National Assembly speaker Mihaela Dotsova has congratulated staff at the State Agency for Child Protection on the agency's 25th anniversary, calling them "Bulgaria's quiet heroes," parliament's press office said.

She promised that any good idea for better decisions on children would go before parliament for review.

Staff should be judged by the smiles they bring, not by the reports they write, Dotsova said, adding that their daily work sometimes stands in for a mother's love. She said they act wisely and sensibly when they look for the best path for children at risk.

You can tell a mature society by two things, Dotsova said: how it treats adults and how it looks after children. For people with heart, reason and soul, she said, the anniversary marks 25 years of care for Bulgaria's children, not just an institutional holiday.

The agency's campaigns have shown how children's problems change over time, she added, and have led to government decisions to protect their rights and improve their care.

The agency is also building a new system for reporting violence against and among children, which labour and social policy minister Natalia Efremova presented in September. It will gather consolidated information on a report, no matter which child-protection body filed it and whether it was later withdrawn, so officials can respond faster when there are signs of violence.