The Boundaries of Family Well-Being in the Focus of Social Work Practice

Well-being, including family well-being, is an important category both from the point of view of social policy goals and from the position of social work practice. In the conditions of serious transformations in the sphere of marriage and family and increasing social problems related to the functioning of this social institution, diversity of family situations and complication of relations between the family and the state, the issues related to family and child assistance are actualized, and, therefore, the issues of conceptualization of the notions of “well-being family”, “family disadvantage”, criteria for their definition, tools for identification both within the legal field and the practice of work with families and children.

Purpose and methods. In the article on the basis of the analysis of normative documents of federal and regional levels (n = 14) and materials of the author’s research by the method of semi-formalized interview with specialists of the family assistance system in Nizhny Novgorod region (n = 7) the concepts of family well-being and dysfunction are defined.

Results and conclusions. The uncertainty of the situation in which specialists work is emphasized. The concept of “well-being” in the conceptual space of the legal field is understood as a unity of functional and structural criteria, which, given the changes in the institution of the family, is increasingly rare. On the other hand, the term “dysfunctional” family is disclosed through the prism of a number of concepts identified on the basis of either objective criteria or situations that are not yet clearly describable. In these circumstances, professionals act intuitively, based on their experience and perception of the situation. “Disadvantage” is reduced to extreme and obvious forms, and the focus of work shifts to social protection institutions, when the choice of family and specialists is already limited. At the same time, informants emphasize the importance of not so much structural and objective criteria as the nature of relationships in the family, for the definition of which the practice of social work has not yet developed clear criteria, which limits the possibilities of primary/secondary prevention. 

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