| Abstract [eng] |
Families experiencing difficulties have become a vivid social phenomenon in the world, paying attention to that the appearance of these families is determined by country’s social changes, a lack of parents’ positive parenting and social skills, inability to solve emerging problems. Improving the system of family assistance in Lithuania, case manager duty emerged two years ago. Case manager activity in municipalities is applied when the need to organize complex assistance to a child and family exists. According to the data of the annual report of Ministry of Social Security and Labour (2020), the number of families experiencing risk, which are provided with social care, increased by 1 percentage in 2019, this composed 117 families comparing to 2018. Case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance in Lithuania is a little examined phenomenon, and due to constantly increasing number of families experiencing risk, a necessity of scientific researches emerges, which results would help to reveal case manager experiences related with the provision of family and child assistance and would encourage to develop assistance manners based on scientific knowledge to those families and their children. It is important to reveal case manager experiences with the provision of family assistance, which may contribute to the creation of family assistance model. Problematic questions are distinguished in this context: What practice of case manager fixates after the innovations of the system reconstruction of a child security, changes of law acts? How the inter-institutional cooperation is going in the process of case management? The object of this research is case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance in Lithuania. The aim of the research – to reveal case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance in Lithuania. The analysis of qualitative research results is presented in the project having examined case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance in one Lithuania’s municipality, but the data received during the research are relevant in whole Lithuania as it shows how case manager plans complex assistance and what is his experience. These tasks of the research are formed: 1) to ground case manager activity related with the provision of family assistance theoretically and emphasize its peculiarities, 2) to ground the research methodology of case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance, 3) to name case manager experiences related with the provision of family assistance in a municipality(-ies). Accomplishing the empirical research of a case manager experience related with the provision of family assistance in Lithuania, semi-structured interview, an analysis of scientific literature and an analysis of documents methods were chosen. The research has revealed the peculiarities of two levels process stages of a case manager activity related with the provision of social services to a family in a municipality. The results of the research have shown the changes of a case manager activity after the newest changes of law acts. Positive changes (child’s situation assessment; terms; threat levels; temporary care; mobile team) and negative changes (emerging uncertainties; non-comprehensive transmitted information) have shown up in professional work practice. Research participators have named the reasons of emerging uncertainties in practical activity: a lack of preparation for the innovations, the need for the trainings. It is revealed by the research that the cooperation is going inside and outside by applying case management. Inter-institutional cooperation is being developed by communicating by phone, mediating for receiving assistance for a family and a child, participating in meetings, sending and receiving letters. Case manager experience of cooperation difficulties recruiting specialists’ team has shown up inevitably. Master’s Final Project consists of introduction, three project parts (theoretical, methodological and empirical), conclusions, recommendations, a list of literature and references. |
