New Leaf Czechia

Group A

These are those who have been given a one-off 100,000 CZK and an exclusive social worker who is there just for them and has the privilege of not having to deal with burdensome bureaucracy. At the same time, he is not overburdened by the large number of people for whom he is available. It is common practice for one social worker to work with up to 120 homeless people a year.

Group B

These homeless people have only been given 100 000,- and there are 20 of them. They do not have an exclusive social worker, but if necessary they can use any service offered by the standard social and health system.

Group C

This group has only an exclusive social worker without funding, and includes 20 people. The social worker is available to them for any of their needs and is not burdened by the usual bureaucracy, which according to our data takes on average 55% of their working time.

Group D

The last group is the so-called „control“ group. These 40 people will use standard health and social services without an exclusive social worker and without funding. It will be used to compare the current standard system of social and health services with the new approaches of the New Leaf Czech Republic project.

The criteria for all groups were set in such a way that only those who told us in the questionnaire that:

* that they have been currently homeless for less than 2.5 years.
This is because, according to research and social work practice, it takes approximately 2 to 2.5 years on the streets to lose most of the social habits you need to live the life you or I live.

* Are citizens of the Czech Republic.
We know from experience that there are many foreigners living on the street who also need help. However, in order not to complicate the research and to avoid language barriers between them, we only included Czechs in the research.

* Do not suffer from serious mental illness or addiction.
People also get on the streets because of mental illness. This illness can seriously affect the decision what to do with 100 000,-. In such a way that they can endanger their own lives. That is why we did not involve these homeless people in the research, because for them we need to look for solutions in another type of services that are linked to the health system.

The aim of the project is therefore to find out which of these groups will deliver the best outcomes for homeless people in tackling homelessness and why.

And at the same time, it will bring the greatest savings to us taxpayers.

She is the head of the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague and the expert guarantor of social work and innovation projects of the Neposeda organization.
She is the director of the expert National Centre for Social Studies, whose management she took over and follows the idea of the founders and giants of social work, Dr. Jiřina Šiklova, Prof., JUDr. Igor Tomeš and Ing. Petr Víšek, CSc.
She is active in many Czech and foreign boards that focus on people and their lives, e.g. she chairs the expert foreign board New Leaf, is part of the expert team in Nepustit duši, and the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institute of Mental Health, and is a member of the board of the Social Foundation Fund of the capital city of Prague. She is also a member of the board of the Prague Social Foundation. She is also chair of the editorial board of an international professional title on social work.
She lectures and speaks at a number of expert domestic and international forums and conferences, e.g. in Poland, or in Bucharest, Romania. In the last year she was in Slovakia – Publicy 2024, Social work – social exclusion, or at the International Pediatric Conference.
Previously, she worked at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, managing social services for the elderly and their families, and while studying she founded an organization focused on children, youth and family.
She has participated in systemic and international projects. She has been working on the topic of social work as a profession in the Czech Republic for a long time. Conceptually, she deals with the area of social work education and the possibilities of legislative regulation of conditions for social work, including the specific area of social work in public administration. He leads the new generation of students to a confident and autonomous understanding of the profession.
She is a recipient of the GRATIAS 2024 award for outstanding contribution to social work.