Время Науки. 2016.Выпуск 2 -The Times of Science

Время науки The Times of Science 2016 53 disadvantaged children and their families via building the network of a child’s social surrounding. The main goals of a work with network of social contacts is the reduction in the term of children’s stay in government institutions, prevention of children from living out of their families; decrease of the level of social stress, anxiety or aggression in families in difficult life situation. Usually it is used to target groups of children and teenagers in a difficult life situation. The main point of the method is that a social worker together with a child or a teenager makes a «network card» of the surrounding. Graphically it will be a set of dots joined with lines. The dots represent people – family, relatives, school, friends, and neighbors. The network card allows finding out the relations of a child or a teenager about people surrounding them. It allows the client finding the support resources that he or she already has in his/her social surrounding. Understanding the importance of each person in his/her surrounding allows an individual to build the correct scheme of relations with other people. The social worker can help an individual by asking the following questions:  Which of your relatives is concerned with your life?  Which of your family members has a positive influence on you?  Which of your friends is ready to help you and listen to you if you are in a difficult situation?  Do you consider it right, that the social service interferes in your life and what do you think about its actions? etc. Along with the state support of multi-problem families and families having disabled children, there is a number of social, NGOs and voluntary organizations, also providing a great help to those families. A lot of new people join voluntary organizations every day. Over 50 public non-commercial organizations cooperate with state social care authorities only in St. Petersburg. The main goals of the public non-commercial associations is arrangement of useful day-time occupation for youth from families in difficult life situation, including children with serious mental development disorders;  social and labour adaptation of young people, vocational guidance, employment assistance, arrangement of part-time occupation of teenagers of 14-18 years old during non-study time;  arrangement and holding of sport and creative festivals;  conducting training, seminars and conferences for parents and specialists;  creation of methodological, information and game video films, social commercials, educational materials;  constant search for sponsors for providing material assistance for medical procedures, if needed, and expensive medicine to families with seriously ill children.