Social support strategies targeted at the families raising children with autism

Abstract

Families raising children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) face many difficulties in the process of social interaction that affect their functionality and impair family quality of life. The source of parental stress is the frustrated need for social support, protection and security, limited access to material, social resources, which is a factor of social exclusion. The purpose of study is to determine, on the basis of a systematic analysis of the available scientific literature, the features and content of social work interventions with the families raising a child with ASD. In the course of the research, general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, generalisation were used. The scholars proposed several social intervention strategies designed to provide social support for families raising a child with ASD: a family-centred approach which involves exploring the family's social microenvironment as interconnected relationships within individual structural subsystems; an environmental approach which determines that the quality of life of a family is related both to its individual characteristics and to environmental factors that directly or indirectly affect its life; a synergistic approach which focuses on the synergies of all factors in the process of shaping family life trajectories and rejects a universal adaptive strategy. Social support strategies are considered, including family-oriented practice, resilience formation practices, and online social support. Based on the analysis of the double model of social and psychological adaptation (the ABCX model), the types of social support that serves as a moderator of the relationship between the quality of life of a family raising a child with autism and parental stress have been identified. The analysis of scientific sources indicates that social work has not yet developed a universal integrated mechanism of social support, so several of its types usually serve practices.

Keywords

• social support
• autism
• social interventions
• family-oriented approach
• synergistic approach
• environmental approach