At the session scheduled for October 28, the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament will consider the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Foster Parents in FBiH.
The changes were determined by the FBiH Government at the proposal of the federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy with the aim of removing obstacles and ensuring fairer access to the rights of families who take care of children with the most severe disabilities.
Removal of restrictions
One of the changes refers to the definition of the category of relatives who can acquire the status of parent caregiver. Thus, it is prescribed that the status of a caring parent can be achieved by a spouse or common-law partner, a child or stepchild, blood relatives and in-law relatives. Also, for relatives as caring parents, joint household is defined as a condition for acquiring the status. Cohabitation is equated with marriage, and the proposed changes also make it possible for those parents whose children are in the education system to acquire the status of caregiver parents, regardless of the number of hours spent in an educational or preschool institution.
Also, both parents can achieve the status of parent caregiver when there are two or more children with 100% disability in the family, which further strengthens support for families facing the most difficult life challenges. A particularly significant novelty is the abolition of restrictions related to the cause of disability. According to the current law, only parents of children who were born with a disability had the right to the status of a caregiver, while parents whose children or family members acquired a disability due to illness, accident or other circumstances were excluded. With the new law, the entire family that bears this burden gets equal access to rights.
The Federal Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Adnan Delić, says that these changes remove the most difficult obstacles that put parents and families in an unequal position when exercising the right to the status of parent-carer.
– Parents will not lose their status if their children attend school. Both parents can exercise the right when they have two or more children with 100% disability, and it will no longer matter how the disability arose, whether by birth or acquired circumstances, explained Delić.
Fuad Abaspahić (SDP), chairman of the Labor and Social Protection Committee of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament, notes that it is a matter of the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law and that Minister Delić, together with his team, held talks with representatives of centers for social work, as well as with certain non-governmental organizations.
– These are positive changes to the law, where a lot of good things will be adopted for parents, foster parents, but also for children who will go to foster families. The most important thing is to talk to as many relevant factors as possible and to adopt the best legal solutions, considering that this is a very sensitive population of children. Basically, the changes in the law are much better compared to what was adopted in the earlier period. I sincerely hope that, after the public discussion and adoption of the draft amendments to the law, we will get the best law. No law is ideal, but I think this one will be one of the better ones, both for parents and children, Abaspahić told our newspaper.
Muamer Mehić, director of the Center for Social Work Zenica, says for Liberation that certain problems arose at the very beginning of the application of the law, which is also the case with other legal regulations.
– We currently have around 120 foster parents in Zenica. According to what I know, with the proposed amendments to the law, it will be possible to introduce certain other categories of persons who take care of children, such as foster parents, who have not been able to exercise that right until now. A big obstacle is that the current law made it impossible, as well as for parents or guardians who take care of children who had day care at school or who spent a certain amount of time in the so-called extended stay or in a preschool institution. Now these shortcomings will be removed and this will make a greater coverage of persons who will be able to acquire the status of parent-caregiver, Mehić points out.
New categories
Our interlocutor welcomes the proposed changes to the law so that all children have protection and care at home and, as he says, to reduce institutional protection to a minimum in those cases where it can be done.
Additional funds will need to be secured in the FBiH budget for the implementation of changes to the Law on Foster Parents. The increase is necessary due to the increased amount of the lowest salary for 2025, which has been increased to 1,000 KM, which automatically increases the financial compensation for caring parents. Also, the proposed changes are expected to increase the number of beneficiaries, as excluding criteria related to the cause of disability are abolished, spouses are introduced as a new category of beneficiaries and the limit for children’s stay in educational institutions for more than four hours is removed.
