From January 1 to the end of March this year, 43 children were taken away from families in the municipalities of Ida-Viru County, according to Ministry of Social Affairs data.

This represents a stark rise compared with previous years. Last year, 48 children were removed from families in Ida-Viru County, but over the whole year, rather than just the first quarter.

The figure for the whole of 2022 meanwhile stood at 44.

Elmet Puhm advisor in the children and families department of the Ministry of Social Affairs, told ERR that this makes it highly probable the total number of such cases in Ida-Viru County this year will be higher than usual, but even now it is too early to say whether this will prove to be an exceptional situation.

However, "the situation certainly requires monitoring," Puhm conceded.

Children are mostly removed from families in cases where to remain within the family environment would pose a threat to the child's life or well being, and it is up to local municipalities to initiate the removal process.

Puhm said: "The main factors, according to municipalities, are parents' lack of basic parenting skills, addiction problems, and also mental health problems," adding that parents having to give up their children due to strained economic conditions has not been a phenomenon seen in Estonia to date.

Minors can be removed from a family on either a temporary or permanent basis, meaning some of them can return to their biological family at a later date; Puhm noted that in certain cases, this can happen quite soon after the removal.

Families with addicted members often have larger numbers of children

Twenty-four of the children removed in the last three months in Ida-Viru County, or over half the total, come from the town of Kohtla-Järve.

Kohtla-Järve's deputy mayor for social affairs, Evelyn Danilov, told ERR that in five of these cases, the children are now back home, three more are living with close relatives, and 16 have been placed in foster care.

"Naturally, we are still dealing with the fate of those 16," Danilov went on.

"Court processes are ongoing, and the work with families is ongoing, but it's hard to say where things will ultimately lead," the deputy mayor added.

Danilov said the usual procedure when a child is taken away from a family starts with the police bringing that child or children to a safe haven, if something is wrong at home.

Within 72 hours it is then clarified if a court is to decide on full removal and to appoint a temporary guardian. This happens with families where parents present a danger to their children, for instance, if they are drug or alcohol addicts, abusive, or violent individuals. It is often the case that these problems will have snowballed over a long period of time.

"Then, of course, there is domestic violence, which is very, very prevalent in our city," Danilov continued, candidly.

"Both intimate partner violence and violence against children, and all similar related problems. Where there is domestic violence, there are generally also addictions at play; it's a combination of factors. From there onward, there is neglect, or people with mental health needs who stop taking their medication and opt to try to manage their treatment themselves, without fully realizing they have a problem; these are a danger both to themselves and to their children," Danilov continued, listing typical issues leading to a child coming to the authorities' attention.

Danilov added that it can be difficult to pinpoint whether alcohol or drugs are the greater issue in the town; most likely alcohol is commoner, though in any case, addicts tend to consume anything they can lay their hands on, and this includes both women and men, she said.

The deputy mayor explained that the significantly higher number of family removals in Kohtla-Järve has not been the result of a social crisis or anything unusual that has suddenly rendered families' situations difficult.

"Removing children does not mean that there are more problematic families [now than before]. These families have always existed, but at some point, working with them can lead to removal. This means that the support measures implemented so far had simply not worked," Danilov, who has worked in the social system since 2021, continued.

Nothing in their work now has changed compared with when she began, she added.

Danilov went on to say that while she has been working with these types of families for several years, if parents do not improve their living situation, if they continue to use substances and to place their children in harm's way, then the municipality can provide support personnel, therapy and services, and if there is no result from these, this will ultimately lead to the children being removed from the family in any case.

The reason there are so many removals taking place now, according to Danilov, is also that, typically, these are larger families; if there are five or six children in a family, any incident will immediately and significantly increase the total number since, in case of danger, the police will remove all the children from the family.

Now, several cases have coincided in reaching this stage at the same time, Danilov said.

"Rare is the case of there being only one child in this type of family. Usually, these families tend to have a lot of children, be it for benefits or some other reason, we don't know, but certainly, state support plays a role here," Danilov said. "Those initial parental benefits seem so appealing, so when the benefits end, the next child tends to get born. They live for years, unfortunately, according to this same pattern."

Foster homes reluctant to take in difficult children

Mare Välja, senior specialist in the social welfare department in nearby Sillamäe, told ERR that in recent years, the number of children in foster care in that town has actually decreased.

Having worked as a foster care manager in Narva over a decade ago, she remembers that there always seemed to have been more problematic families in Kohtla-Järve than elsewhere.

"There were a high number of children from the Kohtla-Järve area," Välja recalled. "At that time, parents had addiction problems, leading to the neglect of children. But some good work was done, and we got children rehabilitated and socialized, while many were adopted too. They were not yet so damaged," Välja continued.

Children coming into foster care now are often in a worse state, however, she noted. Courts have taken a stance whereby treating the restriction and removal of parental rights is only used as a last resort. This makes the process very long and drawn out, and children who are finally placed in foster care often have severe mental disorders or problems by that time, to the extent that they cannot be placed with regular foster care services.

This has led to situations where a child cannot be housed with other children, and needs a service for just them alone, with two foster parents.

Välja said, based on her experience, that holding a child within the family as long as possible might therefore not be the best solution.

In any case, many foster care workers are struggling to create entirely new services to provide appropriate conditions for difficult children, she said.

"The cost of the service then becomes very high, but the local municipality has nowhere else to place these children; we sometimes end up paying five, six, or seven thousand euros to maintain the safety and development of this type of child," Välja said, by way of example.

Kohtla-Järve's deputy mayor also conceded that finding a foster home is a problem. The amounts that the municipality pays monthly for foster care are enormous, Danilov said, yet many foster homes do not want to take in some problem youths.

"If foster care entails well-behaved and cute children, then this also works out easier for the staff. Of course, a problematic youth needs to be dealt with, rehabilitated, and sent to services too. Most likely, he or she won't be able to cope at school; perhaps they have missed out on several years of education due to the life he has been living," Danilov said. "They bring with them a greater workload, some difficult nights, and some of them can pull all sorts of stunts. The past unfortunately leaves a mark on children, while only the strong can manage to make right those marks."

Difficulty finding foster families willing to take in multiple children

Another issue, according to Danilov, lies with foster families. They typically want to take a baby or just one child, but social welfare operates on the principle that siblings from one family should not be separated; they must grow up alongside each other.

Danilov said: "It's a highly exceptional case where a court decides to separate children, and we definitely support the idea of brothers and sisters having to be kept together, even in foster care. They have already lost their parents due to circumstances beyond their control, so it would be cruel and unjust to separate them."

Foster care in Estonia is in the private sector, meaning they can choose their clients. This makes it important to collaborate, discuss problems, and talk, as it's not viable to force the private sector to do anything.

Ultimately, a place is always found for every child in need, but sometimes taking that child to an area further away is required.

There are two children's shelters in Ida-Viru County, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs, with a total of 26 places.

Elmet Puhm acknowledged that this is not very much for a county of its size (population a little over 133,000 – ed.) and containing Estonia's third-largest city, Narva.

These two care homes can get overloaded, if certain circumstances converge.

Puhm said: "Shelters are generally intended for short-term placements, and their overcapacity can depend on specific circumstances coinciding."

"For example, a shelter fills up quickly if the number of children from a single family needing placement is significantly higher than average, meaning the shelter can temporarily be filled up with those offspring of the one family," Puhm continued.

However, Danilov said that Kohtla-Järve does not in fact lack shelter places.

That said, the authority sometimes has to take children to a shelter in Narva, around 55 kilometers away, though this is done to move them to a safer distance away from an abusive and violent parent.

"There are parents who can attack the shelter; attempt to break in and assault the staff – this has all happened," Danilov said.

Despite these grim experiences, some families can indeed be helped with continuous work, she said, meaning the more support services provided to them, the greater the hope there is that they will improve.

"If a support person counsels, assists, and supports several times a week, we have action plans to stop [substance] use, then we also have positive cases, they just aren't as noticeable," Danilov went on.

Mare Välja in Sillamäe also said that miracles do happen from time to time. For example, a child who had been removed from the family and whose parent was in treatment for several years, eventually got back on track, and they regained the right to raise that child.

Nearly half of the children removed, according to Danilov, have returned home at some point in fact. In such cases, the family must be able to demonstrate in every regard their willingness to improve their lot and to get a grip on themselves, she added.

"There are all sorts of services which can head off a situation where children have to live elsewhere. A last resort removal is considered by a court only when it proves impossible for the child to continue living there and when there are no signs of improvement at all; when a parent has such an overwhelming addiction that they simply do not care. Unfortunately, there are such cases out there," Danilov continued.

Both higher-than-average and lower-than-average numbers of children removed from families have been seen in some other parts of the country so far this year.

These are Rapla County (population: 34,000) with 10 cases (one fewer than the figure for the whole of 2023); Tallinn (population: 461,000), nine cases, plus the city of Pärnu, population a little under 40,000, with seven cases (all figures for the first quarter of 2023).

By comparison, through the whole of 2023, a total of 93 children were removed from families in Tallinn, 43 were taken away in Pärnu, and as noted this happened with 11 in Rapla County.

Anett Sihver, an advisor in media relations at the Ministry of Social Affairs, stressed that the above are preliminary figures that are still being compiled and checked, however.

According to Elmet Puhm, Ida-Viru County has often had a slightly higher number of children removed from families through the years due to the region's characteristics, and this places it, in this respect, in the same category as the cities of Tallinn and Pärnu.

For example, two years ago, children removed from families in Ida-Viru County constituted 14 percent of all children removed in Estonia during that whole year, whereas the county's population constitutes a little under 10 percent of the total for Estonia.

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