Presentation of the Directorate of Social and Child Welfare Institutions of Ferencváros (FESZGYI)
The Directorate of Social and Child Welfare Institutions of Ferencváros (FESZGYI) is an integrated, complex social institution operating in Budapest, in the IX. district. The institution provides basic social services, temporary accommodation and child welfare services within the framework of personal care to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals who are at risk due to their social, economic, ethnic, minority, health or psychosocial situation, age and disadvantaged status. The aim and task of these services is to provide assistance and support, primarily through social work (and other helping professions), to those who need them, so that they can maintain independent living in their own homes and living environment, solve their problems through active participation, and improve their quality of life and access to social goods. An important objective is to improve children’s well-being, to promote children’s rights and to meet the needs of children and their families in the most targeted and appropriate way possible. Our main objective is therefore to increase the overall social well-being of the population of the district by improving their physical, emotional, social and relational well-being, and by building and operating a social network.
You can connect with us:
1096 Budapest, Lenhossék utca 7-9. Hungary
+36 1 218-6175, +36 1 216-0983
info@feszgyi.hu
The FESZGYI is divided into two large departments: Family Support and Child Welfare Centre and the Social Services Centre.
Family Support and Child Welfare Centre
Professional units under the control of the Family Support and Child Welfare Centre:
– Family and Child Welfare Basic Care Unit
– Family and Child Welfare Centre
– Arrears Management and Housing Assistance Centre
– Children’s Transition Home
Family and Child Welfare Basic Care Unit
The mission of the Family and Child Welfare Unit is to contribute to the well-being of the population of the district through its services, primarily social work, to alleviate the problems of people with social problems, to represent the rights of the vulnerable, to protect and help children.
We offer our services primarily to residents of District IX, families and singles, adults and children, elderly and young people who are looking for a job, struggling with debts, social problems, child-rearing problems, family conflicts, divorce, relationship problems, lack of consensus, vulnerability, insecurity and who would like information, advice and assistance in these areas.
We welcome reports from partner institutions, authorities and the public about children at risk and adults in social crisis who need help. We work with all institutions, organizations and authorities that can help to solve the problem.
The Arrears Management and Housing Assistance Centre
Arrears Management Group
The Arrears Management Group aims to help families in housing-related social need who are willing and able to pay part of their debts themselves. The Debt Management Service provides the beneficiary with both debt management advice and debt reduction support.
Debt counselling is essentially a process of reflection with the recipient on how to minimize arrears by maximizing the use of available own and nonown resources. The main aim of debt management is to restore the solvency of the person concerned, but it is also intended to help avoid further indebtedness in the future.
LÉLEK-Point, Street Social Work Group and Day Shelter
LÉLEK – Programme
The Municipality of Ferencváros launched a complex programme in 2012 to support people experiencing homelessness in the district. Its aim is to eradicate homelessness; to provide a way out, a reintegration path for homeless members of the community, if they themselves wish to make efforts to improve their lot. The programme – a housing, living, spiritual support and livelihood community programme – has no less a goal than to seek and find a way out of homelessness for more individuals/families currently experiencing homelessness.
Street Social Work
Street social work is a way of making social services available to people who are hard to move, who spend the night in public spaces, in non-residential premises and who are homeless. The aim of our street social work is to find and care for homeless people in their area, to solve crisis situations, to help them find institutional care, to find accommodation and to provide information on social services available.
Daytime Shelter
The day shelter provides care for people who are permanently or temporarily homeless: people living in public spaces, on the streets, in non-residential premises, in night shelters and in temporary accommodation. Its aim and mission are to meet the social and other specific needs of people who are homeless. The shelter provides daytime accommodation, a useful pastime, meals and access to basic hygiene services.
Children’s Transition Home
The aim of the Children’s Transition Home is to provide an open welcome for families in crisis and their children aged 0-18 years old, who are facing various problems and are integrated into the life of the district. We work in close cooperation with the social workers of the FESZGYI to ensure that the children are reunited with their families as soon as possible.
The problems that cause temporary care can be grouped into four main categories: housing problems, behavioral difficulties, problems related to parents’ conduct and behavior, and justified parental absence. Parents’ life management difficulties remain a significant problem, including negative parenting skills resulting from poor socialization, lack of parental competence, financial inability, lack of employment, closely linked to this and a significant cause, homelessness, with most families having lost their rent, and one family having lost its municipal rental property.
Children receive a full range of care adapted to their daily lives, age, health and other needs.
The children’s existing institutional contacts (pre-school, school, family doctor, etc.) and leisure activities (training, clubs) are maintained unchanged. The children have daily contact with their parents, so that their attachment is not compromised in the slightest.
This form of benefit does not affect the parental authority of the parent or legal representative.
Family and Child Welfare Centre
The Centre for Family and Child Welfare provides services to individuals and families, to help children to grow up in families and to prevent them from becoming vulnerable, according to their needs and requirements. Our primary mission is to protect and represent the rights of the child, to identify the problems of the family and the needs of the child, to provide services through planned social work to meet those needs and the involvement of internal or external institutions.
In the context of the child protection activities linked to the measures taken by the child protection authorities, the Centre’s case managers are responsible for maintaining and supporting family cohesion and helping to restore family functions that have been temporarily damaged or missing. Case management is a planned, complex support activity. In addition, our Centre also provides specialized services and counselling that complement social assistance work, as described below.
Family and Child Contact Centre
Our institution provides supervised and assisted contact for children in the district.
General purpose of the service:
– to provide a neutral place for the child and the separating parent to meet during or after the transition period during the divorce;
– to facilitate the contact between the child and the separating parent and the subsequent development of the relationship;
– assisting family members, through mediation, in the process of allowing the child and the separated parent to continue regular contact in a later external location and then in the parent’s new home.
A further aim of the Contact Centre is to enable the child and the separating parent to have regular contact as soon as possible, either outside or in the natural environment of the parent’s home.
Social diagnosis
A social diagnosis is a tool: a complex, comprehensive needs assessment, carried out with the client, in agreement and with his/her consent.
The aim of a social diagnosis is:
– to identify and define the problems of the client and, on this basis, to determine his/her needs and the services to meet them;
– to identify the services and providers available to the inhabitants of the district;
– to provide the client with a shorter route to a service that can provide a solution or help.
Service map
The service map is a searchable collection of services and institutions that are available to the residents of Budapest IX.
Job search service
The explicit target groups of service users are people under 25 and over 55, skilled and unskilled workers, long-term jobseekers and job starters, people with young children and large families, and people with a disability. After an in-depth interview, the counsellor works with the client to draft a CV, discusses the job they want, identifies their strengths and focuses on highlighting them in the CV. If required, she will help you prepare for the interview, even in a mock interview situation. An important part of the service is to introduce the client to live job opportunities that are suitable for him/her.
Psychological counselling
Psychological counselling for adults
Individual psychological counselling is available in our institution for the following problems: anxiety and mood disorders, stress and start-up problems, life management problems, difficulties caused by life cycle changes, problems caused by self-doubt, relationship or family problems, crisis situations, loss experiences.
Psychological counselling for children, adolescents and parents
After a preliminary consultation with the social worker, a first consultation with parents is held to identify the problems to be addressed and the goals to be achieved, followed by a detailed review of the child’s developmental history. The best people to know children are always their parents and the ones who have the greatest influence on them, so there is a regular periodic consultation with parents on how they can help to address the problem and the child’s further development in the family environment. For adolescents, individual counselling is also available.
They may come to us for help with anxiety symptoms, communication problems, adjustment difficulties, behavioral problems at school, start-up problems, sibling problems, adolescent demotivation, dealing with loss, post-divorce adjustment, parent-child relationship problems, frequent conflicts between parents and their children, parenting difficulties.
Couple and family consultation
In a family or couple, if one member is experiencing emotional problems or a stressful situation, it affects the others. During couple and family counselling, we reflect together on the difficulties and tensions within the family/couple relationship, and we try to help to resolve them by focusing on the family relationship system.
Developmental pedagogical, remedial pedagogical services
Due to the knowledge content required in the present school system and the characteristics of the domestic school system that reinforce the differences in starting points, it is necessary for primary child welfare services to take over tasks from schools that help pupils who already start from a disadvantaged situation to overcome the growing disadvantages in the school system and to support their successful social integration with the help of developmental and remedial pedagogy. It is important for the children who are lagging behind that their negative self-image, their failure orientation, with the help of the understanding and responsive working methods of a support professional, also give them a sense of achievement, which increases their motivation to learn.
In light of the above, our Centre’s developmental and remedial teacher provides the following services:
– assessment of abilities, preparation of an individual development plan,
– development sessions, follow-up of other existing development plans,
– support and tutoring,
– educational counselling,
– school and career guidance.
Legal advice
This service includes the following:
– Information on the law applicable to a particular situation or problem.
– Providing information and helping the client to consider what legal and administrative options are available to him or her, and to which institution he or she can turn to with his or her problem.
– Drafting petitions, claims, replies, appeals.
– Interpreting documents in pending cases, helping to plan further legal or other steps, interpreting legislation, generally supporting the client’s preparedness and self-representation.
Mediation service
Mediation is a process to facilitate a quick agreement, where mediators sit down at a table in a room with parties in dispute who cannot agree. In this process, the mediator effectively assists the disputing parties in resolving the problems between them, with the aim of resolving the relationship between the parties and finding a viable, practical and workable solution to the problem. In this dialogue, the parties themselves come up with the solution, but in the meantime the mediator monitors the discussion between the parties so that the dispute does not escalate and the parties seek a solution.
Addiction consultation
Working method: individual, parent and family consultation. The aim of individual, parent and family consultations are to assess the minor’s involvement with drugs, and the general assessment includes health, school situation, social relationships, family situation and dynamics, psychological status and legal information, depending on the case. When you come to us for help, we aim to find the most effective and practical solution to your problem, but we do not lose sight of the longer-term goal of developing your practical and coping skills, helping you to rebuild a healthy, relationship-based, sober life.
Youth Social work in streets and neighborhoods
This activity is carried out by the youth workers of the H52 Youth Office and Community Space. In the context of special services in our district, our colleagues visit the specified location on the basis of a report from the public or information from the signposting system. In the mornings, we search for truant children and have supportive conversations with the young people to identify the problem. In the afternoons and evenings, we offer a leisure time service through the H52 Youth Office and Community Space.
Kindergarten and School Social Support Group
From 1 September 2018, the Family and Child Welfare Centres have been extended to include Social Assistance in Kindergarten and School. We are constantly expanding the scope of this service to families and public education institutions.
The social assistant in pre-school and school provides support to the child, his/her family and the teachers of the institution in such a way that
– helping the child to develop the competences necessary to meet his/her educational obligations in an age-appropriate way and to integrate into the educational establishment,
– helping to identify and resolve obstacles to the child’s ability to fulfil his/her educational obligations.
– helps the child’s family and the teacher to identify and consider the child’s needs, primarily in preventing children from becoming vulnerable and in eliminating the risk of becoming vulnerable.
– the social worker takes part in the organization and implementation of mental health, sport and cultural events in the educational establishment, and actively participates in the organization and implementation of prevention programmes.
– the social worker participates in staff meetings and parents’ meetings as far as possible when required.
Social Services Centre
– The Home Help Service provides the care necessary to maintain the independent living of the beneficiary in his/her home or living environment, according to his/her needs. The Social Service Centre provides home assistance to elderly persons who are unable to care for themselves at home and are not looked after, or to persons who need this form of care because of their state of health or who are waiting for institutional care.
– The Day Care for the Elderly provides the following services in order to maintain and improve the health of the elderly and to keep their mental state at an age-appropriate level: physical care, mental care, health care, employment, leisure activities, assistance with administrative tasks.
– Within the framework of social meals, our institution provides affordable hot meals 6 days a week.
– The Transitional Care for the Elderly aims to provide a solution to care needs, therefore it provides nursing, care and socio-therapeutic activities for the elderly under 24-hour supervision.
– Day Care for Addicts – Iris Club Day Care Centre for Addicts: the day care centre offers the possibility of daytime accommodation, socializing and basic hygiene needs. An important element of the service is the preventive effect of the service, since longer-term social and mental care based on individual needs, assistance with lifestyle and life management, personality development and the strength of the community can prevent the person with the problem from becoming increasingly isolated and deteriorating.
Family Mentoring and Victim Support Group
The Family Mentoring and Victim Support Team is a professional workshop for mentoring/case management of the willing residents of Ferencváros. Case management is a collaborative process between the family mentor and the service user, starting with an initial interview to identify the service user’s needs and develop problem-solving alternatives.
The Family Mentoring and Victim Support Team operates the Counselling Centre, which provides services to victims of relationship violence in the district. The Counseling Center conducts district-wide prevention work, runs a volunteer program, maintains an individual counseling program and operates the district’s Sheltered Housing program.