Social support for parents of children with special needs as an urgent issue

The article presents the main problems of families in which children with special needs are brought up and the relevance of social work with them is substantiated. According to the level of development of the indicator of psychological and pedagogical adaptation of the family to the special needs of the child, three types of families (families with high, middle and low levels) are identified and patterns of behavior of parents towards children with special needs are indicated. Based on the analysis of foreign practices, common and distinctive features of providing social assistance to a certain category of families in Ukraine have been identified. The essence of social support of parents of children with special needs is revealed, its content is investigated and substantiated. Ways to optimize social work for families with special needs children are identified.