Director

PaedDr. Petr Štainigl

History

The first historical notes of charity services provided in the Region of West Bohemia date back to 1921. This was the year when in Plzen an office was created in order to look after crippled children. It was operating under the Land Council. Consequently, the “Masaryk Institute for the Crippled” was established as a predecessor of the present Institute in Zbůch. The disabled staying in Plzeň were first transferred to Zbůch during the holiday in 1969, and September 4, 1969 is the official beginning of the Institute’s operations. Back in those days, the Zbůch facility was an independent budgetary organization of the National Committee of West Bohemia and it was the only one of its kind in the Czech Republic providing care to children and youth with multiple disabilities. Most of the clients were those physically disabled, but consequently also intellectually disabled. The Institute was functioning as a charity and educational facility in conformity with the usual practice. Thus, we can say that it was mainly an asylum-kind of an institute. It was operating only a special school for the intellectually disabled, a boarding school and providing curative rehabilitation. Since 1991 it has been run as an independent budgetary organization of the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Care.

History after 1991

Following the year 1991 the Institute focused primarily on improving the quality of curative rehabilitation and ergotherapy with the view of accentuating rehabilitation at an early age already. Further, the Institute started creating a wider range of social services that were mainly concentrating on social integration of the clients and wider openness towards the public.
The objective was to modernize the obsolete facilities in order to improve the quality of services and to create conditions that would allow for training of apprentices so as to offer the clients a possibility to find a skill direction for their future jobs. All buildings went through a complete repair. The rehabilitation department was reconstructed and so were the kitchens and laundries. All buildings were interconnected by roofed and heated corridors. A hipporehabilitation surface was added together with a multifunctional sports playground, a sheltered housing training facility together with the sheltered housing of the third degree.
The Institute succeeded in establishing contact with the local branches of Labour Offices. Thanks to this cooperation we can locate work for those who have completed their stay in the Institute or those who have joined the Institute only for a short period of time.
As the only facility of its kind in the Czech Republic, the Institute has staged four international two-day trainings with “hipporehabilitation” on their agenda. The trainings have been attended by a number of leading experts in that branch both from the Czech Republic and from other European countries. The lectures including also work of the employees of the Institute were published in a symposium. The Institute has also organized several nation-wide training sessions on hipporehabilitation.
In scope of cooperation with other foreign institutes of this kind the City of Plzeň hosted two issues of the Games Without Frontiers in 1991 and 1998. Traditionally, these Games provide competition ground to disabled participants from 6 European countries. This project was launched in 1990 in Regensburg, Germany. Since then, 8 Central-European Countries have taken turn in staging the Games. Between 1995 and 1996, under the auspices of PHARE, several rehabilitation experts participated in the Bobath Method training course. Others participated in the social therapy training focused on sheltered housing in scope of the “Physically Disabled Children And Youth Life Quality Improvement” project. After the project was over in 1997, a seminar took place with the topic of sheltered housing and deinstitutionalization of social care. The Bobath Method was fully integrated into the rehabilitation department activity. Together with hippotherapy, the method assists to improve the quality of care provided to our clients.
The Institute in Zbůch complies with accreditation requirements awarded for education of people involved in the social care branch. Hand in hand with the trend of openness towards the public, our work has been concentrating on staging events helping to create cooperation between the able-bodied and the disabled. These events include sports and cultural entertainment, but also provide platform for collaboration with expert centres such as secondary schools of pedagogy and healthcare; colleges; the University of West Bohemia and the Charles University.

Expertise

The Institute of Social Care for the Physically Disabled Youth in Zbůch (the Institute) registered in 2007 in order to provide these four kinds of social services:

• Disability Home
• Daily Social Care Centre
• Sheltered Housing

The services are provided in accordance with the Act nr. 108/06 Coll. on social services and the Public Notice nr. 505/06 Coll.
The principal target is to be prepared for implementing the quality standards of social services, and mainly the activities focusing on integration of our clients into life of the major population as well as preventing them from being socially segregated.
In scope of its investments, the Institute had a disability-dedicated workshop built. This facility shall, in cooperation with the STYL disability production unit, prepare 30 social services clients for their future work. The Institute also concentrated on support of the families that are unable to look after the disabled family members. We helped the families receive professional temporary care including education of the family members.
The Institute is an accredited workplace for education of people engaged in social care. During 2007 we managed to provide education to more than a hundred people to work as specialists in social care provision.
When involved in health social care, the Institute provides its clients with permanent services that are registered under the code of 913. Agreements with insurance companies are in place. Once a week a neurologist, orthopaedist, psychiatrist, prosthesist and a rehabilitation physician personally attend our premises. A gynaecologist and a dermatologist arrive once every two weeks. We provide preventive dentistry checks. Subsequently, the clients are invited to undergo applicable surgery or treatment. Once a week there is a logopaedia specialist present as well.
We managed to provide our clients the possibility to acquire further apprentice skills in cooperation with the adjacent elementary school. Our range of apprenticeship options was enriched with that of a social services assistant.
TJ HALMA, a member of a sports association, achieved partial success. Several clients were good enough to represent the Czech Republic in scope of the paralympic movement.
When talking about the leisure activities, we created programmes that are both focused on relaxation within our premises, and also other activities organized elsewhere, such as dancing performances, theatre, sports events and others chosen in accordance with the clients’ wishes.
Our principal task remains the same: to integrate the elementary and apprentice school graduates back into life, to improve the quality of social services provided and to ensure that all our staff are continuously educated.