The thesis deals with various issues related to the allotment of elderly people care allowance. The introduction describes the current state of social policy and services; basic concepts used in this field were defined. The concept of old age and its epiphenomena were briefly and expertly characterized. The main part of the thesis is devoted to ways of obtaining, processing, allotment and functioning of the allowance for the care of elderly people in the region of Milevsko. Given the specifics of the individual Czech regions, it was necessary to describe generally the Milevsko region and to characterize the Department of Social Affairs at the Milevsko Municipal Authority, which pursuant to Czech legislation, carries out all activities associated with the agenda of the allowance for care in the defined region. The objective of the thesis was to map in detail the issues of the allowance care at various stages, i.e. from filing an application till its execution and to describe partly the subsequent use of the allowance. The details of the early stages of processing applications are described, i.e. where there are still many problematic issues. During my work on the problem, I cooperated closely with the staff at the Milevsko Municipal Authority, competent staff at the Department of Social Affairs and a selected sample of senior citizens in the locality. To achieve the set objective, I used the strategy of qualitative research, the method of interviewing and the technique of semi-controlled non-standard interviews of selected clients ? senior citizens ? with the staff of the Department of Social Affairs. The analysis of social and medical records of the client group, along with legislation for the care allowance, was used as an additional method. The outputs of the used techniques were recorded in detail and summarized using tables. The research results yielded many interesting findings; in particular it is still a relatively low general public awareness of the care allowance and it was demonstrated that the most important source of information for senior applicants was a social worker. What needs to be constantly improving is the awareness of senior citizens and their family members of what types of care and compensating aids or activities can be covered by care allowance. It is also necessary to explain to senior citizens and their families how to use the care allowance, such as checks by social workers. According to the findings, I can confirm that the care allowance is a very important factor that helps significantly to offset the dependence of senior citizens, although its amount is questionable. Another finding was seen in an irreplaceable role of the family, family members who provide the care of the elderly and the efforts of all who are involved in ensuring senior citizens can function in their natural environment, which I think is an extremely positive finding. In any case, ?horror? scenarios of abusing the care allowance were not confirmed, which confirms the fact that the control mechanisms in the legislation are relatively well adjusted. Improvements, according to the conclusions of my thesis, must be included in the inquiry stage of processing the care allowance; there is a need to combine general social methods with an extremely sensitive and personal approach to individual applicants in order to achieve optimal use of the care allowance for individuals who could stay in their natural environment as long as possible. Another area of potential development can be seen particularly in the interaction between the actors involved in the process of allotment of the care allowance, e.g. through automated processing of the agenda using electronic forms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:54119 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | AUGUSTINOVÁ, Hana |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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