The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research conducted research on the situation of children at risk of losing the parental care and children that have lost the parental care in Albania, North Macedonia, Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Persons with disabilities in the Republic of Serbia are a very sensitive category that is discriminated against in multiple ways and excluded from the main social aspects. The mechanisms of protecting persons with disabilities, securing equal representation and their complete integration are achieved through adequate legislation and criminal laws, and also special protection in big crisis such as pandemic COVID-19.
At the beginning of April 2020, when we all have got convinced that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to disrupt even more the environments in which social service users and social care beneficiaries live, and to have several negative consequences for their well-being and protection, the need for united activities of all social actors became imperative.
Persons with disabilities are among the most affected groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) recently reported that the pandemic continues to affect the provision of essential services such as education, healthcare, community-based support and transport for persons with disabilities.
In periods of crisis caused by major social upheavals such as the current coronavirus pandemic (SARS-CoV-2), society is derailed with great consequences to social institutions and people’s lives. The states’ response to this challenge is varied, although most countries are implementing measures to regulate the market and its basic principles in order to meet the subsistence minimum and ensure the socio-economic security of their citizens.
At first glance, there is a solid ground for singling out older people during the current pandemic as a special group: the mortality related to COVID-19 is increasing with the age and for those 80 and above years old it is five times the global average based on WHO data.
Research carried out by the European Centre had already shown pervasive inequalities in access to care as well as in the coverage of health insurance and potential remedies. The Covid-19 crisis brings the evidence to the headlines of the news that social inequalities and the dismantling of health and social welfare systems are killing people. The current crisis also shows that health and social care are not a ‘product’ which can be produced low-cost and provided to those with sufficiently large incomes only.
According to Ukrainian legislation social services are provided from municipal social protection departments for free to old lonely people without any mental health problems. Old people suffering from mental health problems must be cared for from special agencies. Unfortunately, these agencies do not exist, yet.
In the current conditions of coronapandemia, social services and the activities of social service providers are communicated in Slovakia in two main contexts. Firstly, social service providers, their managements and staff are highlighted as heroes of the today who act „in the first line“. Secondly, the venues of social services are considered as one of the possible spaces for the infection outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease. In connection with COVID-19, in organisations providing social services for care-dependent persons the state emergency status was declared in the end of March 2020, and, since April 2020 they have become subjects of economic mobilization.