Raising People With Special Needs

All social communities strive to take care of the development, upbringing, and education of children deprived of parental care. The reasons for denial of parental care for children are known in theory and practice: death of parents due to war, natural death of one or both parents, loss of parents due to accident, illness, inability to care for the child, abandonment of children by parents, and other reasons. These children are included in the category of children without parental care and become a subject of social care. If they feel a lack of natural parental care, they can go on the crime route and start dealing with crime. Crime is a complex social phenomenon that, because of its dangers and the consequences it leaves for the individual and the social community, is studied from various aspects.

Appreciative Case Management: Using the Social Constructionism in Social Intervention

The article presents a research in the field of case management, experiencing two forms of it: problem-centered case and appreciative case management. For this, an experiment carried out on a six-month period, during which time we verified the results obtained by applying two different supervision models, problem-oriented supervision and appreciative supervision. Based on parallel process, the case management was changed. For this experiment ten cases were identified with various degrees of risk in child abandonment. When the appreciative case management was applied, the studied cases showed better results compared to the cases that were managed based on problem. In the case of services aimed at preventing child abandonment, it can be seen that the classical intervention focused on problem, lasting less than three months, has no positive effect on the clients’ situation. This practically means that in such circumstances, the financial, human and material resources used for an intervention that lasts less than three months are wasted without significant results. The appreciative case management produces tangible results after a shorter period of time by comparison to the classical intervention. This can be seen in the results obtained within the experiment, which are due to the use of the appreciative approach in intervention. Focusing on problems in social work and the attempt to solve them may sometimes not result in their resolution; the orientation towards identifying deficiencies and dysfunctionalities yields poorer results than the appreciative intervention and preserves the problem.

“Hansel and Gretel” Films: Crimes, Harms, and Children

A brutal narrative of child abandonment, murder, and cannibalism may not seem the conventional stuff of fairy tales to those trained for a Disney-eyed view. Yet that is exactly what “Hansel and Gretel” offers. Film versions across genres, including drama, noir, horror, slasher, thriller, comedy, and adventure, deal seriously with crimes against and harms to children. Many practices and behaviours that endanger and damage people of various ages in all kinds of contexts, including environmental degradation, economic exploitation, and many forms of discrimination, are not proscribed in the formal criminal justice system, and/or are beyond the jurisdiction of public institutions. Many actions and inactions that affect and/or pertain to children’s wellbeing are found as recurring themes and ideas in “Hansel and Gretel” films. In this paper, the authors focus on non-supernatural, live-action films available in English for adult viewers that include child main characters, that is, those whose Hansels and Gretels are clearly below the age of puberty. These films, the authors contend, offer distinctive perspectives on harms to children as individuals and as groups, especially with relation to institutions implicating justice.

Foundling and Abandoned Children in Palestine

The study addressed foundling and abandoned children in the Palestinian society as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. The study consisted of a retrospective transversal survey of one hundred and fifteen abandoned children, and ninety-two abandoning mothers purposefully selected from the records of Crèche Institution in Bethlehem, West Bank. The findings indicated that the ratio of foundling and abandoned children in the Palestinian society is very low comparison with international figures. The study concludes that child abandonment in the Palestinian society is a risk factor, and that under-reporting of offences, especially incest is widespread in the Palestinian patriarchal society.