Formal and informal practices of social services for older citizens

The formal and informal practices of social services for elderly consumers of social services in modern Russia are analyzed on the basis on the results of quantitative (questionnaire survey) and qualitative (interview) research. The article analyzes the current state of the social service system for citizens of retirement age in this country, which allowed the authors to state the impossibility of its state formalization in order to satisfy all social, living and medical needs of citizens of the third and fourth ages. The article emphasizes the need for a serious transformation of the existing system of public social services in the direction of expanding its subjects – participants in the service market. The practice of social, social, medical and psychological services for elderly citizens at home is considered. The most popular services are identified for full payment or partially paid. The ranking of demand for social services has been determined: social services: cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning; services for organizing medical events: escort to the polyclinic, purchase of medications, hygiene procedures; services of a psychological nature, performed less frequently and implemented in the process of interaction with a client. The authors come to the conclusion that despite the commercialization of social services and their contractual regulation, there is no transformation of social service practices on the part of consumers of services. It is common for social workers, in addition to their professional duty, to satisfy additional requests, outside the list of services provided to the consumer, which does not become an obstacle to the formation of favorable interactions between social service employees and senior citizens.