Experience of accompanying organisations by the realisation of agreements about the foster care.

The Bachelor thesis focuses on social workers in accompanying organizations and their opinions on The Agreements on the performance of foster care and on the Quality standards based on Act no. 359/1999 Coll., on socio-legal child protection (SLP), as amended. The thesis has two main sections, a theoretical section and a practical one. The first section deals with family; its functions and existing forms of substitute family care in the Czech Republic. The next part of the theoretical section names and describes various forms of substitute family care and devotes a special chapter to the case of foster care. The following part focuses on the process of the foster care mediation. The theoretical part also includes The Agreements on the performance of foster care and deals with SLP Quality standards. The second practical section describes empirical research that analyses experience of charged persons and OSPOD (Authority for social and legal protection of children) with the performance of activities related to accompaniment of the foster families. The goal of the research is to unravel factors which contribute to the successful fulfilment of The Agreements on the performance of foster care and to analyse how the SLP Quality standards affect the performance of the foster care. The empirical research relied on three research questions: 1. What aspects of the foster families accompaniment contribute to the optimal/successful fulfilment of The Agreements on the performance of foster care in the case of charged persons and in the case of OSPOD? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of entering into The Agreements on the performance of foster care with charged persons and with OSPOD? 3. What is the opinion of charged persons on the SLP Quality standards and how do these standards, according to their opinion, affect the performance of The Agreement on the performance of foster care? The practical part applied the tools of qualitative research. The data gathering relied on semi-structured interviewing. The research sample included seven respondents: five social workers and two adult care providers from South of the Czech Republic. The results of the qualitative analysis show that the amendment of the act had a number of positive outcomes in the area of the SLP. Both social workers and adult care providers agree that the amendment of the act improved and broadened the access to the foster care and increased public awareness about the foster care. The introduction of the compulsory Agreement on the performance of foster care led to the establishment of new organizations that focus on the accompaniment of foster families. Furthermore, according to social workers, the fact that due to the introduction of The Agreement on the performance of foster care all foster parents now have the same legal rights and obligations is a considerable contribution. All key workers agreed on the crucial importance of the SLP Quality standards. However, they also suggested that there are numerous issues that still need be improved