Abstract:

Mothers with children, who usually seek accommodation in a shelter, belong to the group of a single-parent family or single parenthood. A parent who is alone has a difficult role - he or she provides for the family not only economically, but also takes care of the whole household and children.
Not all single mothers are able to meet the needs of their children, which might result in their hopeless feelings. A single parent usually has material difficulties, mostly due to a lower income, but also due to a larger number of children and a less responsible lifestyle.
Due to the worse economic situation of a single-parent family, children are often unable to take part in extracurricular activities and are only provided with compulsory schooling.
A multidisciplinary team in a selected shelter for mothers with children, consisting of social workers, educator and pedagogue who work in so called "ŠKOLIČKA", contributes to the improvement of the situation.
In ŠKOLIČKA there is an educational program for pre-schoolers and pupils from the 1st to 5th elementary school class. The pedagogue approaches children individually, develops their attention, imagination, etc. according to the needs of the children, focuses on their proper development, and also offers remedial lessons for school-age children.

Research:
Qualitative research was carried out in the shelter for mothers with children, and the method of analysing documents of mothers as shelter users and the method of interviewing the social workers of the shelter were applied to collect data.
Based on the study of the file documentation of 10 shelter home users, the specified categories related to the particular needs of users were evaluated, namely the condition of the user, number of children in their care, reasons for admission, state administration records, social benefits, fulfilment of individual plan, integration and length of stay. The categories included also the area of individual planning and multidisciplinary cooperation, and together with additional information obtained from interviews with social workers, the requirements of shelter users for their children's educational activities in relation to breaking barriers in education for this vulnerable low-income group were determined.
From the whole range of defined needs in presented areas, the most often represented is the area of childcare - opportunities to ensure a safe environment for children, strengthening parental competencies, counselling in education and health care, and the area of planning and money management - family finance management and leadership to independence in financial management. These areas therefore represent the dominant topics of consultations and interventions conducted in shelters in the Czech Republic.

Keywords:

Mother as shelter user, child, shelter, educational activities.