The role of gypsy mentors in rehabilitating socially excluded families claiming to belong to the Romany minority in the Region of South Bohemia.

Gypsy mentors deals with lay gypsy persons trained to support and assist gypsy families in their attempts at acquiring social skills needed to tackle difficult situations in life that threaten the proper development of gypsy children and youth. The mentors are members of the gypsy community like their clients and share with them their language and culture. The paper provides a summary of both historical and current aspects of gypsy existence in the Czech Republic, their tribal structure and family lifestyle. Special attention is paid to the issues of social exclusion. A brief account is given of history, mission, objectives, activities and some selected projects of the civic Association for Probation & Mediation in Justice. Moreover, the paper offers a list of principles and areas of activities pursued by the Czech Republic Probation & Mediation Service and by the Department for Social & Legal Protection of Children. The paper aims to explore the issues of field work done by the gypsy mentors (i) in helping the challenged gypsy families threatened with having their children or youngsters taken away to be brought up at care institutions and (ii) in assisting young gypsies put under administrative orders. The practical part of the paper employed the method of a qualitative survey of a case study. The required data were obtained through detailed semi-structured interviews with the mentors followed by the secondary data analyses