My thesis work deals with working with the family of a social services client. Social services can be defined as a set of activities to provide assistance to persons in unfavourable social situations. The main purpose of social services is to preserve human dignity and to encourage the given persons to pursue activities that do not protract or worsen their social situation (in other words, to prevent their social exclusion). People may find themselves in a difficult social situation for various reasons (e.g. because of age or poor health status). The most frequent social services users are seniors and persons with disabilities. With regard to the fact that in the future I would like to work in a job treating the above-mentioned target groups, I focused on them in my thesis. I suppose that mutual cooperation between a family and the staff in the social care providing facility can have a positive affect on the client himself. For this reason, I conceived my thesis in a broader context - a family, a social services user and a social services provider. The thesis is divided into a theoretical and a practical part. The theoretical part describes all the important aspects related to a family, social services and basic characteristics of the Blansko district. In the practical part the target of the thesis was stated. I wanted to learn what problems most families face (not just prior to placing the client to a social services facility, but also in the course of the stay), what their experience with the facility is and whether they are informed about all available social services offered in the area. To compile the thesis quantitative research was applied. I used the method of questioning, the technique of structured interviews with family members of senior home clients and persons with mental disabilities attending a daycare stationary. The thesis could serve as information material on social services not only for families involved in my research, but also for the general public - to provide information about availability of social services for seniors and persons with mental disabilities in the Blansko district in the South Moravian Region.

Social work involves working intimately with clients who are or have previously found themselves in difficult life situations. The intimate work with clients is one of the reasons why the social work is considered emotionally demanding. The aim of the study is to highlight how social workers are influenced by clients emotions, as well as increase the understanding of how social workers can manage the emotional strain that an intimate work with clients can cause. Based on a qualitative research effort and qualitative interviews with seven social workers from “individual and family welfare” in the southeast of Sweden. When analysing the empirical data, three main themes emerged: the emotional work of social workers, management of emotions during the interaction with clients and strategies for managing emotional strain. Goffman´s theory of dramaturgy as well as Lazarus and Folkman´s theory of coping strategies are used to create an understanding of the research problem. Results of the study show that collegial support was deemed to be a common strategy as well as the most significant for managing emotional strain.