Diagnosing as a key stage of social work with families raising children with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Emotional comfort of a child with cerebral palsy in a family environment is an important condition for the child's rehabilitation and development, adaptation and social inclusion. In order to effectively carry out the social work with families raising such children, professionals require a body of knowledge about the psychological characteristics of parents, children and other family members, as well as mastery of modern diagnostic and correction technology. The purpose of this study is to determine the typology of families having children with cerebral palsy, by a composite indicator of the family's psychological and educational adaptation to disability of the child, and degrees of its formation on the basis of a comprehensive socio-pedagogical diagnostics. The results of the study, which were put into practice in rehabilitation centres in Luhansk, Sumy, and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, show that taking into account the developed typology of families during social work with them in the rehabilitation centre environment has allowed, based on their social, psychological and pedagogical features, to effectively solve the problems of such families. The encouragement of parents to collaboration, improvement of their pedagogical culture and productive emotional adaptation have contributed to the socialization of the child with cerebral palsy, development of his/her natural abilities; it has raised the degree of psychological and pedagogical adaptedness of the family to the disability issues of a child, creating the conditions for social inclusion of the family.