Study the needs of children with disabilities, their families and care centers,2017

5 Oct 2017

Institute of Social Studies and Analysis with the order of the organization “Child, Family, Society” carried out both quantitative and qualitative types of research, that touched upon the studying of the needs of children with disabilities, their families, and day-centers.

Within the qualitative research framework, the needs of disabled individuals and children day centers, their beneficiaries and families were revealed deeply. The objectives of the survey were:

• Assesment of state standards and funding rule of day centers;
• Studying the service (educational, technical and human resources) and function of day centers;
• Identify the main problems of the day centers program;

With focus-group method were interviewed therapists/teachers of day centers, beneficiaries (of 18 years old and above) their parents/guardians. 12 group discussion was conducted in 4 cities in total: Batumi, Kutaisi, Gori, Tbilisi. All three target groups were interviewed in each city and in each focus-group participated, 6-9 participants. The duration of each focus groups was from 1-2 hours.

As for the in-depth interview method, 24 interviews were conducted in total, 10 of them were conducted with people employed in public sector (representatives of ministry of education and science of Georgia and ministry of labor, health and social security and members of Georgian parliament) 9 were conducted with representatives of local authorities ( In Tbilisi, Gori, Rustavi, Sachkhere, Tsalenjikha, Batumi, Chkhorotskhu, Ozurgeti, Chokhatauri) and 5 were conducted with field experts.

The aim of the quantitative research was to identify the needs of day centers for the disabled persons in Georgia, their beneficiaries, and families. The objectives of the research were

• Study the existing condition of day centers (infrastructure, security, adaptation quality, educational and rehabilitation resources, implemented activities and events);
• Identify of main needs of the teachers/therapists working in day centers;
• Study the needs of beneficiaries of day centers and their families (parents/guardians in this case) and needs related to day center programs;
• Assessment of the regulatory standards of day centers’ activities and monitoring process;
• Identify of day center budget and assessment of a funding rule;

To reach the mentioned objectives, several target groups were interviewed in the framework of quantitative research. The research was conducted in 45-day centers in total.

450 respondents were interviewed in above-mentioned day centers. 45 out of them were the representatives of day center administration (one representative of administration was interviewed in each day center). Moreover, 135 teachers/therapists, 135 beneficiaries (14 years old and above; including beneficiaries of pension age) and 135 parents/guardians were interviewed in day centers.