Social Support

This book is focused on the analysis of the representations of social support by families raising children with severe disabilities. The family situation is perceived as uncertain with problems occurring when dealing with them requiring social support from external resources. The understanding of social support is conceptualized by House (1981, cited in Peterson et al., 2009) and Tardy (1985, cited in Malecki and Demaray 2002, 1) who divide its content into emotional concern, instrumental aid, information, and appraisal. The concept of social support is used as unified in the defining of support from external resources. The main external resources are held to be the medical, social and educational systems, as defined in the Law of Social Integration of Disabled People (2005) of the Republic of Lithuania. Dolphin Assisted Therapy was engaged as a system taking a window place for analyzing social support on a legitimized social support basis. The book focuses on investigations into representations by families of social support during stressful periods of their lives, when social support acts as a stress-buffer.