The right of persons with mental disorders to social services: in the context of the legal reality of Ukraine

Abstract

The article concerns the urgency of law-making and law-enforcement activities reforming in the sphere of providing social services to persons with mental disorders in Ukraine. It has been emphasized that the Law of Ukraine «On Social Services» shows that the legislator included mental and behavioral disorders, invoving those caused by the use of psychoactive substances, among the sixteen factors that cause difficult life circumstances. Accordingly, people with mental disorders are classified as persons who are in difficul life circumstances and, therefore, have the right to receive social services. It has been highlighted that the Law of Ukraine «On Social Services» lacks an exclusive list of social services in general, including all those that can be provided directly to persons with mental disorders (or their families). The law defined only the system of «basic social services», consisting of eighteen social services, which local state executive bodies and executive bodies of local self-government are obliged to provide to recipients of social services. The entire list of social services, including those for persons with mental disorders, is contained in the Classifier of social services, approved by Order № 429 of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine dated June 23, 2020. Based on the content of the Social Services Classifier, the social services that can be provided to this category of persons (transit-supported accommodation/educational social apartment (house); social adaptation; social and labor adaptation; care at home; inpatient care; day care; social rehabilitation) were analyzed persons with intellectual and mental disorders; socio-psychological rehabilitation of persons addicted to narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances; social-psychological rehabilitation of persons with gaming addiction; physical support of persons with mental and behavioral disorders; transport services). The authors claim that certain social services (first of all, those related to rehabilitation, adaptation, care) are «oversaturated» with measures of labor integration into society, which, in our opinion, is a vestige of the Soviet and post-Soviet past.