Deinstitutionalization of persons with severe mental disabilities and their placement in families and communities has become a priority for Moldova. Ecaterina Golovatii, social assistant in the Community for All project of Keystone Moldova Association, met with students of the School of Advanced Journalism in a Discussion Club and spoke to future journalists about the importance of deinstitutionalizing persons with disabilities, the difficulties they face in the process of institutionalization and the role of the media in covering these topics.

Deinstitutionalization of persons with disabilities is complicated and lengthy. Since 2009, over 100 children have been moved out from residential care facilities in Orhei and Hancesti. “Persons with disabilities need the experience of living in a community; they need to develop abilities that would help them live in society, and it is not at all easy. Children with disabilities are not accepted for preschool institutions, which makes parents keep them at home,” the social assistant said. According to Mrs. Golovatii, it is not quite a positive practice, because parents cannot cover the needs for communication, play and interaction with their peers, abilities that can better develop in kindergarten and then at school. “Residential care facilities have no education programs, and children become illiterate,” Mrs. Golovatii said.

“How can persons with disabilities be deinstitutionalized?” the students asked. Professional foster care is one of the possibilities that would lead to deinstitutionalization of persons from residential care facilities. According to the social assistant, there are few families in Moldova that agree to take home and raise a child with disabilities. “We have five such families, and we witness positive development of children, which proves again that every child must live in a family,” Mrs. Golovatii underlined.

Referring to the role of the media and to the way journalists must write about persons with disabilities, Mrs. Golovatii mentioned that journalists must first of all overcome the feeling of pity. “It is the first thing that the media should do, because persons with disabilities don’t need pity – they need our support,” Mrs. Golovatii says.

Another important piece of advice to SAJ students was to correctly use terminology, which “journalists often use wrongly when they write about persons with disabilities,” Mrs. Golovatii believes. Thus, we should try not to use in journalistic materials such expressions as: the less fortunate than us, bedridden, invalid, deaf, blind, mentally ill, invalid chair, cripple, parking lot for invalids, etc. “They need to be eliminated from journalists’ vocabulary and replaced with such expressions as: person with disabilities, persons with hearing and speaking disabilities, visually impaired, wheelchair, hearing impaired, parking lot for persons with disabilities, etc.,” Mrs. Golovatii mentioned.

During the discussion with the students of the School of Advanced Journalism, Ecaterina Golovatii also reiterated that on September 21, 2010, Moldova ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which introduced a new approach to the rights of persons with disabilities, transitioning from the “medical” approach to disability to a “social” approach, which identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and social exclusion as the main factors leading to the situation of disability of the person and not the medical condition itself.

At the end of the discussion, Mrs. Golovatii mentioned that the role of the media in covering topics about persons with disabilities is very important. “Encourage persons with disabilities. Do as much research as possible when you write about them. Try to see their abilities, and not disabilities – find out what a person can do and not what they can’t do,” Mrs. Golovatii concluded.

The event was organized as part of the “Combating discrimination by promoting successful practices, involving citizens and making mass media responsible” project implemented under the “Supporting National Human Rights Institutions as per International Treaty Bodies and UPR Recommendations” project, funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, co-funded and implemented by UNDP Moldova and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in cooperation with the People’s Advocate (Ombudsman) Office and the Equality Council.