Social Work wih Family in Czech Republic

Social Work wih Family Social Work wih Family in Czech Republicin Czech Republic

MONIKA CHRENKOVÁMONIKA CHRENKOVÁ

University of Ostrava, Facuty of Social StudiesUniversity of Ostrava, Facuty of Social StudiesDepartment of Social WorkDepartment of Social Work

MethodsMethodsOstrava, Czech RepublicOstrava, Czech Republic

University of Ostrava University of Ostrava

• The University of Ostrava was founded on 28 September 1991

• Currently has six faculties: Faculty of Social Studies

Faculty of Fine Arts Faculty of Arts

Faculty of Medicine Pedagogical Faculty Faculty of Science

• University Library- is situated in the centre of the city

→ Pyramid Centre

- provides support for students with special needs

Faculty of Social StudiesFaculty of Social Studies

• Faculty was founded on April 1st in 2008

• First academic year beginning on September 1st in 2008

• New faculty is based on the Department of Social Work, previously part of the Medical-Social Faculty of the University of Ostrava

Faculty of Social StudiesFaculty of Social Studies

• Faculty consists of two Departments :

→ Department of Social Work

→ Department of Social Work Methods

Department of Social WorkDepartment of Social Work

• Provides :

→ 5 years Master“s degree programme Social Work

for Health Care

→ doctoral/PhD“s programmes Social Policy and Social Work in Czech and also in English in both studied forms (daily and combined)

→ newly – Bachelor“s degree programme – Health social care, field of Health-social worker taught in daily form

Department of Social Work MethodsDepartment of Social Work Methods

• ensures :

→ Bachelor“s degree programme of Social Workin daily and combined form

→ 2 years Master“s deegre programmes of Management of Social Work Services Organizations (in both forms) and Social Work as daily form

The European Research Institute for The European Research Institute for

Social Work (ERIS)Social Work (ERIS) • Cooperation based on agreements between six

European universities from Finland, France, Germany, G. Britain and Slovakia and others associated members of universities across Europe

• The mission of the Institute is : „to carry out high-quality funded research projects involving the Institute’s European partners and to produce European-funded teaching and learning materials for social work and social care programmes“.

Socrates ErasmusSocrates Erasmus

• Currently Faculty cooperate with 33 foreign universities

• in 15 European countries

• with focusing on exchange study programmes

for students and lecturers within Socrates Erasmus

Contacts :Contacts :

• www.osu.cz

• fss.osu.cz

Social Work wih Family in Czech RepublicSocial Work wih Family in Czech Republic

• Family is definitely the oldest human social institution

• Family has a unique and privileged position – it can influence the child’s development in its most sensitive stages in the most natural way, and it can richly satisfy the child’s basic psychic needs

• The essence of family upbringing consists in the creation of home. “A good home is one of the conditions of happy childhood, and happy childhood is one of the conditions of good, healthy growth of a human being.” (Matějček, 1992, p. 175)

Basic terms Basic terms

• Child • Best interest of the child

• Child without family background • Parental responsibility

• Social-legal protection of children • Preliminary ruling

ChildChild

In the legal order of the Czech Republic, the term “child” means a minor of 0 to 18 years of age.

A natural person’s capacity to have rights and duties arises with his/her birth.

Best interest of the childBest interest of the child

“The most important issue is considered to assert

the best interest of the child and to respect his/her rights and opinions while keeping the duty to ensure the survival, development and protection of the child.”

Child without family backgroundChild without family background

“Children without family background cannot grow

up in the family environment in the custody of their own parents or their closest relatives for various reasons.

• These children are orphaned children (orphaned by their parents’ death) and socially orphaned children. The socially orphaned children have parents but these “cannot, may not or do not want to” take care of them.”

Parental responsibilityParental responsibility

Complex of the parents’ rights and duties in custody of a minor, including care of health, corporal, intellectual, emotional and moral development.

Parents are obliged to represent the minor and to administer his/her property.

Social-legal protection of childrenSocial-legal protection of children

Means mainly the protection of the right of the child to favourable development and proper upbringing, the protection of the legitimate interests of the child, including protection of his/her property, operating leading to restoration of disrupted functions of family.

[Act no. 359/1999 Coll.]


“The prior standpoint of social-legal protection of children is the interest and welfare of the child.”

• Focuses namely on the children whose parents have died, have not been fulfilling the duties arising out of parental responsibility, have been abusing the rights arising out of parental responsibility.

• Further on the children, which have been placed in the custody of other natural person than parents.

• Children leading immoral life consisting in neglecting

their compulsory school attendance, addictive drugs, or the children against which a crime has been committed endangering their health or if there is a suspicion of committing such a crime.


Is exercised by the bodies of social-legal protection of children among which the following count:

regional authorities, municipalities of extended powers, municipal authorities, the ministry, the Office for International Legal Protection of Children, the commission of social-legal protection of children and other authorized persons.

Preliminary rulingPreliminary ruling

“If a child is without any care, or if his/her life or favourable development is seriously endangered or violated,

the municipality of extended powers is obliged to file a motion for preliminary ruling to the court, on which the court must decide within 24 hours.”

Family life and family support in Czech Family life and family support in Czech conditionsconditions

• Sociodemographic factors :

In the 1990“s some significant changes in the sociodemographic processes happened :

- decline of birth and fertility rate

+ decrease of the intensity of death rate (caused mainly by the decline of death rate in the mid-life and late adulthood age but also by the decrease of infantile death rate)

- process of population’s ageing

Sociodemographic factorsSociodemographic factors

• Family behaviour:

• process of marriage rate has changed – entering into the first marriage is postponed for older age and is more frequently replaced

by unmarried cohabitation

• divorce rate still has an increasing tendency

Changes in the internal family relationsChanges in the internal family relations

• change of the relation of man and woman that becomes balanced today

→ same education, women are greatly independent of men, in the economical as well as parental role

Changes in the internal family relationsChanges in the internal family relations

• important change is the one of the parent – child relation

→ development of the individual abilities → aim of education and upbringing is not only an

adapted individual but a successful one

Summary of dSummary of demographic processesemographic processes

*decline of birth rate and fertility

*decline of marriage rate

*decrease of death rate

*increasing divorce rate

*ageing of the population

Contemporary Czech familyContemporary Czech family

Its internal structure is changing:

• the roles of mother and father are defined anew

• the family planning is governed by establishing a professional grounding and parents’ material background

• the outer conditions also produce strong destabilizing

• pressures on family (a pressure to be a flexible labour to a new behaviour of an individual’s autonomy)

Development of family lifeDevelopment of family life

• can be explained on the basis of these facts:

– a bigger offer of possibilities for individuals

to fulfil themselves

– an uneasy state of the real estate market

(Možný, 2002, p. 92).

Summary of changes:

• Economical situation

*the market environment raises the demands of work perfomance and work time, often to the detriment of the time meant for family and children’s upbringing in family

*the unsatisfactory housing situation complicates the formation of families and marriages, young people consider a flat to be one of the fundamental conditions of forming family

Summary of changes:

• Social conditions

*in the less paternalistic environment, the feeling of one’s own responsibility as well as the dissatisfaction with the conditions of family life are growing

*in family fathers’ greater participation in care and upbringing of children has been gradually enforced

*proportion of the influence of family (the nuclear and extended ones, kin), neighbours’ networks and the peer groups has been changing

Summary of changes:

• Cultural influence

*individualism weakens the family relations

*the consumption orientation weakens the importance of the family values

*the changed social status of woman shifted towards the real equality

Definition of family

• According to Matoušek

= group of people related to one another by bonds of blood relations or legal ties (marriage, adoption)

FFunctional familyunctional family

• A functional family is understood as a system where:

roles are clearly defined communication is clear interactions while solving conflicts are effective situation solving is creative and flexible family structure is adaptable functional family provides a feeling of belonging

and mutuality but at the same time it respects the autonomy of each individual

Family fFamily functionsunctions

• economical function

• function of socialization

• function of reproduction

• emotional function

EEconomical functiconomical functionon

- nowadays the economical function is being expelled out of the family space by other social institutions’ performance of a great part of this function (social welfare benefits)

FFunction of socializationunction of socialization

- during the period of totality in the Czech Republic the family’s function of socialization was suppressed and replaced with the state system of organized education and upbringing

- now education and upbringing fall into the scope of concurrence of family and the state

FFunction of reproductionunction of reproduction

- the family’s function of reproduction is influenced

by the development of demographic processes - especially birth rate

EEmotional functimotional functionon

- today the emotional function is influenced by the increasing individualism characteristic for the contemporary society

Scheme of sectors and institutions in the system of family care :

Ministry of Health ∙ Institutional care

↓Nursery homes +Children‘s homes for children under 3 years

+ Children“s centers

Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs

∙ Social policy∙ Social services

∙ Bodies of social legal protection∙ Substitute family care

∙ Institutional care

↓ Homes for people with special needs

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports

↓

∙ Institutional care

+Diagnostic institutions (+ Centres of educational care)

+Children’s homes +Children’s homes with school + Corrective institution+

Institution of instant assistance for children

Substitute careSubstitute care

Scheme of the system of substitute care in the CR

Substitute family care * adoption

* foster care * guardianship

Institutional care* nursery homes

* children’s homes for children under 3y.*= children centers

* diagnostic instititions+ centres of educational care * children‘s

homes* children‘s homes with school

* corrective institutions * homes for people with special needs

+ Institution of instant assistance for children

•

Legislative basis of family life and the family policy

The fundamental document regulating family law is :

•Family Act no. 94/1963, approved in 1963and effective since 1964

Family Act regulates marriage, the relations between parents and children, divorces, …

Basic documents regulating the position

of child in the society

• Declaration of the Rights of the Child • Convention on the Rights of the Child • World Declaration of the Survival, Protection

and Development of Children

= reflected by Act no. 359/1999 Coll. on social-legal protection of children

▪ Charter of fundamental Rights and basic Freedoms of Czech Republic

Legislative :Legislative :

Family Act no. 94/1963 Coll.

Act no.359/1999 Coll. on social-legal protectionof children

Act no.108/206 Coll . on Social Services

Act no. 20/1966 Coll. on public health care

Act no. 109/2002 Coll. on execution of institutional upbringing or protective care in educational facilities and on preventive educational care in educational facilities

+ other Regulations

Family PolicyFamily Policy

►Finacial support of family

2 main sections : •tax benefits (indirect support- relief)•social security system

→ social insurance (health and pension insurance)→ state social benefits (child alowences, parental benefits, childbirth benefits, foster care benefits)→ material need benefits (emergency benefits, housing benefits)

Family PolicyFamily Policy

► Services support

▪ Social services – support of each family member

or family as a unit

▪ Functioned family services – preventive and supportive character

▪ Activities of Social legal protection of children

Social servicesSocial services

= tendency to enable people in a disadvantageous social situation to continue to be equivalent members of the society and to live independently, in contact with other people and in the natural social family environment

•task : prevention of social marginalization

•requirements of the quality of social services are ensured by the social services quality standards

Social servicesSocial services

– Social counselling (partnership and family counselling)

– Social care services (home care services)

– Social preventive services (early intervention services, shelter housing for mothers with children, half-way houses, low-threshold services for children and minors/youth, intervention centers, social-activisation services for families with children, field programmes)

Functioned family services

1. Commercial services – Baby sitting – Household support – Leisure-time and addicational activities for

children

2. Ucommercional services - Maternity centers

– Family centers, public nursery

Functioned family services

• Care services for children upon 3 years :

∙ Health facilities - nursery ∙ Private facilities ∙ Baby-sitting services

• Care services for children over 3 years :

∙ Kindergarten/nursery schools – state∙ Private facilities ∙ Baby-sitting services

Social legal protection of children

- Preventive and counselling activities

- Field work

- Substitutive family care

– Solving of social situations of many families with underage children

– Children and youth at risk

- Facilities of social legal protection of children

(Institution of instant assistance for children)

Support of families on the level of Support of families on the level of regions regions

and municipalitiesand municipalities

• The role of the state in the family policy is a fundamental one.

●The state creates the basis conditions for realization of the family politics through :

►legislative acts ► concrete financial programmes

● The realization of concrete measures to support families is a part of the role of the local government bodies represented by regions and municipalities.

RegionsRegions

• Financial support by means of the system of social welfare benefits

• Social-legal protection of children

• Social services for families

→ methodical management• Regional authorities deal mainly with:

methodical, controlling and conception activities in relation to municipalities of extended powers

RegionsRegions

Regional family policy focuses on these areas:

•the housing issue and the availability of housing•the issue of compatibility of work and the family life (development of networks of social services for families with children – nurseries and kindergarten,...)•the issue of families endangered by social marginalization (families with a long-term unemployed member, one-parent“s families, families in emergent crisis situation, …)

MunicipalitiesMunicipalities

• bodies of paying the social welfare benefits

● statutory obligation to perform social-legal protection of children through each departments on local level

Social work in the Czech Republic after Social work in the Czech Republic after 19891989

•The year 1989 is a breaking point in the Czech social work.

•After 1989 in CR have grown :

the number of the unemployed people homeless people drug addicted people unmaintained, treatened and neglected children abused women prostitution refugees the unsolved problems of Roma families have come

in the foreground in comparison to the previous period

Social work in the Czech Republic after 1989Social work in the Czech Republic after 1989

the priority of social work after 1989 was :

►re-creation of education on the university level

► develop and modify methods of social work

► deinstitutionalization of social services → to create alternatives of the traditional, mostly institutional care

► rise of non-governmental organizations (church as well as non-church ones)

► volunteers

Social work with family in the Czech Social work with family in the Czech RepublicRepublic

Social work with family is based mainly on the family therapy, in czech conditions it must be clearly defined in comparison to the family therapy.

The social work with family is understood in the sense of Shulman’s (1992) concept :

as a help to a family in a common normative crisis

→

Social work with family in Czech Social work with family in Czech RepublicRepublic

Kratochvíl´s (2002) distinguishes social work and psychotherapy according to whether it deals :

•with a problem or a disorder

→

It is possible to say that : social worker deals with a problem = social workfamily therapist with a disorder = family therapy

Social work with family at Faculty of Social Studies at University of Ostrava

• The social work with family at Faculty of Social studies is based on the Anglo-Saxon and German model

→transformation to the Czech conditions

SWwF is taught within the subject Methods of the social work with family since 1997 primarily as double – term course inserted in 4th grade of master“s degree

Nowadays as one-term course also taught in bachelor“s degree and in two years master“s degree – The Advanced Methods of Social Work with families

Sylabus of SWwFSylabus of SWwF

• The courses are concentrated on explaining

system and systemic theory, task centered approach,

phases of working with clients – family.

The course also includes practical training oriented on family work modeling and reflection.

Each student simulate work with family in social worker position, playing roles are reflected by whole group of students.


The definition of social work with familiesPrinciples of social work with families with an emphasis on neutrality (objectiveness)Questioning in social work with family - type of questionsUnderstanding the family situation (assessment) Define problem situationSetting goalsTechniques help to solve the problemCompletion and evaluation work with families


+ on bachelor“s level :

Application of methods of social work with families to the social legal protection of childrenMethods of social work in applicatinion to divorce situation; Family mediation

+ on master“s level :

Applying Virginia Satir's approach to social work with familiesThe integrated method Family Island in social work with family

Substitute careSubstitute care

Scheme of the system of substitute care

in Czech Republic

►►►

►

►

Substitute family care

↓* adoption

* foster care * guardianship

Institutional care

↓* nursery homes

* children’s homes for children under 3y.*= children“s centers

* diagnostic instititions+ centres of educional care

* children‘s homes * children‘s homes with school

* corrective institutions * homes for people with special needs


Basic termsBasic terms

Substitute care

It is a care of children who, for various reasons, cannot bebrought up in their own families.

Substitute family care

„It is a form of child care when a child is broughtup by substitute parents in an environment which mostresembles a life in a natural family. In our country itrepresents mainly adoption and foster care.“ (Matějček,1999, p. 31)

Forms of substitute family careForms of substitute family care

• adoption

• foster care

• guardianship

Adoption Adoption

- based on same relation as between parents and children in family

- 2 types of adoption :

▪ revocable adoption (can be revoked, it concerns children under 1 year)

▪ irrevocable adoption : (more used in practice, cannot be revoked, children over one year)

Foster care Foster care

- connected with foster care benefits

- types of foster care :

▪ individual care – a child is brought up by his/her relatives (grandparents, others) or unrelated persons

▪ group care – large foster families (pairs of spouses) or the S.O.S. villages of children (foster mothers)

+ foster care for short term (relatives)

+ new : professional foster care

Guardianship Guardianship

The court appoints a guardian usually chosen among

the person close to the child’s family in the case that his/herparents have died, have been

released from parental responsibility or do not have legal capacities

in the full extent.

Institutional careInstitutional care

„Where a family absolutely fails to care for a child

for various reasons, and it is not possible or suitable to choose some of the forms of the substitute family care, it is necessary to

ensure the child another educational environment.“

(Matějček et al., 1999, p. 39)

Basic termsBasic terms

• Institutional upbringing

Ruling proposed by a body of social-legal protection of children and approved by the court. It is executed in those cases when the child’s family is not able or willing to properly care, and it is not possible to ensure the custody of the child in any other reasonable way.

May be imposed only on a minor, and can be extended until this person’s age of 19 years.

Protective care

Kind of protective measures. The juvenile court may impose protective care if the custody of the juvenile

is not properly ensured and the lack of proper upbringing cannot be corrected in his/her own

family.

Children and youth in risk.

Last till 18 years of the juvenile’s age, or until 19 years, if required by the juvenile’s

interest.

Preventive educational care

Provision of special-educational and psychological services to children at the risk of behavioural

disorders or

with already developed manifestations of behavioural disorders and negative phenomena of social development, on whom institutional upbringing

or protective care is not imposed.

Aimed to children and youth, persons responsiblefor upbringing and educators.

Placing children in institutional carePlacing children in institutional care

• Children under 3 years with no regard to their state of health

↓*Sector of Health Care

• Children over 3 years suffering disorders or handicaps

↓

*Sector of Labour and Social Affairs

• Children over 3 years with normal state

↓

*Sector of Education

Sector of Health CareSector of Health Care

Nursery homes

children of 0 to 1 year are placed here

Children‘s homes for children under 3 years

Providing care for children aged of 1 to 3

The nursery homes have become an important part of the paediatric preventive care

The main mission of these institutions is an opportune socialization

of a child in the shortest time possible, either in his/her ownfamily

Other services : providing families with social problems with

health care, discreet childbirths, discreet stays or rehabilitations

related to handicapped children

Statistics in the field of the nursery homes and the children’s homes for children under 3 years on the

nationwide scale in 2009

Number of institutions 34

Total capacity 2 040

Total number of admitted children

1 966

Reasons for admission:

social 48%

health 33%

health-social 18%

Sector of Labour and Social AffairsSector of Labour and Social Affairs

Homes

for people/children with special needs (former social care homes)

Admitting the children suffering various handicaps and disorders, whether of sensory, physical or

mental character, who cannot grow up in their own families

Sector of EducationSector of Education

Diagnostic institutions (+ Centres of educational care)

Institution which placing children in the appropriate type of facilities

on the basis of results of a complex examination

Ensure preventive educational care

ChildrenChildren’s homes’s homes

Providing care for children of 3 to 18 years with ordered institutional

upbringing which do not suffer from serious behavioural disorders.

Care for the children and youth who cannot grow up in their own

families for serious reasons, and could not be adopted or placed in

another form of substitute family care.

Children’s homes with schoolChildren’s homes with school

Caring for children with ordered institutional upbringing (serious behaviour disorders,

temporary or permanent mental disorder)

with charged protective care

Placing children over 6 years until the end of compulsory school attendance

Corrective institutionsCorrective institutions

Providing care for children on the same base like previous institution but over

15 years old


Established by Body of social-legal protection - alternative between substitute family care

and institutional care

– e.g. Children“s centers, „Kangaroos“ of Fund od endangered children

Services for short term

Coverage of care, pocket-money and presents

• The persons liable for upbringing and the children with their own regular income contribute a fee to the coverage of the care provided to the children in educational institutions. The amount depends on the child’s age.

• To children belong :- pocket-money – amount depends on the child’s age - birthday presents and present on other significant

occasion

Employees of institutional facilities

In health care facilities → medical staff, then … (social workers, psychologists, educators)

In educational facilities → educators, then … (social workers, psychologists and medical staff)

In social facilities → educators as well as medical staff

Reasons of placing children in the system of institutional care

» unmastered education» neglecting, abuse and battering

of children» parents‘ criminal activities» parents‘ alcoholism» family‘s low social level» mother‘s prostitution» orphanage

+health, social and health-social reasons

Adjective procedures relating to placing a Adjective procedures relating to placing a child child

in institutional care :in institutional care :

▪ judicial decision

↓ ↓*institutional upbringing *protective care

▪ preliminary ruling

▪ parents’ request

PSYCHIC DEPRIVATIONPSYCHIC DEPRIVATION

• Psychic deprivation is a psychic state arisen due to such life situations when a subject is not given

an opportunity to satisfy some of his/her basic psychic needs to a sufficient extent for sufficiently

long period.” (Matějček, Bubleová, and Kovařík, 1997, p. 8)

• Also children growing up in their original family which does not fulfill its emotional-educational

function, may suffer psychic deprivation – psychic subdeprivation.

Problems and critism in childProblems and critism in child’s care ’s care systemsystem

» Expansiveness and disunity

» First place of institutional care in the system of substitute care

» Problems of accommodation and finding a job for the wards after fulfiling the institutional care

» Enforcing the fees for covering the expenses of the institutional care from the parents

» Lack a male model, most employees are females

Future improvement of family“s and Future improvement of family“s and child’s care systemchild’s care system

• Placement of children in substitute family care – e.g. adoption, foster care

• Working with the child’s original family and his/her returning to this family if possible – family sanitation

● Unify family“s and child“s care system

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION !

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Social Work wih Family in Czech Republic