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The Seimas Labor and Social Affairs Committee debated on Wednesday integrated services for children and families.
People can’t get to the toilet
As the Ombudsman for Children’s Rights, Edita Žiobienė, said at the committee meeting, the main problem is that services to people are not individualized.
“All the services that are provided to a person, a child or their family are focused on what the municipality or institution that provides the services has, but not according to the needs of the person. They do not respond individually to the needs of both the child and the family, ”said E. Žiobienė.
In fact, Violeta Toleikienė, head of the Social Services Division of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor (SADM), admits that some families who receive the services are dissatisfied.
“People are very unhappy with the lack of availability of social services. We have quite a few services regulated in the legislation that can be provided, but people do not get those services.
The needs of families and individuals can be quite different from the services we provide now. It should be appreciated that, for example, we made a decision about the provision of services, but people keep those services for a year and do not wait to start providing them, ”said V. Toleikien dijo at the meeting.
It is already clear that the number of families in need of social assistance has been growing this year. By 2020 there were 11,080 families of this type (with 20,554 children), in the first quarter of this year: 12,470 families with 22,800 children.
Plan more services for all families
Faced with the discontent of the population, the Ministry of Social Affairs begins to propose changes.
“We have changed the methodology and it will be necessary to assess not only the services provided but also the unmet needs of families or individuals. And collect this data not only through surveys, but also to strengthen cooperation,” said V. Toleikienė.
The ministry is also preparing amendments to the Social Services Law. It is proposed to complement the law with preventive services that strengthen the capacity of a person or family to take care of their own life and participate in the life of society.
“Our immediate plans are to develop preventive services for families. They are free, they are carried out without assessing the need for services, then the needs assessment occurs when we begin to work individually with the family. It is also provided to all families who request it, ”said V. Toleikienė.
“We suggest including social skills groups for children and adolescents, because now we do not have them. We also see the need to maintain social skills in a person’s home. We are talking about cases where the family has a baby so that employees they can visit them at home and observe how the family is doing, help and advise, ”added V. Toleikienė.
The ministry also aims to strengthen social care for families at social risk.
“We would like to use individual care workers on the team to work with families raising children under the age of 1 and with families raising children under 3 with developmental disorders,” said V. Toleikienė.
Currently, more than 70 thousand. people in Lithuania receive complex family services. These include psychosocial support, positive parenting training, mediation services, family skills services, childcare services, a transportation service, and a personal assistant service.
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