Social services are organizations without which it is impossible to imagine a he althy society at the present stage of its development. They provide support to needy categories of the population, help people who find themselves in a difficult life situation. In this article, we will talk about the features of the work of social services, their goals and principles.
Definition
There are several definitions that answer the question of what a social service is. This is largely due to the fact that the structure of social services and their tasks are extremely diverse, and it is impossible to reflect everything in one definition. Therefore, consider the most popular of them.
Social services are a set of organizations and institutions providing social assistance and social services.
Another well-known definition gives a more detailed description.
Social services are a complex of public and private governments, institutions and structures that work onsocial services for the population, providing assistance aimed at overcoming and alleviating difficult life situations by representatives of society. Funding can come from private or public sources.
From these definitions, we see that organizations of this kind are called upon to support the population. Social services, in simple terms, provide social assistance. This is the name given to material or psychological assistance provided to citizens who find themselves in a difficult life situation, free of charge. In other words, social services are organizations that help those in need without compensation.
Functions of the organization
More specifically, the main functions of social services are: social assistance, rehabilitation, counseling and information.
Social assistance includes:
- identifying people in need of assistance (poor, large families, etc.) and supporting such citizens;
- prevention of material problems, poverty; providing services at home to people in need of outside help (delivery of medicines and products to the elderly, their transportation, treatment and monitoring);
- helping children who find themselves without parental care for a while or on a permanent basis, placing such children in special institutions;
- Counseling based on social assistance services is provided by specialists in various fields. Psychologists, lawyers and doctors consult citizens for free.
Employees of such services often carry out various activities and lectures themselves, designed to solve social problems. For example, they conduct courses in first aid, preparation for marriage and the birth of children; come to schools to tell high school students about promising professions and vacancies that are relevant in a particular area.
Social services interact with other structures: schools, hospitals, police to identify the most pressing problems and solve them in an accessible way. Such a practice bears fruit only with the constant support of those in need. Hence, another function of social protection services is design and rehabilitation. Includes:
- Social and medical rehabilitation of children with disabilities and non-standard behavior, as well as children left without parental care or in other difficult life situations.
- Helping adults in need of care.
- Helping people with disabilities.
The function of informing is to provide citizens with the information necessary to resolve difficult situations, the assistance of specialists (lawyers, doctors, psychologists), the dissemination of reliable medical, pedagogical and other knowledge.
Interaction with other structures
Specialists of private and public social services cooperate with the police, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, hospitals and other structures and help indevelopment of plans for the elimination of emergency disasters and problems of a social nature. Together, organizations find problem areas in society and deal with social problems.
What kind of social assistance is there?
The peculiarity of the work of social services is a constant struggle with the most diverse and diverse problems. In order to adequately cope with certain disasters, social services must provide assistance of various kinds.
The simplest form of assistance is the collection and transfer of medicines, money, food, special devices and vehicles to those in need. Such assistance is called material, for its provision only sufficient funding is needed.
The population of any country, as a rule, needs not only material support, but also to obtain reliable knowledge in various fields. Social services are called upon to provide citizens with such assistance. Usually, consultation with a lawyer or psychologist in a social service is cheaper than in other institutions, or even completely free.
Social service employees patronize families and individuals who need control and special attention from the state.
Social services provide shelter or temporary housing for people in need.
How do I get help from Social Services?
Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 442 regulates the activities of social services and establishes the procedure for providing assistance.
To receive social assistance, you must fill out an application directly with the social service or send it by e-mail. The application can be filled out by the citizen in need of assistance, his representative or another interested citizen. Not all citizens are en titled to social assistance. To get it, you need to be within certain life circumstances:
- Social assistance is provided to citizens who have partially or completely lost the ability to carry out self-service, to the disabled or to citizens who care for the disabled.
- Help is provided to families with children with problems in social adaptation or he alth problems.
- Aid is for families with many children or families who have temporarily lost the opportunity to provide child care.
- The reason for providing social support is the presence of an intra-family problem that interferes with the development and upbringing of children (illness of one of the family members, drug or alcohol addiction, family violence, etc.);
- Loss of residence, job and other financial difficulties.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Federal law gives social services the discretion to determine how much help a person who finds himself in circumstances other than the above circumstances needs.
Deadlines for consideration of the application
It takes five business days to process your application. After the expiration date, the applicant receives a written or e-mail confirming that he is in need of social securityservice or refusal to obtain this status. But what if the situation requires an immediate solution and almost a week's delay can be fatal? For special cases, a system of urgent consideration of applications has been created, a decision on which is made immediately.
Service Confirmation
After considering the application and confirming the status of a person in need of social assistance, an agreement on the provision of services is concluded between the social service and the citizen, which describes in detail the form of assistance, its time frame and the services included in it. The conclusion of the contract usually takes no more than 24 hours.
Working principles
Like any organization, social services have their own principles by which they work.
This is equal access for all segments of the population to assistance, regardless of nationality, gender, religion and other factors, as well as targeting in the provision of assistance, voluntariness and confidentiality.
Goals
The purpose of the social service is to solve acute social problems: poverty, family problems, violations of the laws of the Russian Federation. To solve these problems, employees try not only to provide material assistance or help one-time, but also to support a person in the future, helping him figure out the reasons for his difficult life situation.
Features of work
Social workers constantly interact with people, trying to help them in the most difficult moments of their lives. Therefore, from an employeesocial service requires, first of all, high moral qualities. A social worker must be understanding and patient, but at the same time firm and able to defend his position. Such work requires the ability to find an approach to various categories of the population, empathy, a desire to help and the ability to restrain emotions when the situation requires it. According to those who have worked in this area, the work is very intense and difficult emotionally. Choosing such a profession, you need to be prepared for constant interaction with people of different principles and social strata.
