Socialno delo, Vol. 41 (2002), Part 1
ARTICLES
Procedures, Organisation and Standards in the Field of Adoption - 1, (Abstract)
Towards Better Quality of Living for Participants of the Programme of Psychosocial Help in Cases of Family Crisis due to Infertility - 43, (Abstract)
ABSTRACTS
Abstracts
Pavla Rapoša Tajnšek, Vida Miloševič Arnold, Gabi Čačinovič Vogrinčič, Vlasta Rozman, Nataša Radonjič, Metoda Bole, Anita Kovačec, Mojca Mikolič, Sabina Rajšel
Procedures, Organisation and Standards in the Field of Adoption
Adoption as a measure of social welfare is focused on the child's benefit, but it takes into account the needs of other participants in the adoption triangle: of the child's biological parents and adopters. Due to a great disproportion between the number of adopted children and the number of couples wishing to adopt a child, adoption has for some time been attractive for the Slovenian media, public attention being at present directed mainly to distressed future adopters who have been longing for a child for years. In the shadow of that distress remains the fundamental question in adoption procedure: how to achieve that adoption will indeed be the best possible solution for a child and that it will be good or at least acceptable also for the other parties in the procedure - for biological, adoptive, and often also for foster parents. The research, conducted among professionals at social work centres that carry out the adoption process, has shown that even a part of professional public is more concerned with the problem of where to get children for adoption than with the problem of introducing up-to-date social work concepts and methods into adoption procedures. It is only exceptionally, in emergent interventions, the task of the profession to make decisions on others and for others, so that the adoption procedure remains the common project of all participants in the problem; it is the process of common search for possible solutions, which are discovered by users themselves, with the assistance of professionals. We cannot confirm that professional work in the field of adoption already takes place as a project of common search of solution in all cases. The research has shown that working concepts and methods of professional work with the participants in adoption are lacking; the needs of the child and its biological, adoptive and foster parents are often not considered enough or are even overlooked. The changes of legislation, organisation and professional standards in the field of adoption espoused by professional workers should support more open models of adoption that warrant greater transparency of the situation and empower all participants in the adoption triangle or quadrangle - the child and its biological, adoptive and foster parents. The surveyed professional workers seek solutions in the change of family legislation and of lengthy procedures of withdrawing parental rights, in better organisation and greater co-ordination of work in the field of adoption, in regulated international adoption, and they are also aware of the need for their supplementary education.
Keywords: adoption, social work, open adoption, preparations for adoption, international adoptions.
Senior lecturer Pavla Rapoša Tajnšek, MA, senior lecturer Vida Miloševič Arnold and associate professor dr. Gabi Čačinovič Vogrinčič are lecturers at University of Ljubljana School of Social Work. Social worker Vlasta Rozman is counsellor at the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs. Nataša Radonjič is a social worker. Social worker Metoda Bole works at Social Work Centre Radovljica. Social worker Anita Kovačec works at Social Work Centre Ljubljana Center. Mojca Mikolič and Sabina Rajšel are social workers.
Viktorija Bevc
Towards Better Quality of Living for Participants of the Programme of Psychosocial Help in Cases of Family Crisis due to Infertility
The author presents the experiences and the consequences of infertility, which, through years of endeavours to conceive a child, leads the couple to a crisis (social isolation, distress, despair, disappointment, mechanical sex, intolerance, neuroticism, dependence-based need for children, etc.). It intervenes in the whole life of the couple and substantially lowers the quality of their lives and actions. Upon inclusion into the programme they are offered means of incentive (mountaineering, reading, writing, meeting and establishing friendly relations with similar problems, etc.). They open up a possibility for the couple to unburden the load of infertility and to turn towards sound, contented partnership and later substitute parenthood. Those "means of incentive" are the very elements of improved quality of life.
Keywords: participants in problem, infertility, adoption, fostering, substitute parenthood.
Viktorija Bevc is a social worker and head of the programme of preventive help for children in the association of adoptive families "Deteljica", and of the programme of psychosocial help to spouses in crisis because of infertility.