The Child Protection Centre (CPC) has prepared a "Summary of the report on the work of Orphan's Courts in 2025".
On 5 December 2025, amendments to Republic of Latvia Cabinet Regulation No. 352 “Regulations of the Official Statistics Form Template in the Field of Orphan's Court Activities and the Procedure for Completing and Submitting the Form” came into force. The amendments added new details and improved the form that Orphan's courts need to fill in.
The most important changes to the form, made to improve and expand the collection of statistical data on Orphan's court work:
- The section about ending custody rights has been updated with more details on reasons and decisions.
- The section about host families now includes annual data about families that get host family status and end or lose this status during the year.
- The section about foster families and children placed in them now includes a categorisation by specialised foster families.
- The section about cases involving unaccompanied minors (third-country nationals or stateless persons) has been expanded.
- A new section has been added about the future care of children after care in a care and rehabilitation institution ends.
After receiving information from Orphan's courts, it was found that for some points, the data cannot be interpreted clearly due to methodological issues. To ensure that all respondents understand the questions in the same way and to make data comparable, the methodology for the following points will be improved in the future:
- Section I, point 2.1 – The number of parents whom the orphan's court, based on Section 22, Paragraph 1.1 of the Orphan's Court Law, has instructed to work with the social service to fix conditions that are harmful to the child's development;
- Section II, point 2.1.8 – The number of children for whom out-of-family care was changed during the reporting year by making a new decision;
- Section V, points 2.1.3 and 2.1.4 – Data on specialised foster families that have no children placed and that and for valid reasons, cannot take in children.
Because of these issues, the data for the points mentioned above cannot be fully interpreted at this time.
Please note that the summary report in the attachment is available only in Latvian.