| Abstract [eng] |
Deinstitutionalization of the child care system is one of the priority areas of Lithuanian social policy, which, in a context of Lithuanian social policy, is more broadly referred to as the transformation of children's care homes or the transition from institutional care to the services provided in a family and community. Taking responsibility for protecting the child from situations that might interfere with one’s well-being, the state develops alternative forms of care, such as: custody in a care center or community child care home. The aim of this work is to reveal the efficiency of one of the most innovative child social care policy measures – care centers. The importance of this thesis is integral from the assessment of the change in a social policy as the object of this research is care centers – the least complying alternative to institutional care. The aim of this research was to investigate the peculiarities of care centers and the factors of increasing efficiency. The perspective of employee evaluation and approach has been chosen due to the reason that they have the most experience in implementing this new tool. Moreover, their work is based on communication with other institutions, which leads to a broader attitude outside the institution or organization. A quantitative method of research data collection and analysis was applied for this study. The collected data for analysis were processed with IBM SPSS software package. A questionnaire was prepared for the staff of the care center about the provided services, their benefits and meaning, with special emphasis on the carers on duty and inter-institutional cooperation. The results of the conducted study showed that care centers face both micro and macro level challenges, such as: high workload, underestimation of effort, negative attitude of the government, low wages, etc. Awareness of care centers in a society is a very relevant problem, as well as the lack of inter-institutional cooperation or its insufficient effectiveness. The activities of on-call carers are seen as a much-needed alternative to institutional care because they are the ones who ensure that the child is prevented from entering the care home in case the need for care is identified for them. One of the distinctive features of on-call caregivers is the pay they receive for looking after a child. The staff of care centers see the remuneration as an effective measure, however, consider it to be too low. Care centers take on high importance on the list of measures for the deinstitutionalization of childcare as they correspond to the peculiarities of the professional carer system. Therefore, the contribution of policymakers and implementers, as well as the care centers themselves, is crucial in order to implement with this innovative tool, which is what this study aims to reveal. |
