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Abstract
This article offers a current view of the problems concerning the social inclusion of families caring for a child with a disability. It draws primarily from Central and East European expert publications and resources. The presented outputs identify the specifications and limits of social work carried out in the public-law social administration system in the Czech Republic, one of those countries in which the transformation of the economic structure and social system has been proceeding since the 1990s. Although the relationship of the majority society towards families with children with a disability in the Czech Republic is heading generally in a positive direction, some risk elements determining the fulfilment of the right to social protection of that vulnerable group of inhabitants remain. Their approach shows risk factors consisting, for example, of low application of integrated forms of support in problem solving in the client's life situation, or in adherence to entrenched bureaucratic procedures that often emasculate the client's position. But if the quality and the impact of social work should support the person in being able to enforce his or her rights and authorized interests, they must respect not only general social needs but particularly his or her individual needs. The tools for preserving and increasing the quality of life of families with children with a disability also include, besides efficient legislative measures, focused education and support for the development of key components of the human values and skills of social workers.
Notes
1The conception of social protection in the Czech Republic is based upon respect for basic human rights and freedoms. The whole system of social security in the Czech Republic ensures (under the rule of constitutional law No. 2/1993 coll., on the declaration of fundamental rights and freedoms as parts of the constitutional order of the Czech Republic) social protection for all citizens who find themselves in social contingencies recognized by the state. The aim of the newly drawn up social help system is to secure (bio-psycho-social) necessities of life for those who are objectively in a difficult social situation and who cannot, either on objective or subjective grounds, help themselves or get help through their family. The family is (in this system) a prior subject providing help on the basis of solidarity. Elementary instruments of social help used in the Czech Republic include, in particular, social counselling; prevention of social-pathological phenomena; social legal protection; social services and social benefits. The exercise of powers in this system is delegated to the lowest possible level of administration (in the Czech Republic local authorities are involved in carrying out public social service) and further on to non-governmental non-profit-making organizations. The basic task of the bodies constituting public social service is to provide both basic and specialized counselling—decision-making about the right and the amount of the citizen's social allowances and their payment. Groups of people with a disability receive social allowances in the form of, for example, rehabilitation and compensation aids allowances, benefit for care, and some extra benefits for non-specific aid allowance relating to material need.
2Applied ethical principles and approaches within the helping relationship are signs of professionalism in social work. In socialist Czechoslovakia social work was largely a part of the state administration system or was performed by institutions owned by the state. Everything was determined by this conception of social policy. The formal task of the social worker—a bureaucrat—was to test the entitlement to benefits and to carry out their distribution. Institutional care was preferred within social services, and that involved all groups of clients, including disabled people, with an exclusive focus on their so-called objectively ascertainable material needs. Social work could not have developed in this context as a fully valuable profession. It was carried out with the intention of rampant bureaucracy and a paternalistic approach to a passive client. Social work has been struggling against these ‘principles’ to the present day, despite the impact of the transformation of the social system.
3In the Czech Republic, those administrating social benefits are the employees of social security bodies carrying out public-law social administration.
4This analytical material was created on the basis of expert knowledge of the whole situation of the investigated families. It could thus relate to Clark's model of professional expertise (Clark Citation2007).
5The German (corporate) model of social services is, in comparison with the Czech model, one based on the insurance principle. The benefit from the care insurance system is awarded on the basis of participation in insurance, with checking of health and social needs by a social worker. The funding of the social service system in the Czech Republic is provided by tax payments and is not dependent on insurance payment as in Germany. These two systems admit both professional and non-professional care. In Germany, professionally provided social service is better paid. In the case of non-professional care the insurance benefit is given to those who take care of the person in need, but is a reduced amount, unlike in the Czech Republic where there is no difference in the benefit (benefit for care) provided non-/professionally (Schmid Citation1996; Víšek Citation2000; Francová & Novotný Citation2008).
6This social benefit comes from Regulation No. 182/Citation1991 coll. and is also awarded, under given conditions, to parents of a child over three years of age who has serious handicap.
7The legal regulation stated above considers a person who, with regard to his or her income and the general property relations, has insufficient means to pay substantiated costs relating to the education of a dependent child, a person in material need, and allows the payment of a social benefit to him or her.
8Banks states that ‘all three intellectual currents of thought are evidently present in literature about social work and also in the practice of social work’ and she adds that their adumbration is artificial; however, it can still serve as a way of recognizing different emphases which social workers can use in their practice (Banks 2001, pp. 145–46).