Social workers defend welfare system after Zadar child fire

Štefica Karačić, president of the Croatian Association of Social Workers, has defended the functionality of the social welfare system following a tragedy in Zadar where a three-year-old boy was severely injured in an apartment fire while left alone.

Karačić stated that while the system is working, it needs to be relieved of tasks that could be handled by other institutions. Regarding the Zadar incident, she noted that unofficial information suggests the family was already under family-legal protection measures, meaning assessments of the child's well-being had been conducted and a plan was in place.

She characterized the parents' failure to supervise the child as a massive oversight and questioned whether the child should have remained in the mother's care. Karačić acknowledged that the social welfare system sometimes receives information about family problems too late and explained that while authorities can immediately remove a child if their life is in danger, other processes for addressing developmental risks are longer and involve milder measures first.