The Sliven mobile team – a bridge between two worlds
How the professionals hired under the European Child Guarantee Pilot Project help families in one of the largest Roma neighbourhoods in Bulgaria
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A rainy day. Dirt roads. Grey clouds swallow up the smoke from the hundreds of chimneys of the houses, merging into one. Children’s laughter can be heard from somewhere in the Nadezhda District. A small motley group of smiling faces with curious eyes peeks out from behind the fence of a yard, past which “outsiders” to the neighbourhood walk. Darina and Deyana, social workers from the mobile team at the Sliven Community Centre, recruited under the European Child Guarantee Pilot Project, financed by the European Commission and implemented with UNICEF’s support, cross the street.
The two women’s workday has already begun. Just minutes ago they had crossed the “front door” of one of the largest Roma neighbourhoods in Bulgaria. That’s what they call the underpass which divides the Nadezhda District from the rest of the city of Sliven. This underpass separates two worlds which Darina and Deyana are continuously trying to bring closer together.
“This is a closed community which doesn’t admit outsiders easily,” Deyana Topalova, a social worker at the Complex for Social Services for Children and Families (CSSCF) at the Sliven Community Support Centre (CSC), says.
“It’s difficult until they begin to feel that we are closer to them and we really come with care and attention in mind,” Darina Vladova, a social worker at the CSSCF at the CSC Sliven, adds.
After months of working in the neighbourhood, the two women have gained the trust of the people in the area. They stop them in the street, they question them, they share their problems. The children are happy to see Darina and Deyana, they know that their parents welcome these women into their homes because they help them.
Standing at her doorstep, Yovka Borisova welcomes us with a smiling face. She got married at the age of 15, and at 16 she had already given birth to her daughter Minka. The social workers visit the family often. They instruct the mother how to change her address registration, so that she can receive social benefits. Thanks to Darina and Deyana’s help, the family has been enlisted in the Care, Games and Knowledge for Every Child since Kindergarten Programme, which prepares little Minka for nursery.
“Minka is one of the good examples of children who have been vaccinated, their development is monitored and go to their doctor regularly for check-ups. This is a major problem with many other families,” Darina says.
Yovka is waiting for a vacancy to open up for her daughter in a nursery, and she herself is considering the mobile team’s idea to continue her education, which she interrupted in the 5th grade.
One of the main problems that Darina and Deyana face is working with underage mothers. Often, young women are afraid to talk about their problems in front of other family members and seek the help of social workers in the “Children and Youth Zone,” where the remote workplace of the CSC mobile team is located. There mothers receive care and advice related to family planning, raising children, choosing a doctor.
Apart from Sliven, the mobile team also works in 16 more villages. Every day, they visit at least four families. Darina and Deyana go into neighbourhoods and villages which other services do not reach. They often have to leave their vehicle and walk to vulnerable families who live in remote and hard-to-reach hamlets. Such is the case in the village of Sotirya. Velichka Ilieva’s family has temporarily settled there. Her child Elif was born in Germany, and has no Bulgarian documents. The mobile team has managed to translate and legalise the boy’s birth certificate and little Elif can now be registered with a GP and his mother can receive social benefits.
In addition to doing field work, Darina and Deyana also welcome the children at the Complex for Social Services for Children and Families at CSC Sliven. There, the social workers continue to work with the young residents of the Nadezhda District – they sing, draw, read and count together with them. The goal is for the children to change their surroundings, to experience a new environment and to discover a new world, different from the one they know.
“We are taking small steps, but the results are visible,”
- Deyana says.
Her eyes fill with tears when she shares that working as a social worker brings her closer to her unfulfilled dream of being an educator.
The two women’s workday ends, but each of them takes home the small victories and the smiles of the children they have helped.
Over two years, the Sliven mobile team has visited 217 vulnerable families and has taken care of 97 children.
A total of 7 mobile teams have been created for field work with vulnerable communities within the framework of the European Child Guarantee Pilot Project. The project is funded by the European Commission and is implemented with UNICEF’s support.
22 additional social workers and assistants have been recruited at the Community Support Centres (CSCs) and other social services for risk prevention and support of children and their families in the pilot municipalities – Burgas, Kazanlak, Kotel, Sliven, Sredets, Stara Zagora and Tvarditsa.
The task of such mobile teams is to provide integrated support to hard-to-reach children and families, to map their specific vulnerabilities and to undertake measures to address them. Such support includes provision of information and guidance, consulting, referral to services; measures to avert truancy and dropping out of school; facilitating access to health, educational and social services and assistance; development and implementation of programs for prevention of early marriages, family planning and prevention of family separations. The teams work together with the social assistance services and child protection units on joint cases to provide comprehensive support to both parents and children.
Between March 2021 and December 2022, the teams have served a total of 3,386 children and 2,522 parents in vulnerable situations.
