Indicators for Assessing Children from Socially At-risk Families

Abstract

The connection between a socially dysfunctional family and a child`s failure at school is a frequent phenomenon well-known by teachers. The objective of the three-year long research (2014-2016) was to identify the level of similarities as well as differences in the field of assessment of at risk families based on theoretical concepts of chosen systemic models of family functionality and the usual practices in family situation assessment by those working in social and legal children`s protection. This article presents only a part of the research, which emphasizes the role played by school, a child`s behavior at school and school employees in assessing family functionality. The essential research question is “What are the significant for assessing a family’s social risk rate by children’s social and legal protection workers? Grounded Theory was chosen as the qualitative research design. To achieve a high level of objectiveness, the researcher cooperated with representatives of various sectors: State (offices of labor, social affairs and families), town and village municipalities as well as NGOs which provided altogether 58 participants. The premise of this study is that once social workers are informed about problems in a child`s family, they can immediately contact a school headmaster and a class teacher. In the phase of assessing the risk level of children and their family, the school is in the optimal position to prevent many crises or even fatal situations that may befall the child as the school can inform the social workers of the symptoms (e.g. truancy, violent behavior, improper/inadequately sized seasonal clothes, missing school tools and study materials, disinterested parents) In the social intervention phase, professional school employees can cooperate with social workers to reduce the negative effects of family dysfunctionality on children. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +421-907-154601; E-mail address: eva.mydlikova@truni.sk; ena@tenenet.sk eISSN: 2301-2218 Selection & Peer-review under responsibility of the Editors 2469 © 2017 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.uk