Romanian Relief supports 10 families a month, who without this support, would have abandoned their baby at birth. This project goes in hand with our work at the maternity hospital and we work with the families that we meet there. Many Roma families are living in poverty and are unable to support the large families that they have. Many women we meet have no knowledge of contraception or how it should be used. Through this project we educate the families on controlling the size of their families and also provide them with contraception. We ensure that their children attend school and make this one of our conditions for the support they receive from us. We also make sure that all of the families medical needs are met and resolved.

Romanian Reliefs family support team and social worker evaluate the needs of the families in our projects and the support we give every month is on their recommendation.

The monthly support we offer to the families can vary from clothing, baby formula, heating and electricity to building our families a new home. The main aim of family support is to keep these families together and to prevent them from abandoning their children. We educate these families on how they can become self sufficient after our support is over and often assist the families with finding jobs. Our social worker also makes sure that all of the families are receiving child benefits from the state for which they are entitled to.

Through this Programme we have successfully been able to keep families together and bring the abandonment rate down in our county.