Children at risk

Children at risk are a generic term that includes a category of people under the age of 18 who are more likely to be exposed to negative factors, both explicit and potential.

Risk factors include:

• medical and biological - they include severe congenital and chronic diseases, pathologies of physical and mental development, serious injuries, mental disorders, weighed heredity;
• socio-economic - include orphans, from single-parent families, from antisocial families, as well as those who, due to life circumstances, are exposed to negative social influences - children from families of alcoholics, drug addicts, criminal elements;
• psychological - neuroses, alienation, difficulties in communicating with peers and adults;
• pedagogical - the discrepancy between the educational institution and the training program for the child's interests and characteristics, lack of motivation for teaching, pedagogical neglect .

Classification of children at risk

Among the children and adolescents at risk, the following categories are distinguished:

• children with developmental problems who do not have obvious pathology;
• children, for various reasons, left without parents;
• children from asocial, criminal and disadvantaged families;
• children from families who need economic and social support;
• children with signs of social and psychological maladjustment.

Social work with at-risk groups

Work with children at risk is regulated by basic normative codes and conventions. The activity of a social worker in this case has many directions. For example, working with pre-school children at risk includes assistance in adapting to a child's preschool. Working with children at risk in the school additionally covers not only the factors of adaptation, but and focuses on learning successes and achievements. An important component is working with the family or the environment that replaces it.

The main goal of this work is the full-fledged socialization of children at risk - that is, their inclusion in society as full-fledged members, respecting the laws and norms adopted in it and functioning for its favorable development. For this, it is necessary to exclude risk factors as far as possible and work with the consequences of their impact - to conduct psychological work, to identify the interests and inclinations of children and include them in a variety of complementary activities.