The beginning of the XX century brought many changes in distinct spheres of life including the women movement which in Lithuania rezultated into the social care for children and their mothers as one of the women organizations’ work field. The notion care in this work is treated as the work done by Lithuanian women organizations to decrease the rate of infant mortality though this process in Western countries was noticed much earlier still in Lithuania this problem became serious at the examined period. The main aim of this work is to analyze the basic public social care features in the First Republic of Lithuania disclosing them trough the aspects of the social care work done by the Lithuanian women organizations. The geographical area – Lithuania without the Vilnius and Klaipeda territory, the chronology is 1918 – 1940 – the period of the First Republic of Lithuania. There are few methods used: analytical and comparison. Work deals with these problems: 1. the preconditions for the women organizations’ social work, 2. the preconditions and functioning of the social welfare centers, 3. the types and work for patronage houses, 4. relationship between the women organizations and the State, 5. education of the women in villages and towns. There are two women organizations that are being examined: “The Lithuanian Catholic Women Association” and “The Association for the care for Lithuanian Women”. These organizations belonged to the different Unions. “The Lithuanian Catholic Women... [to full text]

A national survey conducted in Lithuania indicates the tendecency, that the first contact with drugs is earlier from year to year. Also that more children and adolescents participate in substance abuse programs, who also suffer from severe conditions related with the usage of psychoactive substances. Aim of the study.Evaluating the organization of help offered in Lithuanian mental health care centres connected with the control of youth substance abuse. Objectives. 1. To overlook prevention and treatment system of youth substance abuse at primary mental heath care level. 2. To evaluate the organization of activities at mental heath care centres to control youth substance abuse. 3. To evaluate whether mental heath care centres cooperate with other institutions to provide better services for youth addicts especially to cope with related problems occuring. Methods. The analysis of Lithuanian law documents, anonymous questionaire sent to the directors of mental health care centres, statistic program SPSS 10.0 version. Results. In Lithuania prevention and treatment of substance abuse is being performed at 65 mental health care centres and is based on existing youth mental health care law. In Lithuania, no similar study has ever analyzed the situation for youth drug addicts and compared their needs for treatment and rehabilitation with offered services in mental health care centres. The survey showed that one third of the health care centres offer services that meet the... [to full text]