Expectations of parents of children with disabilities from community-based services

Abstract

Families with children with disabilities are faced with many problems in their daily functioning and the absence of adequate forms of support due to which is necessary to develop a network of daily services in community. These daily services have to be flexible and individualized so they can meet to the greater extent the needs of the parents and children. This is not possible without the exchange of information between families and service providers. The parents' expectations of daily services at the very beginning of their use are examined. This research, which is the part of larger evaluation study, is conducted in 32 municipalities in Serbia and included 243 parents who are the service users. Parents generally have high or moderately high expectations in relation to the development of child's competencies, socialization, participation in community, improvement the functioning of their own skills and whole family.

Porodice sa decom sa smetnjama u razvoju suočavaju se sa brojnim problemima u svakodnevnom funkcionisanju, kao i izostankom odgovarajućih oblika podrške, usled čega je neophodno razvijanje mreže dnevnih usluga u zajednici. Neophodno je da usluge budu fleksibilne i individualizovane da bi u što većoj meri zadovoljile potrebe roditelja i dece. To nije moguće bez razmene informacija između porodice i pružaoca usluga. Ispitivana su očekivanja roditelja dece sa smetnjama od dnevnih usluga na samom početku njihovog korišćenja. Ovo istraživanje, koje je deo veće evaluativne studije, sprovedeno je u 32 opštine u Srbiji i uključilo je 243 roditelja korisnika usluga. Roditelji generalno imaju visoka ili umereno visoka očekivanja u odnosu na razvoj kompetencija kod deteta, socijalizaciju i učešće u zajednici, unapređenje funkcionisanja cele porodice i vlastitih veština.