The aim of this study aims was to gain a better understanding of how dandelion children (maskrosbarn) in grown age describe their experiences of growing up with at least one parent with substance abuse and mental illness. The study was conducted through a qualitative study on five autobiographies and biographies. The books were analyzed through a text analysis and we used Borges resiliens theory with risk and protective factors to help us see how different factors in the children's lives affect them. Our study shows how the children describes their childhood being effected by their parents substance abuses and mental illnesses. The children describe that their childhood was subject to lack of care and that it was caused both by their parents substance abuses and mental illnesses and the social services lack of help or insufficient help. They grew up with their single mothers in areas with low socio-economic background and felt different from other children. Their most important protective factors were to have someone important in their life, the will to want another life than their parents and to develop a good self esteem. The authors felt unheard and unseen as children even if social services put them in foster care. Through this study it is possible to increase knowledge of how dandelion children in grown age describe their childhood and how it affected them. It also show which help they did or didn´t receive from social services growing up. We propose further research concerning dandelion children closer to our time related to todays laws and regulations.

The 2011 Indian Census indicates that children under the age of 18 constitute more than 400 million, and most of them are Children at Risk (CAR). This study suggests that the care and protection of children at risk is not a twentieth- or twenty-first-century secular enterprise but has precedents in Protestant missions in India from the late eighteenth century. In the first section, the study focuses on evaluating contemporary Protestant mission contexts in India and a brief historical survey of Protestant missions to CAR in India through case studies. The evaluation concentrates on the implications of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) for the predominant Protestant models of mission in contemporary India - which may be summarised as child evangelism, child compassion and child advocacy. The thesis argues that child care and protection is increasingly becoming secularised and professionalised. Moreover, with the emergence of new laws and with increasing, vigilance from international and national agencies, and from Hindu fundamentalists, Christian mission to CAR is itself at risk. Under these circumstances, the study also investigates whether there is a transition from ideas of 'saving' CAR to ideas of protecting the human rights of CAR. In the second section, this hypothesis is further substantiated by case studies of select Protestant churches and Christian NGOs engaging with CAR in the cities of Bangalore and Chennai. Using empirical data, it then claims that the predominant Protestant approaches of evangelism, compassion, and advocacy are still underdeveloped and inadequate primarily because the majority of caregivers working with children still perceive CAR as objects of their mission - an assumption that may be contrary to UNCRC (Articles 14 and 30). Further, it argues that the churches and agencies most active among CAR are from a 'conservative' background, who are often exclusively 'spiritual' and otherworldly in their concerns. The final and most constructive section, based on the evaluations of the empirical data, seeks to recommend a preliminary theology of mission in and through the idea of 'childness' based on Matthew 18: 2-5, an idea developed by Adrian Thatcher in the context of a theology of child participation. Based on these foundations, it suggests that UNCRC can be integrated as a set of principles for contemporary Christian missions with CAR in South India through a missiological process called 'dialogue,' emerging from a pluralistic Indian context. It further proposes that adults and children are to be perceived not as either independent (liberational) or dependent (paternalistic) agencies, but as interdependent agencies working together in God's mission. This thesis finally proposes basic principles for Christian mission to/for/with CAR - a multi-dimensional approach integrating CAR as subjects of God's mission and not just as objects.

This thesis focuses on the skills necessary to detect children being at risk from the adults in their surroundings based on the signals that the children manifest. The specific signs are described in the theoretical part, for example, different child expressions (on psychological, physical or behavioural level etc.) which can accompany risk exposure. The thesis also focuses on analysis of different environments in which these signals can be detected (family, school, medical examination etc.). Risk factors of children being exposed to danger in their own families are also analysed. Knowledge of these factors can facilitate the detection by surrounding people. The empirical part examines the signals most frequently used for the detection of children at risk by the adults in their proximity, as well as signs which don't get much attention (the adults are unable to perceive those signals, or they don't consider them as important). This analysis uses the data from "Children Crisis Center" (Dětské krizové centrum). Quantitative content analysis was used for the data survey. The quantity of signals registered by the family carers was compared to the quantity of signals only discovered by psychological examination. The conclusion reached by this analysis suggests, that family carers are not yet very...

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.

Children are being removed unnecessarily from their families and placed into substitute care because service programmes lack resources to keep families intact. There are overseas programmes, which provide home services to families, with children at risk of out of home placement. Although there has been an IFPS project there is no established intensive short-term programme in South Africa that deals with families at the brink of dissolution.The objective of the research is to investigate whether an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. The researcher received training in the United States and met with leaders in the field, to discuss the development and implementation of the programme in South Africa. Surveys obtained the attitudes and opinions of the local social workers and commissioners of Child Welfare in Durban towards the programme. The results from opinion surveys indicate that an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. / Social Science / M.A.(Social Work)

The activity of Vilnius non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) working with children at risk while strengthening social cohesion is analysed in the research work. The problems of children at risk are multiplying and public institutions need help of NGO’s. General characteristics of NGO’s are reviewed and systematised in the theoretical part of the work. The legal regulation and topics of activity in strengthening social cohesion are presented in this part as well. Besides the analysis of social exclusion and its factors, the situation of children at risk in Lithuania is described and the politics of Lithuanian government in regard to children at risk is discussed.

Children are being removed unnecessarily from their families and placed into substitute care because service programmes lack resources to keep families intact. There are overseas programmes, which provide home services to families, with children at risk of out of home placement. Although there has been an IFPS project there is no established intensive short-term programme in South Africa that deals with families at the brink of dissolution.The objective of the research is to investigate whether an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. The researcher received training in the United States and met with leaders in the field, to discuss the development and implementation of the programme in South Africa. Surveys obtained the attitudes and opinions of the local social workers and commissioners of Child Welfare in Durban towards the programme. The results from opinion surveys indicate that an Intensive Family Preservation Programme is feasible in South Africa. / Social Science / M.A.(Social Work)

This thesis deals with problems of social prevention services for at-risk families with children in the selected location. The main objective for the author is whether the current institutional conditions for provision of social prevention for vulnerable families it possible to avoid placing children in institutional care. The second main objective is to identify problems related to the provision of these services within the institutional settings. The author, using several theoretical and factual resources, describes given issue and translates it to the enviroment of the village with extended powers Ústí nad Labem. Through expert research with selected involved we identified the main barriers which prevent the satisfactory provision of social prevention in the selected location. In Ústí nad Labem there is the highest number of at-risk families with children in the Czech Republic and social prevention services at the location in question are not sufficiently supported neither financially nor in terms off staff.