Purpose:

To demonstrate how the threat to children's welfare and placement in institutional care caused by family crisis can be reduced in Truskavets City, Lviv Oblast.

Target group:

• Children and families going through crisis

In Ukraine there were few services providing urgent consultation and support to families experiencing crisis.

Many families didn't know where to turn for help and might be referred from one agency to another without any immediate help being provided.

Family crises require quick response by a service which unites all agencies to prevent family breakdown and possible threat to children's welfare.

The Truskavets Family Crisis Centre focused on children who were at risk due to crisis in their family. It aimed to demonstrate that social work intervention at a crisis point for a family could produce better outcomes both for families and for their children.

The service aimed to turn round cases from crisis point in the course of three to six weeks, at which time they could be referred back to the usual state agencies for long term support.

The project was implemented with Lviv oblast Department of Family and Youth and Truskavets city council.