A family assistant provides an invaluable support for families. Due to the work carried out by family assistants, many families regain the level of life stability that enables them to raise children. The main task of a family assistant is to prevent the child from being separated from his or her family or to enable the child placed in foster custody to return to his or her parents as soon as possible.

The amount allocated for the programme amounts up to PLN 75 million

The programme constitutes a key element of pro-family policy. On the one hand, it strengthens the network of family assistants employed in municipalities to assist families experiencing difficulties in providing care for and raising children, and on the other hand, it develops the network of family foster care coordinators employed in districts to support foster families and family orphanages.

Under the Programme, local government units at municipal and district level have the right to apply financial resources to the appropriate Voivode. The total amount of funds allocated for the period of 2016-2019 equals to PLN 321 million, out of which up to PLN 75 million was allocated for the implementation of the programme in 2019.

Nearly 45.5 thousand families benefited from the support of assistants

The figures show that at the end of December 2018, 3.920 family assistants were on duty. Out of the total number, 3.327 assistants (85%) were employed on the basis of employment contacts on a task-based working time system and 593 (15%) were employed on the basis of a service contract.

In accordance with the law, a family assistant cannot work with more than 15 families.  The number of families covered by the care provided by a family assistant depends on the problems within the family and the qualifications and professional experience of the family assistant. According to the data for 2018, each family assistant worked with 9.

In total, in 2018 45.483 families have used the services of a family assistant (in comparison to 44.748 families in 2017), which means an increase by 1.6% in comparison to the previous year. In 2018, 1,741 coordinators took care of 27,234 foster families and family orphanages, i.e. over 73% of the total number of family foster care units (which means a 1% increase compared to 2017).