Article 19 Living Independently and Being Included in the Community
221. LSP prescribes that the right to allowance for assistance and care by another person shall be granted to the person who, due to physical or sensory impairment, intellectual difficulties or health changes, requires assistance and care of another person in carrying out basic daily activities (Article 92, paragraph 1). A need for assistance and care of another person occurs with persons who, due to a physical impairment, vision impairment causing loss of sensation of light with an accurate projection, or with vision gained with 0.05 correction, intellectual difficulties or health changes, require assistance and care of another person to satisfy his/her basic daily needs and who cannot get out of bed, move within an apartment without use of aids, eat, dress, undress, or maintain basic personal hygiene without assistance of another person. These provisions were entered into the wording of LSP at the initiative of NOPWD. LSP prescribes that a monthly amount for assistance and care of another person is RSD 7,600 and that it shall be adjusted to the consumer price index twice a year (Article 93).
222. According to LSP, the right to increased allowance for assistance and care of another person shall have a person who is, pursuant to regulations on pension and disability insurance, found to have a 100% physical impairment on one of the grounds, or to have a permanent neurological and psychological organ disorder (Article 92, paragraph 1), and a person with more impairments, provided that the level of impairment is 70% or more, at least on two grounds (Article 92, paragraph 1). A monthly amount of increased allowance for assistance and care of another person is RSD 20,500, and it shall be adjusted to the consumer price index twice a year (Article 94 of LSP). One of the parents who is not employed, and who has at least 15 years been directly taking care of his/her child who gained the right to increased allowance for assistance and care of another person, shall be entitled to special compensation in the form of lifelong monthly cash payment in the amount of a minimum pension in the employees insurance, after he/she has fulfilled a general age requirement for obtaining a pension, according to regulations on pension and disability insurance, if he/she did not obtain the right to pension (Article 94 of LSP).
223. LSP defines groups of social care services (Article 40). These are, inter alia, community services which include daily care and home assistance. For the first time in Serbia, LSP also envisages support services for independent living: supported living, personal assistance, training in independent living. This is a significant step in the development of support services which should be able to enable full social inclusion and independence of persons with disabilities. Supported living shall be financed from the national budget, whereas local self-governments shall fund personal assistance services. Given financial capacities of local self-governments in the Republic of Serbia, the question is raised whether the personal assistance service can be provided in practice without the financial support of the Serbian Government and foreign donors.
224. The Law on Social Protection envisages plurality of service providers and equalising terms for service providers from the public, private and civil sector through the licensing process and determining minimum standards for services, in particular services in the community. This creates a possibility to introduce more services to local communities, particularly to those with a greater number of persons with disabilities. In poorer areas, introduction and sustainability of social protection services shall be ensured through the mechanism of earmarked transfers from the national level.
225. LSP prescribes the use of home accommodation services. Although the law prescribes an obligation for centers for social work to investigate conditions for non-institutional care, until the beginning of 2000, prevailing practice in the Republic of Serbia was to accommodate PWDs to facilities, even young people with physical disabilities to nursing homes, or persons with intellectual disabilities to mental health facilities for people with psycho-social disabilities. Only since 2000, the Republic of Serbia has made an attempt to organise non-institutionalised support services for PWDs, primarily through pilot projects. The Republic of Serbia is making significant efforts to improve conditions and results in this field.
226. The Law on Social Protection regulates conditions for sustainable development of social housing and method of provision and use of funds for social housing development, as well as other issues related to social housing. Social housing funds are used, inter alia, for achieving different forms of provision of apartments for social housing of persons with disabilities, as well as war veterans and war veterans in civil service, and supported living for persons with disabilities. The right to resolving housing needs, in accordance with the law, have persons without an apartment, i.e. persons without an apartment of an appropriate standard, and who cannot afford an apartment under market conditions from their incomes. Disability is one of the main criteria for determining an order of priority for addressing housing needs of persons who are entitled to resolving housing needs.
227. With the support of foreign donors – the Government of the Republic of Ireland, UNDP, Balkan Trust for Civil Initiatives, Oxfam – and with the funds from MLSP, Social Innovation Fund, AP Vojvodina and several local self-governments, since 2001, several cities in the Republic of Serbia have been developing the personal assistance service through pilot projects for more than a hundred persons with physical disabilities. The projects have been used for piloting service standards as well.
228. Since 2001, an emphasis in the field of social protection has been placed on the development of social services in the community, particularly for the most vulnerable groups of citizens (children, women, persons with disabilities, children with developmental disabilities, victims of violence, members of Roma and other communities, and other groups). In terms of this, a number of services has increased in the previous period aimed at preventing accommodation in facilities such as daily care for children with developmental disabilities and persons with disabilities, as well as at personal assistance, independent living, home assistance, and other services. Stated services were introduced through various programs, competitions and projects, and a number of them was not sustainable after termination of project funding (insufficient capacities of local self-governments for their continued funding).
Practice
229. Civil society organisations indicate that possibilities of returning children with disabilities from institutions to the community are still limited. While the number of children without parental care has been significantly reduced, number of children with disabilities in institutional care still does not follow this trend in a satisfactory manner. For the purpose of preventing further institutionalisation of children, in 2006, MLSP determined actions for reviewing decisions which place children in social care facilities – in terms of this, the most important is the condition for obtaining consent of the Ministry for individual placement in a facility, documents proving that the Center for Social Work attempted to provide children with accommodation in less restrictive environment, and a six-month periodic review of a need for staying in a facility.
230. Civil society organisations point to limited opportunities of employment and obtaining support in everyday life, which makes it more difficult to deinstitutionalise adult persons with a mental disability. The same applies to persons in psychiatric institutions and persons in social care institutions – many of them do not have a family or cannot be supported because they have no assets and/or incomes, so they remain in institutions for actually no medical reasons.