Divorce situations of families with children of school age from the point of view of specialists dealing with divorce problems.

The number of divorced families has been continually increasing and the Czech society accepts such families with dependent children tolerantly. Nowadays we know that a family with both parents but full of violence is much worse for children than living with a single parent. Psychosocial development of children growing in incomplete families thus does not have to be marked negatively. Despite that, in most cases a breakdown of a marriage with children is perceived as a hard and frustrating situation. And all the involved parties need to cope, particularly with the failure and loss in their lives. The objective of the thesis was to map attitudes of workers of the department of social and legal protection of children, marriage and family counselors, crisis and emergency centers and other professionals to the divorce situation of families with children in school age. Partial objectives of the thesis included mapping of opinions of the workers about the shared custody, experience of professionals with family mediation and determination whether the professionals are offered possibilities of further education. The views of the professionals were collected by means of a questionnaire survey conducted in January, February and March. 415 questionnaires were distributed at random. The research group consisted of 99 returned questionnaires. The individual categories of professionals did not demonstrate any significant differences in their attitudes to the shared custody. Divorce mediation was viewed as a suitable method for resolution of family disputes. The research has also shown that the professional community is offered sufficient opportunities of further education. According to the responding professionals, incomplete (divorced) families are capable of ensuring successful development of the children. The professionals concurred particularly on the opinion that each divorce situation needs to be approached individually