During my internship at the centre for social work, I spent some time with a social worker who works in the domain of parental protection and family benefits. There, I found out that individuals do not know much about their rights, specifically, how to exercise them and when to submit application forms for those specific rights. Because individuals do not know who to turn to, they are often faced with problems and choose to search for information online, where the answers might not always be reliable. When providing information, centres for social work play an important role, because there, individuals come into contact with social or professional workers. That is why I decided to research the area of individual’s familiarity with their own rights concerning parenting, and the issues and obstacles they face.
I conducted quantitative research and utilized a survey questionnaire as the measurement tool. My aim was to find out how much individuals know about their own rights concerning parenting, and how familiar they are with the validity and conditions for eligibility of those rights. I also inquired into where individuals get information, which problems they are faced with, and if they receive enough support from social or professional workers who work in the domain of parental protection and family benefits. The research was conducted with 150 people, 142 women and 8 men.
During my investigation, I found that there is still a relatively high percentage of individuals whose familiarity with their own rights is very poor, which is quite worrying. The most well-known rights regarding the insurance of parental protection are maternal, paternal and parental leave. Individuals are also well-acquainted with the conditions of those rights and their duration period, as well as with rights concerning family benefits at childbirth and childcare subsidy. Not all, but some information was given by the centres for social work; however, a large number of individuals still received all their information online, where data is not always reliable. While exercising their rights and searching for information, individuals are faced with various issues and obstacles concerning filling out the application forms; they think that they receive unclear and insufficient amount of information from centres for social work. Some individuals mentioned unresponsiveness and bad attitudes at the centre for social work. My suggestions for improving the individual’s familiarity with their own rights are a reduction of different application forms, simplification of application forms and the option for online submission. The professionals working in the domain of parental protection and family benefits should attend additional educational programmes. Workshops or educational programmes for future parents should be implemented at centres for social work, where the information on what and how individuals should fill out the application forms would be presented in detail.
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