The family assistant supports the family in its community, helps families which, for various reasons, are not able to properly fulfil their care and educational functions towards children on their own. His or her main task is to prevent separation of a child from the family or provide for the return of a child placed in foster care as soon as possible. The family assistant can be assigned to a family at the request of a social worker or by a decision of the family court.

Almost 4 thousand family assistants

Appointment of family assistants is an own task of a commune. In 2012-2014, it was an optional task, and since 2015 it has became an obligatory task.

Self-governments use the work of family assistants more and more often. In 2017, there were a total of 3976 family assistants employed, 1.8% more than in 2016 and 4.1% more than in 2015.

3251 assistants were employed on the basis of contracts of employment (82% of the total). The remaining 725 persons (18%) worked on the basis of a contract for the provision of services.

For comparison, in 2016, 3905 family assistants were employed, including 2913 (74.59% of the total) on the basis of a contract of employment, while in 2015, 3816 family assistants were employed, including 2548 (66.7% of the total) on the basis of a contract of employment.

Since 2017, the preference for employing assistants on the basis of a contract of employment has been strengthened in the programme of co-financing employment of family assistants announced by the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy, which translated directly into the increase in contracts of employment.

The preference for this form of employment of family assistants is visible in the announced edition of the competition for 2017 both in the amount of co-financing (up to 67% from the state budget with the contract of employment, up to 50% with the contract of mandate) and in the preferential treatment of communes which decide to use the contract of employment in 100% in the following year. In the announced 2018 edition of the competition, the share of subsidy in the case of the contract of mandate is even lower (up to 33%).

99% of communes in the Pomorskie Province with a family assistant

The highest percentage of communes in which family assistants were appointed was in the following provinces: Pomorskie (99%), Małopolskie, Dolnośląskie and Zachodniopomorskie – 98% each. On the other hand, the smallest percentage of communes in which family assistants were appointed was in the following provinces: Podlaskie (72%), Łódzkie (88%), Mazowieckie (90%) and Lubelskie (92%).

Assistance for families

In 2017, 44,748 families benefited from the help of family assistants. This is an increase of 3.1% compared to 2016, when assistance was provided to 43,390 families.

For 13,555 families (30% of all families benefiting from assistance) this cooperation ended in 2017. In relation to the rest of the families, assistance is continued in the following year. The average time of work with a family is increasing year by year due to the scale of problems occurring in it (15 months in 2017).

In 6,103 cases (45%), the end of work in 2017 occurred due to the achievement of the assumed goals, while the rest of the families benefited from the change of support tools to more effective ones due to the family situation (e.g. therapy, social work). Some families ceased cooperation with the family assistant.

Support for self-governments

The Ministry of Family supports local authorities in employing a family assistant as part of the programme family assistant and coordinator of family foster care. Funds from the targeted subsidy of the state budget in the amount of PLN 20.4 million were mobilised and resources of the Labour Fund were transferred in the amount of PLN 39.3 million, i.e. the total amount of PLN 59.7 million, to co-finance employment of family assistants by communes in connection with the implementation of the above-mentioned programme. In 2017, the period of co-financing tasks from the state budget in the area of, among others, employment of a family assistant was extended by another 5 years (currently, until 2022)