SOCIAL SUPPORT AS PART OF SOCIAL POLICY

The social policy of a country is a set of specific activities aimed at regulating the social relations between different subjects regarding their social status. This approach to clarifying social policy is also called functional and essentially addresses social policy as an activity to regulate the relationship of equality or inequality in society. It provides an opportunity to look for inequalities in the economic positions of individuals in relation to ownership, labor and working conditions, distribution of income and consumption, social security and health, to look for the sources of these inequalities and their social justification or undue application. The realization of this policy is social work (activity). As a term, social work is also understood as a type of profession and as a system of specialized institutions, and increasingly diverse practices that, in order to be effective, should use an integrated knowledge of fundamental human sciences and social groups, and society as a whole. The main problems of social work as an activity of society, as a state activity, an inseparable part of the social, institutional and political life, are: untimely and inadequate support or service for the needy, families, households, social groups; inadequate correspondence to European standards and criteria in performing social work, bearing in mind our national traditions and experience; lack of coordination and coordination of social work by types, forms, hierarchical levels; lack of interaction (communication, dialogue) of the social worker with the client (group) towards humanism, democracy and ethics; lack of professional qualification (knowledge, skills, experience) of social workers and assisting persons. In general, specific criteria can be defined in a different way and in a different order, but the general thing that brings them together, is the social effectiveness of the process. In view of the commitments made by our country related to our EU membership, a new concept of social protection of Bulgarian citizens was adopted. According to it, every Bulgarian citizen is responsible for his individual well-being, and the state is committed to creating prerequisites for increasing employment, reducing poverty and overcoming social exclusion in the context of a still unfavorable economic environment. In the field of social activities, a differentiated approach has been adopted to provide effective support to those who really need it. Attention is focused on every person with their problems and needs. The guidelines for the development of social activities are determined by adopting an active approach in this area. The development of social assistance cannot be seen in isolation from the processes taking place in other parts of the social protection system.