Round table I.

„Key investments in the social inclusion of Roma“

Presentation of the project of terrain social work Rožňava, Slovakia

• The project of terrain and social work started in 2004 with the sponsorship of the Slovak government. In this project were participating 2 workers, who were solving the problems of Roma community in the town. The migration of the Roma people started before the crisis in 2006-2007 from abroad home, given that new working opportunities and better salaries were offered in Slovakia than in Czech Republic.

• The collective of the terrain workers grew on 9, what was the request of the terrain (economic crisis, comeback of the Roma from abroad, where they lost their jobs) and there is a need of more social workers given that the problems are growing and the social gap is growing.

• In the meantime the 3rd decade of the project is continuing (2008-2010) in Rožňava, given that the number of the target group is growing (homeless, people older than 55 years, women after motherhood holydays) – all these clients are in difficult social situation, given that it is very hard to find a job in our region. Our region is characteristic with high unemployment rate with the lack of working opportunities. The most endangered groups are: non qualified people, after imprisonment, which are in some way obliged to commit crime repeatedly, that they have were to stay during the winter and they are not becoming homeless.

1. The most relative activities in the promotion of social inclusion of Roma

• If we want to evaluate and name the activities which are the pillars of the social inclusion of Roma on the first place is the face-to-face contact with the clients in their natural environment, the creation of personal contact, to gain their trust with the use of their mother tongue (Roma language)

• individual and specific attitude to the clients, teaching the clients to solve their problems alone, that the social workers will become just mediators and not the executive power (applications, CV´s, leasing etc.)

• the advocacy for the need of education, education on all the levels of the school system, lifelong education, reduction of absenteeism

2. The main points of those interventions Plenty of time is spent with the clients in their natural

environnement with the rule of 1 social worker to one family dealing with the wide range of their needs and problems.

Therapeutic groups of adults ( according to social principles) through which the client is gradually involved in solving problems and self-reliance with individual evidence on filiations and gender specificities.

Therapeutic groups of parents with academic-dutied children (groups of parents and children) – lecture series with convenient institutions, group seminars about the needs in education and improvement in results, tutoring, close collaboration with primary schools.

3. Difficulties in ongoing activities Insufficiency of the technical equipment compared to the

number of clients.• Non acceptance of terrain social workers compared to

the other municipal workers. • Insufficient competencies to tease the client’s interest to

communicate with the public administration Weak acceptance of workers of a non-roma origin,

related to the ignorance in relationship, families, filiations dependences, mentalities and habits.

4. Special means to measure positive influence On basis of a specific and systematic access to

therapeutic groups of parents and children, we achieved a decreasing amount of families integrated to IOP (IIR) - institute of individual recipient.

Waking up in the households – improving the punctuality of the school-dutied children to the lessons, and the control of the places where the children are going instead of school.

The usage of PC knowledge as a mean of employment - PC knowledge studies.

5. The type of financial aid for the activities Unambiguous connection of the terrain

social workers and the non profit sector (financial means NGO´s )

Thank you for your attention!