Family social work: the realities of Ukraine

The family social work in Ukraine is only at the stage of its developing. Deriving from the paternalistic philosophy, the demonopolisation of the market of social services places new demands on social policy aimed at implementing and regulating social work with families as a separate social structure. The purpose of the research is to characterise the institutional structure of family social work, to determine the assessment of social services and their quality on the example of a study of families raising children suffering from autism, basing on the system- and structure-centred analysis. The paper highlights the indicators of family-oriented practice, describes the market of social service providers for families, identifies the functions of individual institutions, structural entities and the specifics of their activities. It is revealed that in Ukraine there are two types of social work with families: regulated (state bodies and structural entities) and unregulated activities (individuals-entrepreneurs, public organisations, charitable foundations, volunteers), but this does not ensure its integrity, because most social service providers are not focused on the needs of families of certain social categories. The family social work in Ukraine could be divided into three types in the framework of its professionalization: a professional activity, a non-professional activity and a "mixed" (partly professional) activity. The survey provides an assessment of individual indicators of social services by the families raising children who suffer from autism (targeting family social work, access to services offered in the region, the presence of stigma, the effectiveness of social advertising of existing services, their compliance with family needs, etc.). It was discovered that most of the services offered are not in demand; they do not take into account the contextual and environmental background in which families operate either; service providers are biased towards families raising children with autism. Many families are in an information vacuum, which becomes an obstacle to expanding their rights and opportunities, the work done with them can be defined as fragmentary and chaotic; it does not take into account the role of the community in maintaining family resilience.