Infant homes for children under three years ceased operating in the Czech Republic at the end of 2024, under an amendment to the child protection law. As of now it will no longer be possible to place young children in such institutions, and a foster family must be found for them instead.
The Labour and Social Affairs Ministry said infant homes were an outdated service that was not beneficial for babies.
According to the ministry, all children who were previously accommodated in such homes are being provided with care, and two-fifths of them are living with foster families. The remainder have moved to other institutional facilities or stayed in their facility that has turned into a children’s shelter, a residential home or a healthcare facility.
In mid-December, 73 temporary foster families were available to take in children immediately, after four new temporary foster families were added between November and mid-December. There were also 681 foster families fully occupied, and another 205 which had interrupted their work for health or personal reasons.
Several years ago, the Zlin Region became the first in the country to abolish infant homes and provide foster parents for children. Other regions have since followed suit.
According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the operators of infant homes are now turning the remaining facilities into homes for the disabled, children’s groups or respite care services. Some institutions are applying for registration to provide long-term inpatient care. One facility will operate as a home for older children.
“All the children from the former infant homes are being cared for and none of them have been left without care,” said Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurecka (KDU-CSL). “The infant homes for children under three years of age were facilities that in the vast majority of cases no longer served their purpose. This is confirmed by the opinions of experts and our own analysis.”
According to Jurecka, the main thing is to ensure that children grow up in a family environment. “For a large number of children, a better solution than institutional care has been successfully found. These include safe return to their own families, placement in foster care or adoption.”
Domestic organisations and foreign institutions have long criticised the Czech Republic for the high number of children in institutional care. According to the Child and Family Association, the Czech Republic was one of the last countries in Europe where children under the age of three can be placed in institutions.
Under a strategy approved by the Czech government 12 years ago, children under three should not have been sent to institutions as of 2014, and children under seven as of 2016. The ban was finally included in an amendment to the child protection law only in mid-2021, shortly before the general election, leaving more than three years to prepare for the change.
However, the ministry proposed a two-year delay in another amendment last year. The government’s Human Rights Commissioner and the Pirate Party, then part of the ruling coalition, opposed it, and the ministry therefore removed this from the prepared bill.
Last year, ANO MP and current Chamber of Deputies Deputy Speaker Ales Juchelka tried to add a one-year postponement into an amendment on social services. He and other opposition lawmakers argued that children from the closed infant homes would have nowhere to go from January. Coalition MPs, on the other hand, insisted that the country was ready for the change and that the majority of children in the infant homes were older.
According to a survey by the ministry and the J&T Foundation, the number of children in infant institutions in the Czech Republic has declined each year, falling by over a half in the last six years. In the spring of 2018, 649 children were staying in these facilities, compared to 309 in spring 2024.
On the other hand, the number and proportion of children over four years in infant homes has been increasing. Last spring, children aged three and younger made up one-third of those in infant homes (107), while there were 202 older boys and girls staying there. Of these, 88 were school children aged over seven. There were no children under three in four of the 20 infant institutions in the country last spring, and eight homes had fewer than five boys and girls under four. In four homes, there were six to ten young children, in three, there were up to 16 young children, and the home in Prague-Krc cared for 23.
