Skutki ubóstwa, jakich doświadczają dzieci

A characteristic feature of the period of transformation in Poland is a relative rise in poverty among children, especially in comparisoii with other groups of the-country’s population. Children, aged from 0 to 15, are the social group that is particulary threatened with poverty. Their number is 0,9 million, according to the criterion of the existential minimum, or 4.7 million, according to the criterion of the social minimum. At the moment, the families that are particulary affected by poverty are those with many children or with divorced parents including those who support themselves by other means than wage earning (the unemployed, recipients’ of social aid, of alimonies, scholarships etc.). The children who are brought up in poor families are particularly exposed to the risk of being deprived of their basic material (chiefly concerning food) and non-material (education, breeding, safekeeping outside home) standards of living. The family policy conducted by the state does not meet people’s expectations. In the period of transformation, substantial changes have been introduced in the system of financial benefits. Those changes consist in perpetuating or introducing the principle of making the right to benefits dependent on a given family’s income. This limited considerably the number of the recipients, with happened, among other things, in the case of the educational benefit, and beginning with March 1,1995 the family benefit. Apart from this, the amount of those benefits is not sufficient to be of much help for the family. Also the range of social services has recently been substantially limited. The financial troubles of the communes, which have taken over most of the family supporting centres, led to the elimination or privatisation of many day care centres, nursery schools, community centres, and sports facilities. At the same time, the fees required for their services by the institutions that have survived have risen considerably, witch limits, naturally, the possibility for the poor families to make any use of them. The state’s social policy should be more unequivocally focused on the economically and educationally deficient families. This concerns particularly families with many children and with single parents. The social policy in relation to those families should two-pronged. On the one hand, it should provide immediate relief to those who suffer from current existential problems, and, in the long term, it should be focused on removing barriers to personal careers, on the other. Thus, the potential of development in all families that are capable of such development should be released.