We bring you an article from the magazine Sociální práce/Sociálna práce published in issue 2/2011 dedicated to the topic of psycho-social contexts in disadvantaged children. If I make it very simple, the meaning of the daily activities of the employees of the department of social-legal protection of children at the village level with extended scope is the protection of children who may be at risk of healthy development in any way, whatever the cause. "The subject of our interest is children under the age of eighteen," says Iva Bartošová, head of the department of social and legal protection of children at the social department of the Pardubice municipality (OSPOD). "We work with the whole family, we cannot leave out the children's parents. If the family is falling apart, we also work with the extended family, such as other relatives of children at risk."

The employees of the department deal with three agendas: substitute family care (NRP), children's educational problems and collision guardianship. Substitute family care is an extensive area of ​​activity, where employees of the Pardubice department file court proposals, keep records of applicants and children suitable for NRP, search for children suitable for adoption or to be placed in foster care and issue decisions on entrusting the child to pre-foster and pre-adoption care and regularly monitor its further development.

Iva Bartošová describes the agenda dealing with children's educational problems: "These are the clients of the youth curator. The curators are in charge of solving educational problems, such as truancy, criminal activity, running away from home and other things that I could call problems on the part of the child." The conflict guardianship agenda is professionally managed by field social workers. For example, when parents divorce, social workers help to adjust the relationship between parents and children. In practice, this means that the social worker expresses her opinion on the question of which of the parents should be entrusted with the care of the child, the question of contact with the other parent, solves the issue of alimony and possible changes. In cases where a certain proposal concerning a minor child is filed, the child must have a conflicting guardian. This is precisely the body for the social and legal protection of children. For the purposes of court proceedings, social workers find out the conditions and relationships in the family, the living conditions of the children, and the like. "All this is only a fraction of our work, we must be ready at any time to provide comprehensive social and legal advice as well as be able to solve the adverse situation of the child at any time," adds Bartošová.

From a closer look at the contents of the individual agendas, it is clear that this is a very broad area that the employees of the department manage. On average, there are up to 120 cases per year per employee of the department. According to the head of the department, they are very well provided for in terms of capacity, personnel and material in Pardubice.

OSPOD cannot do without cooperation with other organizations. "In essence, we manage the social and legal protection of children. We cooperate with schools, benefit system authorities, pedagogical and psychological counseling and other counseling centers, doctors, psychologists, child psychiatrists and, of course, with non-state non-profit organizations," Bartošová describes the cooperation, adding: "Non-state non-profit organizations help us a lot and make it easier, especially in the field of field social work. As part of family rehabilitation, non-profit organizations significantly help us cover our absences in the field work."

The employee of the department of social and legal protection of children should manage a team of experts participating in individual cases of children. The worker convenes case conferences. "This is now a modern matter that was done before, but it was not called a case conference," explains Iva Bartošová. All the participating experts and the client will meet in one place and together they will discuss who is involved in the given case. Some clients do not understand or do not want to understand negotiations with individual partners and often change information. Case conferences prevent this and at the same time enable all participants to agree on procedures in one place.

Convening case conferences

Case conferences are convened according to the needs of the individual case. Each of the employees of the department has personal responsibility for the case and, depending on how she feels the need for a meeting of a team of experts, she calls it. "Where the problem is bigger, it is necessary to convene a conference even once a month. When the problem is solved, conferences can be convened, for example, once a quarter and only to check the status," explains Iva Bartošová. "It's also good for clients. They need to know how they're doing and where they're going."

Case conferences are convened by individual case managers. According to the methodology, it should be the OSPOD worker who leads the case. She should know the most about the case, and if something goes wrong, she should react to it and take some measures. Experts from participating organizations can initiate the meeting and the case manager will decide on its implementation. Not all collaborating experts need to be called to case conferences. Depending on the nature of the problem, the case manager can invite only those colleagues who can help with the problem at the given moment.

Cooperation of partners within the case

Within the framework of cooperation on individual cases, managers from the social-legal child protection department must be sure that their partners can handle their work. "We have to ask other institutions to handle their share of responsibility. For example, for teachers to handle not only the teaching role, but also the educational role," says Iva Bartošová. "It is not possible for our partners to think that we, as OSPOD, have absolute power. It often happens to us that schools point to a pupil whom they cannot handle and who, according to them, is ripe for an institute, and they think that we will send him to an institute. Not like that, the school must also be more involved in this and work with the pupil," he adds.

It is difficult to imagine that the employees of the department of social and legal protection of children would be able to evaluate the work of psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, or NGO social workers. But this is not necessary for quality cooperation. "It is extremely important for us to be able to respect each other. For example, non-profit organizations have their own standards of social services, which sometimes conflict with the requirements of socio-legal protection of children. We must respect the fact that we, as a social-legal protection body at the level of the state administration, have clearly defined competences and that the professional public has certain obligations towards us. It may be a notification obligation and the communication of information, which is often a frictional surface that we must clarify," explains the problematic point of cooperation Iva Bartošová. "Each of the partners should respect what they can do themselves and what other collaborating partners can do. For example, a doctor who writes a student an excuse for every pain, but we know that it is a truant and his feint. We must learn to respect the doctor, that he must take into account the condition of a child whose head can really hurt. Then it depends on the level of mutual communication, and if the doctor knows that he is a truant, he will respect that he will be more careful about establishing a diagnosis.'

Right of veto and transfer of information

Quality cooperation in the social-legal protection of children is mainly in the fact that the client is aware that the individual partners are united not against him, but to help him, even if it sometimes hurts. For example, in cases where the client does not want to cooperate, a drastic procedure is needed. The partners must realize that OSPOD has the right of veto in the field of social and legal protection, and if it decides to resolve something through the court, it must provide quality and objective documents there. But he can only get them from cooperating partners.

Passing on information within the framework of cooperation on individual cases can be a problem. Collaborating social services of non-profit organizations are governed by different legislation than the social-legal child protection authorities, which as a result places a great deal of emphasis on mutual negotiation about the nature of the information transmitted. "We have to realize which information is important. Together with our partners, we should clarify what problem we are solving and what information we need," characterizes the process of information transfer Iva Bartošová. "The basis is information about family life, which is indispensable for us. The law obliges us and the listed entities to provide information for the purposes of social and legal protection of children."

The practice in Pardubice is that when the social-legal protection department sends a client to an NGO, it first informs them. The employee will tell the client to which organization she is sending him, what is the purpose of his cooperation with the chosen organization and what information the department will request from the organization about the client.

"When a non-profit organization succeeds in intervening in a family with a child at risk, it is a great help for us, and simple feedback is enough. If this step fails, further measures must be taken, usually filing a petition with the court. For this, we need to have documents consisting of important information from our partners, and if one of the articles refuses to give it to us, saying that it is in conflict with its procedures, then let the court deal with it," concludes the topic of information transfer Iva Bartošová.

Social work, even at the level of social and legal protection of children, is primarily about help, about finding the best possible solution to the unfavorable situation of the child and the family. Whether it is a one-time intervention in the family, or long-term work with socially vulnerable children and entire families. Each of the social workers, or social workers, has "his" families, which he leads for a long time, even for several years, without the need to use the tool of repression. "We have practically become 'relatives'. It is also about the trust of the clients, whether they are children or their parents, in 'their' social worker, from whom they will also accept sharp criticism. And they also know that there is someone who at a certain point has the authority to 'say enough' and take drastic measures," adds Iva Bartošová, concluding our interview by saying: "On the other hand, we are exposed to enormous pressure from some clients and transferring responsibility for failures and inability to meet one's obligations."

Other thematic articles can be found in issue 2/2011 of the magazine Sociální práce/Sociálna práce, you can order it via the magazine's website: http://www.socialniprace.cz/