The role of complex social services for the children from families at risk

Abstract

The social assistance for social risk families in Lithuania is provided by child protection agencies, social welfare departments, family support and crisis centres, pedagogical-psychological services, care homes, various educational institutions and NGO's. One specific form of social support services for social risk families is called Children Day Care Centres (CDC), whose activities are based on a systematic set of measures designed to protect the social interests of children, to ensure social security and realize the basic needs. The aim of this research is to analyse the activities of CDC's in the context of helping to meet the needs of children at risk, who are also sometimes described in scientific literature as disadvantaged children. It is obvious that children growing within social risk families often do not have or have insufficient necessary skills-to communicate, to discover, to create. This significantly complicates the realization of needs of those children growing in families at risk or so called disadvantaged families. The social services in day care centres are organized for the best interests of such families. These institutions aim at giving the opportunities to meet the needs of children by creating the conditions to learn, create, spend their leisure time, and engage in a favourite activity.