to understand the role of social workers. They should no longer expect them to be ‘God’ – to decide, to judge. Everyone involved needs to participate actively.”

Appropriate prevention programs. Collaboration with non-governmental organizations, collaboration with psychologists, improving parenting skills, direct collaboration with families. Institutions give up their responsibilities and stop working because parents “do not answer” the phone. If something happens to this child tomorrow, the responsibility will fall on Child Protection. We go to the addresses, but when a psychologist goes, they may notice something else. Everyone should do their job specifically and categorically. We must insist, we must be persistent, for things to happen. The work there is done at any cost. At any cost.

Photo: (source: LevFem)

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