Technology of social work in the family. The technology of social work with the family in the centers of social assistance to families and children. The essence of the social problems of the modern family

Family - a group consisting of two or more persons living together, leading a common household for the purpose of providing food or other essentials, connected by blood relationship, adoption or marriage.

Family - This is a small social group based on marriage or consanguinity, whose members are connected by a common life, mutual duties and emotional closeness.

FAMILY CODE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION December 29, 1995 N 223-FZ Art. 1 - Family law is based on the need to strengthen the family, build family relations on feelings of mutual love and respect, mutual assistance and responsibility to the family of all its members, the inadmissibility of arbitrary interference by anyone in family affairs, ensuring the unhindered exercise of their rights by family members, the possibility of judicial protection these rights.

They are distinguished by the level of socio-psychological health:

prosperous,

Families of social risk groups,

disadvantaged,

Asocial.

Kinds:

Young families.

Large families (national traditions, dysfunctional families, religion).

Incomplete families (poor).

Single mothers.

Foster family.

Families with disabled children.

Families forced, migrants.

Families of conscripts.

families of the unemployed.

Families of disabled people (labor rehabilitation).

A complete small family.

Abuse in the family (hotels, shelters).

Social technologies. works:

Collection and processing of information about a family in need of assistance (diagnosis of the social psychological health of the family, determination of the level of conflict).

Technologies for providing social assistance to the family (intermediary, economic, social, material, etc.).

Technologies of direct work of a specialist with a client on specific issues (divorce, guardianship). - forecasting technology, assessing the quality of social. services, etc.

Social services for families in protection centers.

Rehabilitation - a system of measures to restore lost well-being in family relationships or form new ones (training groups, counseling, seminars, "helpline").

Prevention - a set of preventive measures that contribute to the full functioning of the family, the prevention of possible problems.

Psychocorrective measures , change in self-esteem of adults and children.

The goal of social help - Preservation of the family as a social institute. Assistance can be emergency, aimed at the survival of the family, urgent, with the immediate removal from the family of children in danger or left without parental care, aimed at maintaining the stability of the family, at the social development of the family and its members.

To protect children from abuse in the family requires a thorough study of the situation in the family with the participation of social. worker, psychologist, doctor, employee of the internal affairs body. Aggressiveness, indifference, sexual harassment, beatings, eating problems, not attending school, lagging behind in development are a pretext for initiating a case for deprivation of parental rights or criminal prosecution of the perpetrator of abuse.

When working with "difficult" children and adolescents diagnostics of the family and school situation, identification of the primary social network of the child, obligatory analysis of his medical, social and intellectual and psychological status, counseling of the family of social. teacher.

Families of "risk groups": (alcoholism, drug addiction, substance abuse).

Incomplete family can be formed for various reasons: a woman is raising a child alone, a wife’s divorce from her husband (the husband drinks, beats, does not work, etc.).

Reasons for the formation of an incomplete family: Social tension in society, social injustice, unemployment, high prices and low wages, lack of psychological adaptation to new existing conditions. Hence the upbringing in incomplete families (for example: the mother is forced to earn money at 2-3 jobs, and the children are left to their own devices, hence drugs, drunkenness, bad company, possible crime).

The role of the S.R. specialist in help large families: psychological counseling, which will help identify the causes of maladaptation, will help in career guidance for mothers, fathers, adolescent children; training, auto-training, correction, psychotherapy.

Working with the family of an alcoholic diagnosis involves identifying the underlying cause of alcohol abuse. To do this, it is necessary to study the personalities of all family members. The causes of alcohol abuse can be family predisposition, personality instability, dependence. Next, a program of work with a drug addict, his family, social services is drawn up. environment - these are therapeutic measures, consultations, psychotherapy, social and labor rehabilitation of the alcoholic himself. The Alcoholics Anonymous movement, the Alcoholics Anonymous Children and Narcotics Anonymous programs are effective technologies for creating a favorable environment for recovering from alcoholism

Social working with conflict families begins with a thorough study of the actual family problem, about which spouses most often have the wrong idea, familiarization with the characteristics of the personalities of the spouses, their family and marriage attitudes. External difficulties are the material well-being of the family, uncertainty about the future, unemployment. Spouses may adhere to different family models, have divergent views on raising children, and bursts of emotions are inherent in them. Family therapy includes finding a compromise, teaching non-conflict communication skills. Such work is carried out through individual conversations and interviews, group psychotherapy. One of the methods is the construction of a family genogram. When creating a family tree with the help of a family therapist, family members are involved in a single activity, complementing each other. The method of "family agreement" provides. development of a mutually acceptable list of obligations of both parties, drawn up in a bilateral agreement and signed by both spouses. Analysis of its implementation helps to correct subsequent work with the family. The resolution of family problems, first of all, is the responsibility of the family members themselves.

Problems of families raising a disabled child: register a disabled child, receive subsidies, apply for benefits, employment, problems with work, for example: with a mother if she brings him up alone.

Assistance is provided on the basis of the following laws:

1. Law "On Social Protection of Disabled Persons in the Russian Federation".

2. Federal program "Children with Disabilities".

4. Federal Law "On social services for the elderly and disabled."

5. Federal Law "On the protection of persons with disabilities in the Russian Federation."

The role of social worker- organization of medical care for the disabled (medical and social rehabilitation in a hospital or at home, in the organization of sanitary-resort treatment. Analyze the social situation in the family, provide additional jobs for people with disabilities, organize work for them at home, etc. .

COMPLEX FAMILY- cohabitation of a young and parental family removes the need for a number of social. services performed by the members themselves. families. Directions SR- social support for the young and give birth, families, medical-psycho-ped counseling on various issues of family life, prevention of family conflicts, through decomp. events.

FAMILY COUNSELING- this is a qualified advice, assistance to people experiencing various problems. The social worker, together with the client, considers the problem and looks for ways to resolve it, gives specific advice and recommendations - One of the leading methods

When studying families, we use pedagogical experiment parents are actively involved in experimental work, a cat. is carried out in kindergarten and needs to be reinforced and continued in a family setting.

INTERVIEW METHOD- requires the creation of conditions, a cat. favor the sincerity of the respondents. Productivity increases if they are held in an informal setting.

QUESTIONNAIRE METHOD- allows you to collect a lot of data. It is possible to receive and process the material.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING- they usually cover members of several families who are sympathetic to each other, having similar problems of home education. Training timings can be “do I know my child”, “how to deal with an aggressive child”, “how to raise a child without a father”. The activities of the group are closed to outsiders.

INTRODUCTION

Family - a small group based on marriage or consanguinity, whose members are connected by a common life, mutual moral responsibility and mutual assistance, the relationship between husband and wife, parents and children. In sociological research, it is important to take into account the average family size, the composition of families, carried out on various grounds (the number of generations in the family, the number and completeness of married couples, the number and age of minor children), the division of families according to social and class characteristics. Pavlenok P. D. Theory, history and methods of social work: textbook. - M.: "Dashkov and Co", 2003. - 428 p. (p. 255)

The family is of great importance for the stability and development of the whole society. As a small group, the family performs the functions of the regulatory nature of the behavior of its members, both within this small group and outside. The family performs the functions of reproduction and maintenance of the new generation, is the primary institution of socialization - success, which affects the entire future life of the individual.

Thus, given that the family is one of the oldest institutions of socialization of new generations, which performs the function of ensuring the safety and security of any person, but in modern conditions is experiencing serious problems (disorganization of family ties, instability of marital relations, an increase in the number of divorces, a change in the position of spouses in the system of social labor, serious economic difficulties, a change in emotional and psychological manifestations, parental function, etc.), it can be reasonably considered that the role of a social worker in preserving and strengthening the social potential of this phenomenon of society is increasing. Fundamentals of social work: a textbook for university students / Ed. N. F. Basova. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2004. - 288 p. (c60).

Functions and types of families.

The family as a small social group is characterized by the presence of a number of social goals that change in different life cycles; partial difference in the interests, needs and attitudes of family members; mediation of joint activity. Therefore, the extent to which spouses and other family members are able and ready to take care of each other, sympathize, sympathize, empathize, join forces to overcome difficulties, show tolerance and condescension, the well-being and longevity of the family depend.

The integral characteristics of the family, which largely determine its potentials, are considered to be: psychological health, functional-role coherence, social-role adequacy, emotional satisfaction, adaptability in microsocial relations, striving for family longevity.

An important role in the family is given to communication in the unity of its three components: communicative(information exchange), interactive(organization of interaction), perceptual(perception of each other by partners). Since in real life the relationship between people develops in different ways, the existence of different variants of families is possible.

The most common is considered nuclear family, such a family can be complete or: incomplete formed as a result of divorce, widowhood, the birth of a child out of wedlock.

If the family structure, in addition to spouses and children, includes other relatives (parents of the spouses, their brothers, sisters, grandchildren), then it is called extended. Families may differ in the presence or absence of children and their number. talk about childless, one-child, large or .small children families.

According to the nature of the distribution of family responsibilities and who is the leader in the family, they distinguish three main family types .

1. Traditional(patriarchal) family, where at least three generations live under the same roof, and the role of leader is assigned to the eldest man. Here there is an economic dependence of a woman and children on her husband; male and female responsibilities are clearly fixed; male dominance is unquestionably recognized,

2. Unconventional(exploitative) family: with installations on male leadership, a strict distribution of male and female in the family, roles in the family, delimitation of duties between spouses, a woman is also assigned the right to participate in social work along with a man. It is quite natural that in such a family, due to the excessive employment of a woman, her overload, her own set of problems appears.

3. Egalitarian family (family of equals), in which household duties are proportionally divided between spouses, other family members, decisions are made jointly, emotional relationships are permeated with care, love, respect, trust.

Other types of families are also known, for example, those where the role of the mother is played by the father, older brother or sister. These tendencies force social workers to assess in a different way the readiness of a certain family to implement the functions assigned to it and to choose ways to help it. Fundamentals of social work: a textbook for university students / Ed. N. F. Basova. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2004. - 288 p. (p58 - 59).

It is also possible to single out the most relevant types of families for social work: large families, families with disabled people, low-income and poor families, dysfunctional families, single-parent families, etc.

The sphere of family activity is very complex and finds its meaningful expression in the functions it performs.

Family functions in various environments of activity:

Thus, performing such a number of functions, the family is the basis of society, a guarantee of its stable state and development. Violation of any of the functions of the family leads to inevitable problems and conflicts both within the family and outside it. A social worker is also called upon to contribute to the restoration of lost or damaged functions. For a social worker, knowledge of the functions of the family is important for the correct diagnosis of family problems and, in the future, quality assistance.

Problems in the modern family.

The complex of problems of all types of families is determined by the question of the purpose of the family in the modern world. Having emerged as the main form of life arrangement, the family initially concentrated in itself all the main functions of servicing human activity. Since the family gradually got rid of a detachment of these functions, sharing them with other social institutions; recently it is difficult to single out a specific type of activity inherent only in the family.

All the many problems associated with the modern family can be divided into the following groups:

1. Socio-economic problems: This group includes problems related to the standard of living of a family, its budget (including the consumer budget of an average family), the share in the structure of society of low-income families and families living below the poverty line, with the specific needs of large and young families, state financial assistance systems.

2. Social problems: in terms of semantic content, they are similar to socio-economic problems. This group includes problems related to providing families with housing, living conditions, as well as the consumer budget of an average family, etc.

3. Socio-psychological problems: This group includes the widest range of problems: they are associated with acquaintance, the choice of a marriage partner, and further - marriage and family adaptation, coordination of family and intra-family roles, personal autonomy and self-affirmation in the family. In addition, they include the problems of marital compatibility, family conflicts, family cohesion as a small group, domestic violence.

4. Problems of stability of the modern family: This issue is made up of the state and dynamics of family divorces, their socio-typological and regional aspects, the causes of divorces, the values ​​of marriage, satisfaction with marriage as a factor in the stability of a family union, its socio-psychological characteristics.

The technology of social work with the family is developing in the following directions. To overcome the low level of employment of labor resources, comprehensive regional programs are being created to create and maintain jobs, vocational training is being carried out for new, scarce professions and the skills of people left without work are being upgraded.

The timely payment of wages in organizations of various forms of ownership is controlled. Such control is exercised by the state labor inspectorate.

State allowances for children are paid, first of all, low-income families receive such allowances, children from such families are allocated free vouchers for summer recreation;

Particular attention is paid to children with disabilities. Boarding houses equipped with special equipment are being built for them.

Citizens in need are provided with financial and in-kind assistance - in the form of free or reduced-price hot meals, providing free or reduced-price food packages, and providing fuel for the winter.

Families in conflict are provided with psychological assistance. Families whose social functioning is difficult, i. social risk families.

The causes of dysfunction in family relationships are varied:

• · economic - the subsistence level is below the poverty line due to the excessive dependency burden on one working family member; low wages or non-payment; unemployment; families of pensioners who, even with the maximum pension, remain below the poverty line;
• asocial - alcoholism of the family or one of its members, drug addiction, prostitution, vagrancy of children, deviation;
• psychological and ethical - cruelty, aggressiveness, rudeness, conflict, jealousy, adultery, selfishness, greed, imbalance of characters;
• medical - chronic infectious (eg tuberculosis) and venereal (eg syphilis) diseases, mental and sexual deviations (deviations), impotence or infertility of spouses.

The end of a long (but not always) period of marital disorganization can be a divorce.

The classification of motives and reasons for divorce is quite extensive, but the main ones can be distinguished: illness of one of the spouses; barren marriage; forced separation; physical abuse; treason, the presence of another family; drunkenness (or other manifestations of deviation); "did not get along"; parental intervention; fell in love with (a) another (gui); deprivation of liberty; frivolous marriage; physical inconsistency.

The motivation for divorce behavior is extremely contradictory, not to mention the fact that there are both subjective and objective moments (motives) in the very motives for divorce.

The subjective motives put forward by divorcing spouses are always varied. Most often, it is difficult to judge the real reasons for the dissolution of a marriage from them, because. a real motive can often be replaced by another of the same kind.

The social worker must identify the real motive for the divorce and take the necessary preventive action.

Behind the motives that appear in divorce proceedings, there may be other, completely unaccounted for motives. Behind the peculiar cliché “they didn’t get along” there may indeed be a complex psychological incompatibility, but most often the term itself plays the role of a defense mechanism.

Marriage motivation has its own specifics and features associated with the acuteness of chronic conflicts and contradictions between spouses, which result in dissatisfaction with marital relations.

There can be many reasons or pretexts for dissatisfaction. It all depends on what people expect from marriage, from another partner, from family life [ibid.].

There have always been, are and will be discrepancies between ideal representatives and real relationships between people. This is the most common motive for dissatisfaction with married life.

For a specialist, it is important to understand not only the causes of divorce in order to prevent it, if possible, but also the ability, assistance in overcoming its consequences.

Consequences of divorce:

• · the majority of divorced men and women do not have the opportunity or desire to remarry for a long time;
• a significant proportion of divorced women who have children do not marry at all;
• · childbearing opportunities for divorced women remain unfulfilled, which has an extremely negative impact on the birth process;
• · as a result of divorces, the number of incomplete families in which a child is brought up by one of the parents is increasing;
• Raising a child in an incomplete family increases the likelihood of deviant and delinquent behavior among adolescents;
• divorce creates traumatic situations that can cause neuropsychiatric disorders, both in parents and children;
• The main problem of divorced spouses is loneliness.

The social worker must recognize the causes of dysfunction in family relationships and find effective ways to resolve the problems [ibid.].

The technologies used in cases of domestic violence also include the organization of social shelters (hotels, shelters), which enable women and children (there are shelters abroad for men who are abused in the family) to wait out the crisis of the family situation in a safe place. But it is impossible to be limited only to this type of assistance, because unresolved family conflicts periodically become aggravated. Therefore, it is necessary to resort to medium-term assistance programs aimed at stabilizing the family, restoring its functional ties, normalizing relations between spouses, between parents and children, and the relationship of all these family members with others. Working with "difficult" children and adolescents involves diagnosing the family and school situation, identifying the child's primary social network, and obligatory analysis of his medical, social, and intellectual and psychological status.

Based on the data obtained, a program is drawn up for working with the child's family, resolving his school problems, and involving him in a more favorable social network. Such a program is carried out by a team of specialists, including a social worker, a social educator, a psychologist, sometimes a lawyer, with the possible involvement of law enforcement agencies, cultural and sports centers. In the course of such work, socio-psychological counseling of the family is carried out in parallel in order to eliminate mutual misunderstanding, unproductive types of family interaction, conflict in relationships; socio-legal counseling, which allows the family to realize and learn how to defend their rights in relationships with the social environment, primarily with the educational system; pedagogical counseling, as well as pedagogical assistance, which helps to overcome the school difficulties of the child (children). Of great importance are also psycho-corrective measures, changes in self-esteem of adults and children, the elimination of negative stereotypes and the development of a benevolent and respectful attitude towards each other [ibid.].

When working with the family of an alcoholic, diagnosis involves identifying the underlying cause of alcohol abuse and related circumstances. The reasons for alcohol abuse can be family predisposition, some features of personal status (instability of personality, infantilism, dependence), traditions of the family or social environment, an illusory attempt to get away from problems.

A program of work with a drug addict, his family, social environment is being drawn up - these are therapeutic measures, consultations, psychotherapy and psychocorrection, possibly social and labor rehabilitation of the alcoholic himself and his family. Medical rehabilitation of alcohol abusers is ineffective. After rehabilitation, the patient returns to the same environment in which he developed the habit of alcohol; the family voluntarily or involuntarily contributes to the renewal of his former habit. If a person does not have a strong will, then his personal resources are not enough to prevent such tendencies.

Therefore, working with such a family implies the formation of the client's and his family's motivation for a non-alcoholic lifestyle and the construction of a different system of relationships. Work with a family in conflict or a family in which the emotional climate is unsatisfactory begins, as a rule, after the statement of one of the spouses, although sometimes the observations of a school or social teacher, a pediatrician, ascertaining the negative psychosomatic consequences of family tension, may be the reason for ascertaining serious family problems. for children's health. The difficulties that have arisen can be due to any of the above reasons. It should be noted that external difficulties - material and economic restrictions, uncertainty about the future, unemployment, etc. - as a rule, only exacerbate family conflicts, reveal their true causes. Negative personality traits, primarily hysteria, psychasthenicity, compensated in the process of socialization or self-education, under the influence of external causes, can be updated again and become the cause of constant conflicts. Actively used methods include the so-called yes-therapy - an autodiagnostic and psycho-corrective technique, with the help of which conflicting spouses rationalize their generally negative emotional and mental relationships [ibid.].

It must be said that awareness of a real family problem has not only diagnostic, but also therapeutic value, since the detected and conscious difficulty forces family members to reconsider their behavior.

Technologies for correcting family relationships are numerous; their choice is determined both by the circumstances of a particular social situation, including the characterological traits of clients, and by the personal qualities of the family therapy specialist himself, his tastes and preferences. Unfortunately, not all types of family dysfunctions can be corrected, and this depends not only on the insufficiency or inadequacy of the efforts of a family work specialist. Sometimes it is possible with a high degree of probability to predict an unfavorable prognosis for a future family union even before its conclusion. Some variants of problems are solvable in the early stages, but become more difficult as their resolution is delayed.

The social worker should not consider the situation hopeless, no matter how aggravated relations between family members, however, it should be remembered that the resolution of family problems is, first of all, a matter of free choice and responsible behavior of the family members themselves. Without their willpower and perseverance, the most effective social technology will not succeed.

Thus, one of the main priorities in Russia's social policy is social support for families with children. In any case, when an individual, family, or group is provided with services that prevent the loss of their social status, they are said to be supported.

Social support of the family is carried out in two main forms: direct or indirect. At the same time, the factors of indirect impact include socio-cultural, socio-ecological, educational policy, social support technologies, state laws and regulations. The state's activities in the field of economy, legal framework, and healthcare have a direct impact on the system of social support for the family. Targeted family support is provided by local authorities, the church and society. Direct regulation is directed directly at the family or at the social processes taking place in it. Indirect - on living conditions and the immediate environment of the family. Consequently, family stability depends both on external sociocultural influences and on internal interactions. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that all of the listed environmental factors are constantly changing, new factors arise with the consequences of which the family is not able to cope on their own.

The modern problems of Russia, which are at the stage of transformations and reforms, have actualized the development of technologies for social work with the family. The use of a technological approach allows the most efficient and competent interaction between a social work specialist and a family [ibid.].

Thus, each technology of social work has its own limits of application. They are determined by a variety of objective and subjective circumstances. The task of a social worker, psychologist, teacher is to correctly draw the boundaries of the applicability of this technology to this difficult life situation.

In the 21st century, the forefront of social work is no longer what is done and how, but who is doing it. Technologies are open to development, but knowledge alone is far from enough. We need high-class skills and abilities, synthesized with positive personal qualities. A qualified professional, who is a versatile full-fledged personality, is the main and only subject who is able to correctly draw the boundaries of considering difficult life situations that children find themselves in.

A social service specialist, whether an organizer or performer, builds certain models of his professional activity, achieving the maximum rationalization of his own efforts. Understanding the tasks of social work is directly or indirectly embodied in certain procedures for the actions of a specialist and their sequence. However, the effectiveness of these algorithms is determined, first of all, by the situation, which is formed as a set of formed objective conditions and subjective driving forces.

The scope of applicability of technology to a situation determines the technological potential of social work models, that is, the possible speed and expediency of algorithmization of theoretical provisions. Only a professionally trained social worker is able to adequately form a model of his actions, discover the boundaries of the current situation and carefully "invest" social technology into these boundaries.

With regard to families of various categories of clients: disabled people, pensioners, military personnel, refugees, etc., various social work technologies are used. Types and forms of social assistance, the purpose of which is to preserve the family as a social institution as a whole and each specific family in need of support, can be divided into emergency, i.e. aimed at family survival (emergency assistance, urgent social assistance, immediate removal from the family children in danger or left without parental care) aimed at maintaining the stability of the family, at the social development of the family and its members.

Since socio-economic technologies are discussed in detail in other sections of the textbook, we will focus on the types of emergency assistance in the presence of intra-family cruelty. Such relationships are usually hidden from others, but objective (and rather methodologically complex) studies indicate their fairly high prevalence (according to American researchers, they are characteristic of at least 15% of all families). In our country, scientific interest in this problem is just awakening, but some data (domestic murders and registered crimes, testimonies of doctors, teachers, social workers and law enforcement officers) prove its increase.

Forms of ill-treatment are not limited to physical violence - this is any violent attack on the personality of a family member, on his right to dispose of his physical, mental or other abilities - for example, a ban on communicating with friends or neighbors, preventing a wife from working outside the home, acquiring education, improving skills , ridicule, insults, unfounded criticism. Such behavioral acts and the psychological atmosphere have a destructive effect on relations between family members, their psychosomatic health.

Physical and sexual violence in the family is the most dangerous for the individual, her health and life.

Beatings, strangulation attempts, infliction of wounds, deliberate burns, bites, as well as the deliberate use of toxic or psychotropic substances, etc., are considered physical violence.

Sexual violence against minor children is touching their genitals, coercion to have sexual intercourse, oral or anal sex, masturbation, showing children porn films and other depraved acts. Often, physical violence is also used to force children to indecent acts. However, sometimes emotionally excluded and socially neglected children use their sexual resources to "bribe" adults to get their attention and protection. Such specific sexualized behavior is difficult to correct.

Survivors of physical and sexual violence are characterized by prolonged depression, anxiety attacks, fear of touch, nightmares, feelings of isolation and low self-esteem.

Protecting weaker family members, especially children, from abuse in the family is one of the most important tasks of a social worker. Sometimes abused children are intimidated or unable to talk about what is happening to them due to misunderstanding, infancy, intellectual and mental limitations, or for other objective reasons. As a rule, this type of behavior is hidden from the eyes of others. In some cases, evidence of ill-treatment (bruises, scratches, etc.) does not remain or they quickly disappear. Therefore, you should be aware of the direct and indirect signs of child abuse in the family: aggressiveness, irritability, alienation, indifference, excessive compliance or caution, excessive (out of age) sexual awareness, abdominal pain of unknown etiology, problems with eating (from systematic overeating to complete loss of appetite), restless sleep, bedwetting. In addition, there may be an accentuated secrecy in the relationship between an adult and a child, a child's fear of a particular family member, a clear unwillingness to be alone with him.

Sometimes parents do not allow their child to go to school, and children who attend school do not participate much in school affairs, they have few or no friends, they lag behind in development, and study poorly. The child does not trust adults, he may try to run away from home, commit suicide. In addition, signs of beatings, abrasions or burns on the skin, hemorrhages in the whites of the eyes, traces of blood or semen on clothes may indicate abuse of the child in the family.

The totality of such signs should be the reason for a serious study of the situation in the family. Participation in this study of a social work specialist, psychologist, doctor, sometimes an employee of the internal affairs body should give an objective picture of what is happening and help stop child abuse. As a rule, there is a need to immediately remove him from such a family and place him in a social rehabilitation institution - this is within the competence of local guardianship and guardianship authorities. The manifestation of cruelty towards children, uncorrectable behavior of adults can serve as a pretext for initiating a case for deprivation of parental rights or criminal prosecution of the perpetrator of abuse.

The technologies used in cases of domestic violence also include the organization of social shelters (hotels, shelters), which enable women and children (there are shelters abroad for men who are abused in the family) to wait out the crisis of the family situation in a safe place. However, as a rule, it is unproductive to be limited only to this type of assistance, since unresolved family conflicts periodically escalate. Therefore, it is necessary to resort to medium-term assistance programs aimed at stabilizing the family, restoring its functional ties, normalizing relations between spouses, between parents and children, and the relationship of all these family members with others.

Thus, work with "difficult" children and adolescents involves diagnosing family and school situations, identifying the child's primary social network, and obligatory analysis of his medical-social and intellectual-psychological status. Based on the data obtained, a program is drawn up for working with the child's family, resolving his school problems, and involving him in a more favorable social network. Such a program is carried out by a team of specialists, including a social worker, a social educator, a psychologist, sometimes a lawyer, with the possible involvement of law enforcement agencies, cultural and sports centers. In the course of such work, socio-psychological counseling of the family is carried out in parallel in order to eliminate mutual misunderstanding, unproductive types of family interaction, conflict in relationships; socio-legal counseling, which allows the family to realize and learn how to defend their rights in relationships with the social environment, primarily with the educational system; pedagogical counseling, as well as pedagogical assistance, which helps to overcome the school difficulties of the child (children). Of great importance are also psycho-corrective measures, changing the self-esteem of adults and children, eliminating negative stereotypes and developing a friendly and respectful attitude towards each other. Often, such activities also contain social components proper - for example, assistance in finding employment for parents, improving living conditions (which, of course, for all its importance depends primarily on the socio-economic situation in the country and in a particular locality).

When working with the family of an alcoholic, diagnosis involves identifying the underlying cause of alcohol abuse and related circumstances. This requires the study of the personalities of all family members, as well as the study of social biography. The reasons for alcohol abuse can be family predisposition, some features of personal status (instability of personality, infantilism, dependence), traditions of the family or social environment, an illusory attempt to get away from problems. Often there is a combination of these reasons. Their analysis is necessary, because sometimes drunkenness is not the cause of conflicts in the family, but vice versa, drunkenness is resorted to precisely in order to overcome conflict in this way (at least in one’s imagination). Further, a program of work with a drug addict, his family, social environment is drawn up - these are therapeutic measures, consultations, psychotherapy and psychocorrection, possibly social and labor rehabilitation of the alcoholic himself and his family. Medical rehabilitation of people who abuse alcohol is still ineffective, because after rehabilitation the patient returns to the same environment in which he developed the habit of alcohol; a family that exists for a long time in conditions of permanent crisis and has developed a certain homeostasis, voluntarily or involuntarily contributes to the renewal of his former habit. If a person does not have a strong will, then his personal resources are not enough to prevent such tendencies.

Therefore, working with such a family implies the formation of the client's and his family's motivation for a non-alcoholic lifestyle and the construction of a different system of relationships; psycho-corrective measures aimed at educating a person capable of being the master of his own destiny; introduction of a client into associations or clubs of persons - adherents of a non-alcoholic lifestyle or the creation of such an association. One of the most effective technologies for creating a favorable environment conducive to long-term recovery from alcoholism is the Alcoholics Anonymous movement, as well as the programs Alcoholics Anonymous Children, Narcotics Anonymous, and others.

Work with a family in conflict or a family in which the emotional climate is unsatisfactory begins, as a rule, after the statement of one of the spouses, although sometimes the observations of a school or social teacher, a pediatrician, ascertaining the negative psychosomatic consequences of family tension, may be the reason for ascertaining serious family problems. for children's health. Social work with such a family begins with a thorough study of the real family problem, about which spouses most often have misconceptions, familiarization with the characteristics of the spouses' personalities, their family and marital attitudes. The difficulties that have arisen can be due to any of the above reasons. It should be noted that external difficulties - material and economic restrictions, uncertainty about the future, unemployment, etc. - as a rule, only exacerbate family conflicts, reveal their true causes. Negative personality traits, primarily hysteria, psychasthenicity, compensated in the process of socialization or self-education, under the influence of external causes, can be updated again and become the cause of constant conflicts. A serious discrepancy in family and marriage attitudes may remain unidentified for quite a long time, however, at critical, key moments in the development of family life or under the influence of external difficulties, it may be found that spouses adhere to different family models (egalitarian or patriarchal), have diverging views on raising children, emotional , domestic, financial and other relationships. Accordingly, family therapy includes finding a compromise in the cultural and semantic sphere, correcting the accumulated socio-psychological stereotypes, and teaching non-conflict communication skills.

Such work is carried out through individual conversations and interviews, group psychotherapy or play therapy.

Actively used methods include the so-called Yes-therapy (Therapy Yes) - an autodiagnostic and psycho-corrective technique, with the help of which conflicting spouses rationalize their generally negative emotional and mental relationships. During its implementation, it is proposed to answer “yes” or “no” to a number of clearly formulated questions regarding various aspects of the relationship of spouses. As a result of the balance of his positive or negative answers, the spouse can soften his attitude towards the other spouse, whom he used to blame for all sins, and determine his true intentions - whether he wants a better relationship or a divorce.

Another diagnostic technique is the “sculptural group” method popular in the West: family members visualize their idea of ​​family relationships by creating a sculptural group, and when discussing the place of each family member in it, he realistically assesses his position in it and the discrepancy between his assessment and the assessment of others.

It must be said that awareness of a real family problem has not only diagnostic, but also therapeutic value, since the detected and conscious difficulty forces family members to reconsider their behavior.

One of the multilateral methods is the construction of a family genogram, i.e., a family history scheme created according to certain rules and reflecting relationships in the generations of grandparents, parents, and in the family under study itself. This process is quite exciting - compiling your family tree is one of the deepest needs of people. In addition, in the course of its creation, together with the family therapist and with his participation, family members, who may have practically not communicated for a long time, are involved in a single activity, complementing each other. Finally, the final picture is highly informative: an excessive number of widows or cases of divorce in the ascending or lateral branches of the family may indicate, respectively, a negative biological predisposition or the presence of congenital personality problems.

Diagnostic activity should help clients to realize and recognize the need to change their family relationships, to root the motivation for long-term, patient and complex work aimed at self-change, overcoming their own undesirable stereotypes. It should be emphasized that the existing methods of manipulative influence on a person who does not want to attract his own transformational opportunities are unproductive.

For example, the method of directed change consists in the fact that a family member who has identified undesirable traits or behaviors in another family member influences that one with the help of emotional encouragement or punishment (punishment may mean a lack of encouragement, emotional coldness). Only "good behavior" deserves a reward. The technique differs from ordinary relationships in that the influence on the person being manipulated is carried out not at the rational, but at the subconscious level, and, according to the plan of its developers, the individual in a fairly short time will learn to automatically choose forms of behavior, followed by a reward. Unfortunately, the practice of using such means in family therapy shows its rather low effectiveness and even counterproductive impact, primarily on the “manipulator” himself, since instead of spontaneous relationships of trust, openness and mutual support, relationships of one-sided influence are cultivated here.

More equal relations are provided by the method of “family agreement” (not to be confused with civil law marriage contract). Its implementation begins with the subjective identification of the claims of the spouses to each other and the removal of emotional labels such as “he never has time for a family” or “she is always dissatisfied with everything”, in the process of preparation, such meaningless accusations should be replaced by a statement of specific wrong actions of the spouses. Subsequently, a minimum mutually acceptable list of obligations is developed regarding a change in the behavior of both parties for an average period - from a month to six months (in a shorter period it will not be possible to ascertain changes in behavior, a longer period will not allow summing up, interest in the process will fade). This list is drawn up by a bilateral agreement and signed by both spouses; Of course, the legal force of such an agreement is negligible, there can be no sanctions for its violation, but one should not underestimate the moral and psychological impact of such a document. The commitments made by the spouses must be specific and verifiable.

After the expiration of the contract, the spouses, together with the social therapist, analyze the fulfillment of its conditions and, if necessary, conclude a similar agreement for the next period - possibly already containing new, increased requirements. Over time, the presence of a social worker becomes unnecessary, the spouses acquire the skills to independently operate this method.

Technologies for correcting family relationships are numerous; their choice is determined both by the circumstances of a particular social situation, including the characterological traits of clients, and by the personal qualities of the family therapy specialist himself, his tastes and preferences. Over time, each experienced specialist transforms the methods in his own way, creates his own contamination from several suitable forms of work. The essence of all the means used is the implementation and consolidation of those changes that will contribute to the desired stabilization of the family.

Unfortunately, not all types of family dysfunctions can be corrected, and this depends not only on the insufficiency or inadequacy of the efforts of a family work specialist. Sometimes it is possible with a high degree of probability to predict an unfavorable prognosis for a future family union even before its conclusion. Some variants of problems are solvable in the early stages, but become more difficult as their resolution is delayed. The social worker should not consider the situation hopeless, no matter how aggravated relations between family members, however, it should be remembered that the resolution of family problems is primarily a matter of free choice and responsible behavior of the family members themselves. Without their willpower and perseverance, the most effective social technology will not succeed.