The number of children living in Greece’s state care facilities has dropped to 965, less than half the roughly 2,200 recorded in 2020, according to the National Center for Social Solidarity (EKKA), an agency of the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family. The ministry says it is the first time the number has fallen below 1,000. The figure covers minors housed in what Greece calls Child Protection Units, the residential facilities for children in state care.
“The first full count showed about 2,200 children. Today we are at 965,” Social Cohesion and Family Minister Domna Michailidou said in a statement. “Behind this decline are children who can now hope for a life outside the structure of an institution, with safety and stable care.”
The ministry says that in 2019, the state did not know exactly how many children were living in institutions, who they were or what they needed. Recording them, it says, was the first step in a policy that had a single goal from the start, which was for children to grow up in families rather than in care facilities. “When we took office in 2019, we didn’t even know how many children were living in institutions. That was the first thing we changed,” Michailidou said. “We registered the children, learned what they needed and set a clear goal: children should live in families, not in institutions.” Since then, she added, the government has pressed ahead “with determination and persistence,” changing procedures, strengthening foster care and adoption, and creating new options for children with disabilities and for older teenagers.
Two newer forms of foster care have widened the options outside institutions, according to the relevant authorities. Emergency foster care allows a child who must be removed from home immediately to be placed with a safe family without delay. Professional foster care offers the same possibility to children with disabilities who need more intensive care and support. Foster parents have also helped expand the system by drawing in others. On the island of Evia and on Crete, the ministry says, their presence in local communities and their willingness to share their experience helped attract new applicants.
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A total of 168 older teenagers and young adults now live in 57 semiautonomous apartments, where they gradually prepare for independent life.
The ministry also relies on systems that track children and allow early intervention. Anynet, the information system for foster care and adoption, follows each child’s progress. When a child is at risk, EKKA’s 1107 hotline and the National System for Recording and Monitoring Child Abuse Reports help the relevant agencies coordinate their response.