Integrace dětí z dětských domovů do společnosti a jejich adaptace na trhu práce

This paper presents partial results from a retrospective study on factors that positively affect the employability of young adults who grew up in children´s homes in the Czech Republic. The presented results focus on the impact of education on the number of employment opportunities which young adults were offered, their ability to take advantage of those opportunities and successfully adapt to labour market. The research was qualitative. With the use of semi-structured questionnaires, 15 respondents who left children´s homes 10 or more years ago were interviewed about their personal history, growing up in the children´s home, formal and informal education, and employment history. The responses were analysed through the content analysis and led to the following hypotheses: 1) respondents with vocational training have better access to employment opportunities after finishing their studies, and 2) respondents with a more positive attitude towards education reach a higher education level. These hypotheses will be further tested on a sample of approx. 400 respondents, who will be addressed by questionnaires. This paper discusses the partial results, the forthcoming quantitative analysis, and possible consequences of the research.

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The common opinion states that people who grew up in the institutional care instead of in their own families possess lower capabilities to reach higher levels of education, integrate into society, find and maintain employment, and start their own families. The project “Integration of children from foster care into society and their adaptation to the labor market” aims to verify these assumptions and to identify factors that help children to integrate successfully. This article presents the above-mentioned project, its structure, methodology and partial results. It highlights the cooperation between research institutions, public sector, and non-profit associations in all project phases – setting the research methods based on literature analysis and discussions with experts, collecting qualitative and quantitative data from the whole Czech Republic, implementing research results into children’s education and training, and disseminating results among relevant stakeholders. The article also notes a complementary project, which is under the evaluation process at the time of the conference. This second project focuses on the system of education, training, and support for people working with children in foster care, such as children’s homes employees, tutors and mentors, social workers, and volunteers cooperating through non-profit sector.

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This article discusses how knowledge is (not) created and shared among team members in one particular cross-sectoral project. The case underlines especially the importance of socialization, the stage of SECI model which is the most sensitive to face-to-face contact, common activities, and shared context.

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Educational projects and processes are inevitable part of every human’s life. Besides a natural learning process there are many intentional and organized activities leading to education of people. Those can be educational processes at schools, educational projects and trainings provided by an employer, or vocational trainings and courses based on interest of people. An important part of every educational project, program or process should be an evaluation investigating how successful the intentional education was. Evaluation of educational projects can be realized by using several evaluation methods and approaches. Every method is based on different type of data and different factors to be considered. This paper intends to present our experience with using different methods for evaluation of many educational projects and programs. It aims to summarize the suitability of individual evaluation methods and approaches and give an overview of results. Focus will be given on evaluation approach used in our actual research project PERSIST researching on factors influencing adaptability of young adults after they leave children’s homes. The paper starts with theoretical background on evaluation of educational projects and programs followed by an overview of most used methods and techniques for evaluating both immediate and long-term results of the educational activities. The next part will present types of evaluation methods the authors used in their evaluation praxis including a description of evaluation approach used in project PERSIST. The final part will summarize our experience with every method used and bring some recommendations for other evaluators, teachers and researchers.

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Attachment styles are characterized by different ways of interacting and behaving in relationships. During early childhood, they are centered on how children and parents interact. In adulthood, attachment styles are used to describe patterns of attachment in romantic relationships. The best predictor of adult attachment style is the perception that people have about the quality of their relationships with their parents as well as their parent's relationship with each other. Research indicates that patterns established in childhood have an important impact on later relationships. Presented study shows partial results of a research focused on integration of young adults from children´s homes into society. This part analyses attachment styles as one of the possible protective factors in a group of 40 participants who left children´s homes 10 years ago or more. Two methods were used – an in-depth interview and Adult Attachment Style Inventory. The semi-structured interview was based on the literature analysis and an expert panel. The main thematic areas were life situation when boarding the children´s home, the course of stay in the home, situation after leaving the home, current life situation, support used after leaving the home, and protective factors when leaving the home. Data were processed using the SPSS v25 statistical software and Atlas.ti software for qualitative analysis. Results show the importance of institutional care workers in children´s homes for creating a secure attachment style throughout a corective experience even in children and young adults who experienced various types of abusive relationships in their primary families. Respondents with secure attachment style had less problems when integrating into society after leaving institutional care facilities and were more successful in creating stable realtionships, finding stable work and reaching higher education level. Possible consequences for practice will be disccused.

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Předložená tematická výzkumná zpráva představuje výsledky výzkumu získané v rámci projektu Integrace dětí z dětských domovů do společnosti a jejich adaptace na trhu práce, podpořeného z programu TAČR Éta. Hlavním cílem projektu bylo zmapovat faktory ovlivňující integraci mladistvých z dětských domovů do společnosti a jejich úspěšnou adaptaci na trh práce. Zjištění, získaná v rámci výzkumu, mohou přispět k zefektivnění přípravy mladistvých na osamostatnění během pobytu v dětském domově a také k podpoře a lepší komunikaci různých druhů formálního poradenství nabízeného mladistvým po odchodu z dětského domova. Dílčí závěry mohou přispět i k diskusi o změnách v přístupech ke vzdělávání mladistvých a k většímu důrazu na některé oblasti přípravy, které mohou být v některých případech opomíjeny. Ačkoli v České republice chybí systematický přístup, který by dětské domovy mohly aplikovat, cílem projektu není tento systematický přístup. Výstupy však mohou být využity k diskusi se subjekty, které v této oblasti aktivně působí a mohou být navrhovateli i implementátory změn. Mohou být využity i dětskými domovy a neziskovými organizacemi, které na přípravě mladistvých pracují, ať už dlouhodobě nebo formou dílčích, jednorázových aktivit.

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Early abuse and neglect can have detrimental effect on future well-being and both intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences. Early abuse and neglect are, among others, associated with more interpersonal problems, lower academic achievement, less stable relationships, substance abuse etc. They also negatively affect the attachment style children create with their significant others during the first years of their lives. The aim of this study is to investigate factors that have positive or negative impact on resilience of people who grew up in institutional care after leaving their primary families and abusive parents. 28 in-depth interviews were conducted with people who left institutional care ten or more years ago. Qualitative analysis revealed that those who experienced early abuse and neglect had more often avoidant or disorganized attachment style. All respondents created coping strategies to deal with their early experiences and successfully integrate into society after leaving the institutional care, but those with early abuse and neglect experiences experienced more problems in finding stable job and intimate relationship and used more rigid coping strategies with less ability to adapt to new conditions. This creates especially the transition periods such as starting the university or starting the first job espeically challenging and often elads to failure even due to minor problems. Based on the results, the caretakers might focus more on the early experiences of children in institutional care and develop and support a flexible system of coping strategies to improve their resilience and hardiness, important skills in building and maintaing lifetime well-being.

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