[Specialist community social services as a form of community social support]

Art. 9 of the Polish Mental Health Act provides two forms of community-based social support--specialist social help services and community self-help houses for persons who, due a to serious mental illness or severe mental retardation, face considerable difficulties in their daily life, especially with respect to interpersonal relations, employment and welfare matters. The first form could only be implemented after coming into force of the suitable regulation of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of December 18, 1996 (Dz. U. z 1997 r., nr. 2, poz. 12). Hence, it may be understood that information on these services is exceptionally scarce. The author presents: a draft of legal evolution of the specialist services, from the vague idea of "community care" provided by psychiatric care facilities to the present regulation of community specialist social help services run by social help agencies in consultation with psychiatric facilities, main guidelines for staff to be observed in performing community specialist social help services (training in maintenance and development of basic skills necessary to independent living and others), the first promising experiences of a team rendering community specialist social help services in one of the communes in Warsaw.