The Role of Friendly Families in the Education Process in Catholic Educational Institutions ”Nasz Dom” (”Our Home”)

Abstract

The family is the fundamental environment in which a man grows up. Dysfunction and pathology of family life have a destructive effect on children. For Rev. Bronisław Markiewicz, a great pedagogue taking care of deserted children the family was a value that he considered the most significant in his educational work. His protective-educational activity aimed at compensating orphans for the lack of the family.

At present the guidelines of the educational system set by Rev. Bronisław Markiewicz are realized in the “Nasz Dom” Catholic educational institutions run by the Order of Sisters of St Michael the Archangel. In order to prepare the children better to live in the family, starting from July 1994 the Order cooperates with a numerous and well organized group of friendly families from Ropczyce and surrounding places.

On the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the cooperation, studies were undertaken on the role of these families in the educational process in the“ Nasz Dom” Catholic educational institutions. The studies involved a broad range of aspects pointing to the inner formation of the girls living in the institutions.

As the results of the studies show, the cooperation of the “Nasz Dom” institutions with friendly families gives very good results. The friendly families become an integral part of the educational process, complementing it with their own observations concerning the girls' personal development, and first of all, they actively join the process.

The issue clearly becomes part of the pedagogical theory and practice, particularly at the meeting point of two sub-disciplines: pedagogy of the family and tutelary pedagogy.