O apadrinhamento civil como alternativa ao acolhimento permanente de crianças e jovens

Ideally, children should remain with their parents throughout their entire childhood. However, when parents violate their parental obligations towards their children, whether that occurs by action or omission, the State should intervene. The Law on Protection of endangered Children and Youth conceives protection measurements to be executed within the child’s natural environment and residential and foster care. Many children remain in residential care until they reach the legal age. Though the civil patronage was created to become an alternative to the long term residential care of children, it remains pretty much unknown and very seldom applied. The present paper’s goal is to present the civil patronage and question its main virtues and faults.