At present media often deal with the topic of children growing up in institutions. The society's effort is that children grow up in functional families. Also, based on the UNICEF?s criticism a reform has been created. The Czech Republic has been making an effort for a long time already to decrease the number of children not growing up in natural family environment. A few measures had been proposed and some of them implemented but they have been ineffective in achieving their desired outcomes. The transformation of the alternative upbringing system should be made on a complex basis. However, concerns and disagreements arise over the proposed solution. Advantages and disadvantages are published in various coverages, discussions, as well as in professional literature. The thesis title: The attitude of social and welfare workers towards closing baby and children's homes. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part deals with the topics of today's family, institutional upbringing, alternative family-based care, and particular steps in the effort to reduce the number of children growing up in institutions. The practical part aims at mapping the attitudes of social workers at baby and children's homes concerning the closing these institutions. A partial objective was to investigate whether the age and practical experience influence the attitudes of social workers of baby and children's homes. Another partial objective was to compare attitudes of social workers of baby and children's homes among different regions of the Czech Republic. I set out two hypotheses. Hypothesis 1: "Social workers have negative attitudes towards closing baby and children's homes." Hypothesis 2: "Social workers' opinions of closing baby and children?s homes do not show any differences among regions of the Czech Republic." Empiric data were collected using a quantitative research, interviewing, and questionnaire technique. The research sample was composed of social workers of selected childcare institutions. The number of questionnaires sent to healthcare institutions (baby homes, baby homes at children's homes, children's homes for 1 - 3 aged and child centres) was 34. Other respondents from children's homes were addressed; in total 148 in the Czech Republic. Thus the research sample was composed of 182 respondents. Every institution was contacted twice as to increase the returnability. The population was represented by the same size as the selected sample, that means it is an exhaustive subpopulation. In total 80 questionnaires returned, i.e. the selected sample returnability (filled questionnaires) reached 44%. Obtained results were statistically processed using scaled classification of data in contexts with obtained nominal, ordinal, and cardinal variables. To analyse categorical data, the chi-square test of independence was used. The hypothesis 1 was statistically confirmed. The hypothesis 2 was not possible to adequately evaluate statistically due to the high number of categories (CR regions) into which the data were divided. Results were placed into nominal statistic tables. The descriptive statistics show that the negative attitudes of social workers prevail. Results of the thesis can be used to analyse opinions of social workers concerning the transformation of the system of care of at risk children. There are many studies relating to the underway transformation of the system of care for at risk children that should be elaborated before the reform is launched. In working out the thesis, I identified many topics that might originate writing further theses. They are e.g. opinions of social workers from the competent authority for social and legal protection of children, attitudes of children in institutional care, creation of an optimal model for at risk children, etc.

The aim of the thesis Volunteer programs that support child in adoption or foster care is to monitor the offer of volunteer programs for children in adoption foster care in the Czech Republic and to show possibilities of support which volunteer program could bring to children, including demonstrations of experience from similar programs abroad. The theoretical part of thesis describes the foster care system with respect to the child's needs and ways of support that are available to them in both professional and volunteer sphere. Emphasis is placed on the role of people who accompany a child on his way from the biological family to foster families, including important relationships and ties, which child lose during his way. It will also explain the idea and values of volunteering as unpaid voluntary work, including the typology of programs focusing on children and the ways volunteers can help to improve their situation. Practically oriented empirical part shows the concrete experiences of the actors from the volunteer program supporting children in foster care by the interviews. This program is organized by the volunteer center and respondents are volunteers, parents and children involved in this program, including the head of the program, through which the program was created. At the end of this...

The legal status of a child and a registered partnership Abstract The topic of this master thesis is the legal status of a child and a registered partnership. The aim is to outline the current concept and status of family and parenthood, but also to list differences between registered partnership and marriage. The work is focused on how the Registered Partnership Act met the needs of homosexual couples, and whether registered partners have limited rights in comparison with spouses. The master thesis examines the registered partners' legal options to have or take care of a child. The thesis also deals with adoption and alternative care, and states legal duties and rights between parents and children. In conclusion, it describes foreign homosexual partnerships regulation on the selected examples of Slovakia and France. The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter on family and parenting focuses on the role of the family in contemporary society and its recent development. It also briefly mentions parenting, assisted reproduction, and surrogate motherhood. The last part is focused on homosexual couples and their options while starting a family. The second part deals with registered partnership in relation to marriage. It contains individual provisions of the Registered Partnership Act which are...

The master thesis "Public attitude towards parenting of homosexual individuals and couples" deals with an attitude of Czech public towards parental rights of homosexuals and attitude of European public towards alternative family forms with focus on homoparental families. The topic requires attention as part of Czech legislators currently tries to pass the novella of Registered Partnership Act, which would enable homosexuals to adopt children of their partners; and with regard to the impact of public attitude towards homoparental families on these families. The current legislation concerning homosexual rights is described in the paper along with the up to now legislative process of submitted novella of the law. Also other ways of becoming parents besides the adoption of partner's child which homosexuals can use in the Czech Republic or elsewhere are presented. The thesis then focuses on adoption and assisted reproduction. Attitude of Czech public towards these parental rights of homosexuals is subject of own quantitative research, in which also predictors of this attitude and groups of people with more negative and more positive attitude than the rest of the population are identified. The following analysis of publicly accessible data shows the development of Czech attitude towards adoption of...

The diploma thesis is concerned with the long-term foster care; particularly with the experience of foster carer's own children. It provides knowledge of the alternative care system in the Czech Republic and the particularities of foster families. It describes how own children of foster carers experience the period of time before their foster sibling's arrival, what are their feelings and reactions after the arrival, how their positions in the family change, how their relationships are formed and how they perceive their parent's decision retrospectively. The theoretical part is followed by empirical part which is composed of quantitative and qualitative research. The results of quantitative research introduce the experience of biological children and create a basic idea of the situations in foster families. The conclusions of the qualitative research are then an addition of the quantitative part and help to a better imagination of the life in foster families. This thesis should contribute to foster care applicants, their children and specialists who work with foster families. Key words alternative family care, foster care, foster family, biological child, foster children, foster carers training, siblings

The thesis deals with the dilemma of the believer and the position of the Catholic Church on assisted reproduction. It describes the origins of human life, reflections on its origins, and mentions the need for its protection and the preservation of dignity, as well as referring to the Church's view of its creation in marriage. It points out the issue of infertility and possible ways of its solution, including assisted reproduction. There is emphasized the rejection of the Catholic Church's assisted reproduction and its thorough explanation from the churches of the documents. The final chapter offers possible solutions to fulfilling the desire for a child that are morally acceptable, including both the methods of natural parenting planning and the possibility of alternative family care but also the accepting the fact of childlessness.

A subject of this diploma paper is to follow practise of putting children into alternative family care. The key method of finding answers is analysis of interviews with social workers and a worker of socially legal protection of children, and content analysis of texts and documents connected with the issue of alternative family care. The paper examines the role of social workers in the process of putting applicants into register for any form of alternative family care and workers' influence in forming such a process. The aim is to focus on social workers' activity analysis and to discover in which moments and in which ways ideological and normative settings of social workers might affect practice of putting children into alternative family care. One of the points of activity analysis is description of social workers' fulfilment of a concept - the best interest of a child and family. The paper is looking for the answer to what extent and in which moments normative ideas of family and topics family related might affect putting or not putting a child into a particular applicant's care.

This thesis deals with the System of care for vulnerable children in the Czech Republic and the increasing number of children in institutional care. While processing was used mainly qualitative methods of collecting data through its own survey in the offices of municipalities with extended competence of employees engaged in the exercise of social and legal protection of children and interviews with selected staff of facilities for institutional care. There was also carried out a secondary analysis of data. Finally, there are some partial measures, whose implementation could improve the situation of vulnerable children in society and reduce the number of children placed in institutional care.

The thesis is a probe into the picture of alternative family care in the Czech Republic, oriented to the foster care. In the theoretical part a description of alternatice foster care for children removed from their biological family is given. It is concerned with vital needs of such children and their psychical deprivation. It tries to show why mothers waive their child and shows some aspects of social work in this field. The practical part of the thesis is concerned with the qualitative research that compares fostering in classical Czech foster families with fostering in special institutions {--} so called Big Foster Families. Research investigations are taken from the point of view of teenaged children being in foster care, and research is based on principles of modern (professional) fostering. The research investigations contain six interviews with children from classical families and four with children from special instituions for foster care. (The research is not concerned with SOS villages) Good quality of the foster care does not depend too much on the fact whether it is provided with a classical foster family or with a fostering institutions. It depends, first and foremost, on the character foster parent, i.e. if he/she is able to create positive relationships with the child and if he/she is able to adopt and accept the child unconditionally.

This research journey investigated the ways in which (1) the lives of adolescents have been influenced by parental divorce and subsequent remarriage, (2) exploring the relationships participants have with biological, nonresidential fathers and (3) to collaboratively present ways of doing family in alternative. Four adolescent girls took part in group conversations where they could were empowered to have their voices heard in a society where they are usually marginalized and silenced. As a result of these conversations a family game, FunFam, was developed that aimed to assist families in expanding communication within the family. Normalizing prescriptive discourses about divorce and remarriage were deconstructed to offer participants the opportunity to re-author their stories about their families. The second part of the research journey explored the problem-saturated stories that these four participants had with their biological, nonresidential fathers. They deconstructed the discourses that influenced this relationship and redefined the relationship to suit their expectations and wishes. / Practical Theology / M.Th.