2022-12-06
National Audit Office: proactive action is also required to identify people affected by crises
More effective assistance to people in crisis situations requires more proactive identification, better legal and psychological assistance, increased physical accessibility and effectiveness, and wider publicity of such assistance and other services provided. This was revealed by the audit of the National Audit Office “Performance of crisis management, specialised assistance centres”.
“Our society is as strong as its most vulnerable members feel safe. Therefore, it is very important to notice the people most in need of assistance and to take the necessary steps in time to help them. However, if the person himself does not ask for help or does not know where to apply, it becomes difficult to help him," says Rasa Rakauskienė, the audit team leader.
37 % of municipalities did not apply proactive measures in 2019-2021 to identify those in need of assistance. 15 % of municipalities and 80 % of specialised integrated assistance centres used the practice of searching for people potentially in crisis situations and analysing who is in need and of what kind of assistance.
In all cases where people have applied to municipalities or specialised integrated assistance centres for crisis situations or domestic violence, the need for assistance has been identified individually, but assistance to those in crisis situations does not sufficiently meet their minimum needs, and there is a lack of psychological and legal assistance. In 2021, in centres providing assistance to victims of domestic violence, only 14 % of people received psychological services, and 10 % of people – legal services. There is a lack of contact services, the main form of assistance is telephone conversations. Service centres in some areas are more than 50 km away from people seeking assistance, but there are no transportation services foreseen for them.
According to the auditors, there is no possibility for all individuals seeking to change their violent behaviour to do so — it is not clear how to enter the violence behaviour change programs funded by the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, which are currently implemented in only 17 municipalities.
Monitoring of assistance to people in crisis situations would make it possible to measure the results achieved, but 80 % of municipalities, 58 % of service-providing entities and all specialised integrated service centres have not yet assessed the effectiveness of the assistance provided.
Implementation of the recommendations made by the National Audit Office will allow, by 2026, twice as many victims of domestic violence to receive consulting of a psychologist and 1.5 times more victims - legal assistance.