The Path to Oneself

Summary

The Path to Oneself is a ten-month social rehabilitation service offered in Riga by the Latvian Children’s Support Fund for children with behavioural and communication challenges and their families. Running from September to June, the programme offers psychosocial support, specialist consultations, and joint creative activities to foster social inclusion in early education settings. Now serving 72 families, the initiative strengthens parental understanding and provides comprehensive guidance to help children overcome communication barriers.

Organisation

Latvian Children’s Support Fund (LBAF) -Latvia 

Context/ Social issues addressed

Children with behavioural and communication difficulties often face severe challenges with social inclusion, adaptational stress, and relationship-building in kindergarten and primary school environments. Without targeted intervention, these communication barriers can lead to early isolation, academic struggles, and strained family dynamics due to a lack of parental understanding regarding the child’s specific developmental needs.

To address this issue, The Path to Oneself provides structured, long-term (ten-month) psychosocial support to children and their families. By offering specialist consultations, family support services, and joint creative activities, the practice aims to minimise communication challenges, foster inclusion in educational settings, and equip parents with the insight and tools needed to support their child's holistic development.

Objectives

1. Reduce and progressively eliminate communication and social inclusion barriers for children with behavioural difficulties in kindergarten and primary school settings.
2. Enhance family understanding and capacity regarding the child's developmental, emotional, and social needs through multidisciplinary support and consultations.
3. Provide structured, long-term psychosocial rehabilitation and joint parent-child activities that strengthen family relationships and promote long-term wellbeing.

Activities

The Path to Oneself is a comprehensive, ten-month program (running from September to the end of June) designed to address behavioural and communication challenges through structured, multi-faceted interventions for children and their families. To achieve its core objectives, the practice implements the following key activities:

• Participant Selection and Initial Assessment: At the start of the programme cycle, a thorough selection process is conducted to identify children in kindergarten and primary school who experience communication and inclusion difficulties, ensuring targeted delivery to families most in need.
• Social Worker Consultations: Social workers conduct regular individual sessions to continuously evaluate the family’s needs, guide them through the rehabilitation journey, coordinate support pathways, and monitor progress over the ten-month period.
• Multidisciplinary Specialist Consultations: Tailored expert interventions are provided based on each child and family's unique requirements. Specialists involved include family psychotherapists, occupational therapists, neurologists, special education teachers, and other relevant professionals who address specific behavioural, cognitive, and physical development needs.  
• Family Support Services: Ongoing practical and emotional assistance is made available to parents and caregivers, building their skills to manage behavioural challenges, reduce stress, and foster a supportive home environment that complements educational settings.
• Creative Communication and Joint Activities: Interactive sessions bring children and parents together to improve bonding and social interaction. These include joint creative workshops, organised family excursions, and specialised inter-institutional cooperation initiatives to strengthen connection with community resources.
• Family Camp: A dedicated camp experience is organised to offer an immersive, supportive environment where families can build peer networks, practice new communication strategies, and participate in guided therapeutic and recreational exercises away from daily routine stressors.

Through this interconnected set of activities, the practice delivers continuous, holistic support that minimises communication barriers and reinforces sustainable family dynamics.

Outcomes

Over its eight years of operation in Riga, the practice has demonstrated significant growth and lasting positive impact:

• Proven Growth and High Demand: From supporting 22 families in its first year, the programme has continuously expanded to now serve 72 families who enter the service each September.
• Building Secure Attachment and Social Ecosystem: By working intensively with both the child and their parents, the service fosters secure attachment within the family. This strengthens their ability to communicate in a safe and respectful manner, creating a strong foundation (ecosystem) for the family to build respectful relationships and collaborate constructively within broader society.
• Improved Child Inclusion: Children exhibit reduced communication barriers, better emotional regulation, and smoother social integration in kindergarten and primary school settings.

To objectively measure the intervention's real-world impact, the team contacts the child's kindergarten or primary school at the start and end of the 10-month service. Educators assess the child's behaviour and communication skills, enabling the organisation to evaluate its precise contribution toward improving the child's situation in the educational environment. Additionally, impact is measured through ongoing social worker evaluations, specialist reports, and feedback from participating parents.

Principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights

1. Education, training, life-long learning	2. Gender equality
3. Equal opportunities	4. Active support to employment
5. Secure and adaptable employment	6. Fair Wages
7. Transparent employment conditions	8. Social dialogue
9. Work-life balance	10. Healthy, safe work environment
11. Childcare and child support	12. Social protection
13. Unemployment benefits	14. Minimum income
15. Old age income and pensions	16. Health care
17. Inclusion of people with disabilities	18. Long-term care
19. Housing and assistance to homeless	20. Access to essential services

Funding Source

Local Government Funds

Links to supporting documents

Pakalpojums ”Ceļš pie sevis” – LBAF

Comments and tips

Implementing a multi-disciplinary social rehabilitation service like The Path to Oneself requires a holistic, ecosystem-centred approach. For organisations wishing to adapt or implement this practice in their own services, we recommend the following:

• Establish a Standardised Educational Baseline: Implement certified parent training on emotional competence at the start of the service cycle. Requiring both participating parents and all multidisciplinary specialists to complete this training ensures that everyone shares a unified methodology and language regarding emotional regulation and child-rearing.
• Emphasise Dual Parent-Child Engagement: Sustainable change for a child cannot occur in isolation. Ensure the programme actively involves parents through joint activities, camp experiences, and consultations to build secure attachment and strengthen parenting capacity alongside the child's individual progress.
• Establish Cross-Institutional Collaboration Early: Build structured communication channels with local educational institutions (kindergartens and schools) from the onset. Formalising pre- and post-service evaluation procedures with teachers provides essential impact data and ensures consistent support across home and school environments.
• Assemble a Diverse Multidisciplinary Team: Tailor specialist support (psychotherapists, occupational therapists, special education teachers, neurologists) to each family's specific needs rather than applying a "one-size-fits all" approach.
• Maintain Long-Term Structural Continuity: A ten-month programme cycle (aligned with the academic year) provides the time needed for trust-building, behavioural change, and habit consolidation. Avoid short-term interventions when addressing deeply rooted communication or behavioural challenges.
• Plan for Scalable Growth: Start with a smaller pilot cohort (e.g., 15-20 families) to refine operational workflows, case management procedures, and feedback mechanisms before scaling to larger participant volumes.