On 22 March 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted Resolution No. 331, which amended the process of adoption and placement of children into other forms of family care.
Among the innovations is the provision that adoptive parents have the right to temporarily place a child with them even before a court decision is made. Such placement of a child becomes possible if the adoption candidates (1) have received a positive conclusion from local executive authorities regarding the advisability of adoption and its compliance with the interests of the child, and (2) have filed a petition for the adoption of the child with the court.
Furthermore, the procedure for selecting adoptive parents is simplified: local child welfare services (hereinafter referred to as Services) will now have access to information about children in need of adoption in areas beyond their territorial jurisdiction. Regional-level Services will be able to see information about children registered in other regions and centralized records. Each potential adoptive parent will be informed about the registration of a new child, with the opportunity to familiarize themselves with information about the child. These changes are aimed at speeding up the exchange of information between Services and potential adoptive parents, thus increasing the chances of creating new families.
The timeframe for receiving certificate of completion of training for prospective adoptive parents, foster parents, or guardians – is reduced. Now, the results of completing the training will be known within 5 days instead of 10. These certificates will be sent to the Services with a separate notification of their readiness. Additionally, the validity period of the certificate of completion of the course on raising orphaned and parentless children is extended to 24 months.
Certain innovations concern families with military personnel. Under the general rule, each spouse is required to provide a health statement as part of the guardianship or custody establishment procedure. Now, if one of the spouses is performing military service, they can submit such a statement within 15 days after returning from such service.
There are also changes to the rules for appointing godparents for a child. They can still be guardians/custodians as before. However, starting from now – only if they had the status of godparents before the child acquired the status of an orphan or a child deprived of parental care. These changes are aimed at preventing potential abuse by unscrupulous godparents.
An important innovation is the introduction of financial support for families where a child is temporarily placed before the child becomes an orphan or is deprived of parental care. The amount of financial support is set at 2.5 (for children with disabilities – 3.5) times the subsistence minimum for children of the corresponding age. Financial support will be paid for the duration of the temporary placement of the child, but not exceeding six months. In case of extension of temporary placement, the payment of assistance may also be extended upon request of the recipient.
By Talina Kravtsova, Partner, Yuri Neklyaev, Senior Associate, Asters
