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Services for families with children in difficult social situation in the South Bohemia Region
MAXOVÁ, Magdalena
This work contains a theory part concerning the issues of social services for families with children in unfavourable social situation in the South-Bohemian region. The second part includes research. A family is still considered to be the most important social unit even in the present post modern society. The family unit creates a foundation of human society and performs its main functions, e.g. reproduction or transfer of cultural patterns. The number of families that do not fulfill their basic functions has been growing recently. These families become problematic. They have to solve unfavourable life situations, they have financial, housing or social problems. The family members are often not able to solve those problems by themselves and they need to be helped and supported. Social services need to be established and function in the long term in order to help families in need. Social services for families with children help to improve and balance the family status in society, they stabilize the social situatin of families with children endangered by social exclusion and they can even organize free time activities of children. As per the Social services Act the service providers are obliged to observe many duties not only with respect to their users and their employees but also to the public and state administration. Some problematic situations may occur in the case of privat non-profit making organisations - both while implementing the social service itself or in other activities. One of the aims of this work is to screen the social services provided to families with children in need in the South-Bohemian region. It also aims to detect the main problems providers may encounter while implementing social services in the South-Bohemian region and the ways they solve the problem situations. Two main research issues have been set to meet the aims of the study and to get the necessary information: What are the most often problematic situations that the providers of social services have to face? How do they solve the problems? Research methods used: qualitative research strategy, document analysis, secondary and data analysis from the Czech ministry of work and social affairs, analysis of medium-term and developing plans of social services. Another method used was questioning in the form of a semi-structured interview. Five social workers (SASRD South Bohemia) in leading positions agreed to make an interview. The outcomes of the research are classified into several categories. These categories include specifics of the institution or organization, the issues of cooperation with other entities, the isssues of financing and legal framework, the quality standards, workforce management and difficult situations when working with clients. The cooperation with other entities (for example OSPOD, UP), financing the services and the workforce managent were all indentified as the most difficult issues. The research shows that the biggest issues concerning working with clients is to decide about the right time to report the family to OSPOD (the state office of social and legal child protection) as well as dealing with Roma families in general. Other significant problems are caused by language barriers when planning individually with clients (the client does not understand the language or does not know what kind of service to ask for). Problems also occur when clients are uncooperative or do not keep due appointments. The parties interviewed are mostly negative in their future expectations at their services, though they believe that the services are and will be very beneficial for the society. This work presents complete information about the provision of proactive social services for families with children in unfavourable social situation. It points out the necessity of these services and it shows the problem-causing issues.
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