A country's society is not considered prosperous if its citizens, who find themselves in difficult life situations, are not able to receive social protection and assistance. The development and financing of various types of social services is no less important in achieving the well-being of the country than the growth of the economic, scientific, health, educational and cultural fields.
In Russia, the list of social services for the disabled and the elderly is guaranteed by the Federal Law of 1995 and edited in 2004. But we should not assume that social support extends to serving only disabled citizens, namely: needy people with disabilities and retirees. In modern legislation, the categories of people with the right to social services are significantly expanded. This means that the nature and form, the list of types of social services aimed at supporting the needy population, has changed.
The main types
Social service, as one of the most important factors in the social protection of the population of the Russian Federation, currently has nine main types, which should contribute to the practical solution of difficult situations in the life of society as a whole, of individual families and individuals. Here is the list of services:
- Stationary
- Semi-stationary (departments of day, night presence).
- Home service.
- Providing temporary shelter.
- Social rehabilitation.
- Urgent service.
- Material aid.
- Social counseling.
- Social patronage.
It is necessary to consider in more detail what kind of assistance each of these types of services provides to clients of social centers, and also who of the needy citizens has the right to use them.
Inpatient care
The stationary social types of social services mean the round-the-clock stay of needy citizens in institutions specially equipped for this purpose. Such institutions are intended for people who are fully or partially incapable of self-service and (or) movement, who need outside care, domestic services, constant supervision, medical care, namely:
- pensioners;
- veterans;
- disabled people (both adults and children);
- citizens with physical or mental disabilities;
- orphans and minors who find themselves in difficult life situations or deprived of guardianship.
Institutions of stationary types of social services differ in purpose, staying in them may be temporary or permanent. There are general types of boarding houses where people of retirement age, adults with disabilities (first, second group) who are fully or partially incapable of self-care are admitted.
For minors, institutions of a general type are provided where orphans, children without permanent or temporary parental care, or who find themselves in a difficult life situation for a child are sent.
Children's inpatient facilities can be specialized, designed for minors with physical disabilities, mental disorders, and persons with disabilities. Neuropsychiatric boarding schools for adults also belong to similar types of social services.
Home service
One of the forms of social support is implemented in relation to people with disabilities and pensioners who are able to carry out at least the necessary self-care activities.When these people do not have an urgent need to move to stationary establishments, social services workers assist clients in the conditions of their usual domestic environment, that is, at home.
By types of social services of this kind are meant medical first aid, various household and hygienic nature of the service, and food delivery.
At home, assistance is also provided to people who cannot be placed, according to the list of contraindications, in inpatient facilities, but depend on outside care.
Specialized district centers are obliged to their clients:
- provide timely medical care;
- arrange food delivery;
- to assist in the acquisition of medications;
- organize escort to medical facilities;
- help maintain hygienic conditions;
- facilitate the acquisition of legal and legal services;
- assist in the implementation of funeral services.
Semi-stationary service facilities
Semi-stationary social service belongs to the forms and types of services that are also carried out in special institutions, but not constantly, but at a certain time of the day. Such services extend to disabled people and senior citizens who are able to actively move around and take care of themselves, to children who are in difficult psychological, physical and material circumstances.
In these institutions, social workers provide services to citizens in the following form:
- provide hot meals, a berth with a clean bed and other living conditions, as well as basic conditions for leisure;
- they help to obtain vouchers for sanatorium treatment, medical treatment and rehabilitation measures, to achieve prosthetics;
- organize conditions for sanitary-hygienic actions;
- provide the help of a psychologist;
- assist in obtaining vocational training, education, employment;
- help to get legal services;
- provide funeral services.
Semi-stationary night-stay establishments also operate in the Russian Federation. They provide overnight accommodation, the necessary first aid, free one-time meals, hygiene products and other social services for citizens who do not have any particular employment and housing, as well as those who have recently been released from places of detention. The latter also help social workers recover documents, social relations with relatives, and housing rights.
Establishments of a temporary shelter
Unlike semi-stationary establishments that operate only at certain times of the day, social hotels, shelters and specialized adaptation centers provide clients of social services with a temporary round-the-clock shelter and some other types of services.
Temporary shelter, first of all, is necessary for children who find themselves without housing: orphans; children deprived of parental care; victims of domestic violence; caught up in situations that are vital for the child. A special program of principles of social services has been organized for such children.
The types of social services for minors in temporary shelters have a wider range of services and activities than for adults. In addition to comfortable housing, food, medical care, hygiene conditions and organized leisure, children receive the assistance of teachers, teachers, psychologists, legal and legal representatives. Such shelters act as centers for social rehabilitation for children. They help arrange the fate of minors, thereby preventing childhood homelessness.
Also, a temporary shelter with food, good housing and living conditions is provided for the disabled, pensioners who are able to move around and at least partially care for themselves.
These types of social services are used by people who need supervision, but are temporarily deprived of the care of their relatives due to the illness of their guardians, their departure on vacation, business trips and other reasons for their absence.
Temporary shelters can be used by people who are victims of violence, natural disasters, military conflicts, homeless people and other citizens.
Material aid
Speaking about the types of social services, the population receives them mainly in the form of long-term services. Material assistance is short-term or one-time in nature and is provided to poor and needy citizens who are in a difficult situation, such as, for example, the consequences of a natural or social disaster.
Material support can be expressed in the form of money, as well as items of clothing, shoes, warm and children's clothes, hygiene, transport and technical means, fuel and more.
Urgent social services
This is a one-time help that citizens receive in specialized departments of social services. The forms and types of urgent support are primarily resorted to by people with disabilities and the elderly. A much smaller percentage is made up of single citizens, large and single-parent families, the unemployed, the homeless, fire victims, refugees and other people.
For urgent one-time help, anyone in need who is in a difficult life situation can count on. To do this, it is necessary to submit an application to the CSO department and attach a document that confirms the minimum income or gives the right to receive social assistance.
Emergency departments can provide clothes, warm clothes, items needed primarily, food rations or hot food, provide basic or organize emergency medical care, and assist in employment, legal and other consultations.
Cash assistance in emergency wards is provided when small amounts are necessary for citizens, for example, to receive or restore documents and other similar actions.
Social counseling
No less than material, in the work of social centers, advisory support of clients is important, which consists in the following types of assistance:
- informational;
- psychological;
- pedagogical;
- legal.
Contact information (in direct contact with a specialist), as well as written and remote (over the phone) consulting assistance is provided in almost every social service institution.
In addition, information and psychological support can be obtained through one of the 300 helplines operating in the country. And this practice continues to spread.
Who and why resort to advisory activities in social services? People with disabilities and senior citizens who find it difficult to adapt to certain changes and their living conditions. The work of social counseling centers is to identify among this category of people those who need psychological support, legal counseling, work in the family in order to ease social tension, ensure proper contact and favorable relations of the individual with his family and society.
Persons with disabilities can receive the most complete information regarding education, vocational training and employment. Pensioners often turn for help in preparing documents and consultations regarding pension provision and benefits, judicial protection of their rights and other issues.
Social advisory support also covers other categories of citizens in need: large, single-parent and dysfunctional families, women, children, the unemployed and the homeless.
Rehabilitation services
Social rehabilitation is a complex process of medical, psychological, labor and professional measures that are aimed at:
- restoration and preservation of health;
- support for social adaptation, the most fulfilling human life in society and the family;
- assistance in the construction of the most favorable living conditions.
Clients of social rehabilitation services are people with disabilities, people with disabilities, pensioners who have suffered serious illnesses, juvenile delinquents, women who have been abused, and children who have fallen into difficult situations for citizens.
For disabled people, such rehabilitation helps restore such people their social status, achieve material independence, and adapt in the family and society.
To achieve this goal, the rehabilitation departments have a special focus on types of social services. People with disabilities are helped to find a job, receive vocational training, if required, they are assisted in providing mobile and vehicles, and assist in prosthetics.
Social Patronage
Of all types of public services, social patronage is aimed at monitoring special families and minors, requiring constant and long-term monitoring by social services, assistance in the necessary material, economic, domestic, medical and preventive care, as well as the participation of teachers, psychologists and legal representatives. Such work is carried out by city or regional centers for the support of children and families, and, moreover, it is considered not a social service, but support.
Which families and children are patronized? Those who are in a socially unfavorable and dangerous situation with a tendency to reduce the ability to independently provide basic needs and living conditions. Close attention is paid to families where parents or guardians ignore their responsibilities with regard to the maintenance, upbringing, education of minors, show cruelty towards them or, by their behavior, have a negative impact on the behavior of children.
Also, families who are in difficult living conditions and unable to cope with the situation themselves need social support. These are single-parent families with many children, parents raising children with disabilities, or themselves disabled. In each individual case, the ways and methods of work of the patronage are selected individually.
In Russia, a new system of social services and welfare is gradually being built that will meet current social needs. Such a system should be based on real incomes of citizens, their pressing problems. Indeed, the developed social support of the most vulnerable and vulnerable segments of the population reflects the economic stability of the state.