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CENTRE PLUS NEWS No. 8, 2014 Social Services. Social work organizations According to the Law on Social Services of the Repub- lic of Lithuania, foreigners, including stateless persons who have a permanent or tem- porary residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania have the right to social services.” How can we define social services? The social services include service providing assistance to individuals (families) who because of age, disability or social problems are par- tially or fully unable to take care individually of their personal and family life and participate in public life. One of the centers which provide social services in Lithuania is the Social Sup- port Centre. This is a bud- getary institution providing social support to people who are not able to take care of their personal (family) life and who need assistance in meeting their minimum needs and solving social problems. The basic services of Social Support Centre (hereinafter - SSC): briefing, consultation, mediation and representa- tion. When people face poor circumstances and problems with health, SSC organizes meals, transportation, per- son`s hygiene and care ser- vices. SPC provides social care services as follows: help at home, social skills training and support, accommodation at independent living home. In accordance with Munici- pality order, a single person or persons, who face a poor financial situation, are paid lump-sum benefits at Social Support Centre. Also SSC accepts documents and pro- vides the right to social assis- tance for students and organ- izes the support for buying school supplies. SSC issues technical help facilities, pre- pares documents for assign- ing social care services and as- certains the level of needs for social services, issues disabil- ity certificates, prepares doc- uments for housing and envi- ronmental needs of disabled persons, provides guidance on determination of custody and controls its implementation. For all social services men- tioned above you can con- tact by phone: (8 5) 233 3986, e-mail: [email protected] or you can visit the office and consult directly at Kaunas St. 3, Vilnius. For more informa- tion: http://www.spcentras.lt/

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Page 1: Social Services. Social work organizations

CENTRE PLUS NEWS No. 8, 2014

Social Services. Social work organizations“According to the Law on Social Services of the Repub-lic of Lithuania, foreigners, including stateless persons who have a permanent or tem-porary residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania have the right to social services.”

How can we define social services?

The social services include service providing assistance to individuals (families) who because of age, disability or social problems are par-tially or fully unable to take care individually of their personal and family life and participate in public life.

One of the centers which provide social services in Lithuania is the Social Sup-port Centre. This is a bud-getary institution providing social support to people who are not able to take care of their personal (family) life and who need assistance in meeting their minimum needs and solving social problems.

The basic services of Social Support Centre (hereinafter - SSC): briefing, consultation, mediation and representa-tion. When people face poor

circumstances and problems with health, SSC organizes meals, transportation, per-son`s hygiene and care ser-vices. SPC provides social care services as follows: help at home, social skills training and support, accommodation at independent living home.

In accordance with Munici-pality order, a single person or persons, who face a poor financial situation, are paid lump-sum benefits at Social Support Centre. Also SSC accepts documents and pro-vides the right to social assis-tance for students and organ-izes the support for buying

school supplies. SSC issues technical help facilities, pre-pares documents for assign-ing social care services and as-certains the level of needs for social services, issues disabil-ity certificates, prepares doc-uments for housing and envi-ronmental needs of disabled persons, provides guidance on determination of custody and controls its implementation. For all social services men-tioned above you can con-tact by phone: (8 5) 233 3986, e-mail: [email protected] or you can visit the office and consult directly at Kaunas St. 3, Vilnius. For more informa-tion: http://www.spcentras.lt/

Page 2: Social Services. Social work organizations

Centre Plius News No.8, 2014

Also many non-governmental organizations provide social services to various socially vulnerable groups of people in Lithuania. Further there is giv-en the information about sev-eral organizations providing a wide range of social services:

• Consultation and Informa-tion Center PLUS is focused on ensuring the successful integration of immigrants in Lithuania and provides a range of free consultations and courses: Lithuanian lan-guage, civic literacy, consul-tations of social worker, psy-chologist and jurist, advisor for work and business and migration issues. It organizes trainings in Traffic rules, vis-its to public and non-govern-mental organizations, consuls on Lithuanian culture and historical issues. For more in-formation: http://centreplus.org/ , phones: +37060577245 / +37052617482; e-mail: [email protected] .

• Caritas is an international Catholic organization that de-fends human rights and con-cerns for the preservation of dignity of each individual who is asking for help, regardless of race, religion, gender and ethnicity. Caritas organizes feeding the poor, clothing and supports with items, accom-modation, helps in life skills training and vocational edu-cation. For more information: http://www.vilnius.caritas.lt/ , phone: (8 5) 2611014, e-mail: i n fo@vi ln ius . ca r i t a s . l t .

• Lithuanian Red Cross Society is a humanitari-an association providing

social services to various so-cially vulnerable groups of people. Services include: the care of elderly and single peo-ple, trainings to provide first aid, search of lost contacts with the relatives in a home country, social support, psy-chological support, vocation-al training, legal assistance to refugees and immigrants. For more information: http://www.redcross.lt/ , phone: +370 5 2628037, address: A. Juozapavičiaus St. 10A.

• SOTAS is a public institu-tion performing social ac-tivities and whose mission is to improve human life, with a special focus on chil-dren and adult development. SOTO set up the children and

youth day center which was designed to provide a broad range of social and education-al assistance to children and their families, to help children to disclose their abilities and know themselves, to restore and enhance the functions of the family in order to en-sure the welfare of children. For more information: http://www.sotas.org/ , phone: (8 5) 2121453, address: Kalvarijų St. 159, Vilnius.

The above- mentioned or-ganizations work not only for Lithuanian citizens, but also for foreigners who come to live in Lithuania. There-fore, if needed, feel free to contact and ask for social services that belong to you.

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Centre Plius News No.8, 2014

Social services for third-country nationals: experiences of im-migrantsIn our daily life we have to deal with social problems: some of us can manage by ourselves, others need pro-fessional help. We have asked where the third country na-tionals living in Lithuania are looking for help and are the so-cial services available to them.

Russian citizen J. K. living in Lithuania since 2007 and breeding a daughter alone said that till now she did not face serious social problems and did not apply to special-ists: “Up to now all the prob-lems I have solved by myself. Frankly, I would not know where to apply, if necessary. I think that first of all I would go to Consultation and In-formation Center PLUS, and then the Center specialists would direct me to the ap-propriate authorities. I think that immigrants if they face some sort of social problems and are aware of the exist-ence of the centers for im-migrants, primarily turn to them”, - shared her opinion women. She reasoned out that one of the reasons, why immigrants do not go to so-cial service agencies was the lack of information. Another reason was the availability of information. Woman thought that the information needed to be published not only in the state language Lithuani-an, but also in English and Russian languages. The third reason that showed up during the interview and later was summarized by the immigrant was too big bureaucracy:

“For a few years I am a sin-gle mother. I broke up with my husband. I never interest-ed, is it possible in my case to get a benefit or other material assistance. Probably such a possibility would be, if I were searching and asking, but it would require a lot of time and efforts, so I decided instead of that to work and thus sur-vive. Until I manage myself, I will be able to take care of my daughter as well”, - firm-ly said the Russian national.

Recently she has passed the Lithuanian language and Constitution exams and re-ceived a permanent residence permit in Lithuania. More than five years living in Lith-uania she described as enough socially equipped: “From the time of arrival to Lithuania I appreciate my life not as the easiest thing, but nevertheless as quite free. I breathe easy,

I like many things and I have a lot of social contacts here. I consider that the integra-tion into the Lithuanian so-ciety has already happened”, - with a joy shared J. K.

Deputy Director of Vilnius Social Support Centre (SPC) J. Gajauskienė argued that she met very little foreigners during her work at the center: “I remember very well only one case, when an African asked for lump-sum payment. It seems she was a student and Vilnius Archdiocese Caritas social workers mediated be-tween us. Then we have done everything what was in our power and sent her to the De-partment of social benefits. I do not remember more cases similar to this. Another fairly common case, when Russian citizens applied with requests to partially cover the issu-ing of residence permits for

Page 4: Social Services. Social work organizations

The newspaper is published, implementing the project “Consultation and information centre PLUS” according the European Fund for the

Integration of third-country nationals, annual Programme 2012

CENTRE PLUS · A.Smetonos street 5, room No 302 · VilniusTel.: 85 261 74 82 / 8 605 77 245

Email: [email protected] · www.facebook.com (search for: Centre Plus)Working days: Monday to Friday · Opening hours: 11:30 to 15:30

and 16:30 to 20:30

Centre Plius News No.8, 2014

living in Lithuania because they were sent by the Migra-tion Board”. Deputy Direc-tor is almost certain that the aliens, when they face social problems and are not able to meet the essential social needs, primarily appeal to their neighbors, whom they trust, or to their communities, and only later they are look-ing for help in the relevant authorities. “We are some-how preferable to refer to our acquaintances and only then to social service organ-izations. However, I would like to encourage immigrants not to be afraid and look for benefits that legally belong to them because it may at least partly to facilitate their dai-ly life”, - said the woman.

Social Benefits Division spe-cialist of Social Affairs and Health Department at Vilni-us City Municipality D. Le-onavičienė said that accord-ing to all applicable laws TCNs can get cash benefits:“Individuals from non-EU countries having a permanent

residence permit in Lithuania and aliens granted an addi-tional or temporary protection in the Republic of Lithuania may apply for a lump-sum child benefit, child benefit, welfare benefit, housing heat-ing costs compensation and handout benefit. While we do not collect the data and do not keep statistics, but in most cases the TCNs applicants were Russian or Belarusian citizens”, - her experience shared D. Leonavičienė. The woman highlighted that they did not face serious prob-lems with TCNs, unless it was more difficult to them to fill out an application in the state language. Then helped

specialists who knew oth-er languages and there were no problems in cooperation. The Deputy Director, when we asked her what could be done that TCNs would ac-tively seek help, said it would be appropriate to revise and expand the legal basis seek-ing that other TCNs who still did not meet the stat-utory criteria could apply.

Very often social problems are complex, and so the necessary assistance is provided not by one but several institutions. It is important to immigrants to know their rights, where to go and what social services are legally available for them.