In 2000 European Union launched the social inclusion strategy, a strategy to combat poverty and social exclusion. In 2005 it became a part of a broader social protection and social inclusion process. The strategy has fallen short of expectations as the scale of social exclusion in the EU did not decrease. The weakness of the strategy has been its method, which however has been implemented as a result of lacking EU social policy competencies. On the other hand, poverty and social exclusion have appeared on the central EU agenda for the first time, and knowledge about and awareness of the problem have risen. As a result, promoting social inclusion has been included into the newly adopted strategy "Europe 2020" among its central targets.

The aim of the article is to present the evolution of the decision concepts and tendencies in social policy towards poverty and social exclusion during past 20 years; the period of great political system and economic changes and accession to the European community. The deliberations concern the explanation of difficulty with identification of the poverty problem and social exclusion, reactive character of the policy used and its various limitations: ideological, financial - economic and political. The changes in forming the poverty and its main causes are also presented: from the poverty caused by the system changes and industry restructuring and agriculture to the poverty of smaller scope, but deeper and multidimensional; to the social exclusion phenomenon. There also are questions about the future of social policy in that scope and taking up the problem of social inequalities, which will in Poland keep the relative poverty rate at high level.

This article presents a short analysis of the development and the most important components of the family allowance system in Poland in a larger socio-political context, from its origins until the legislation of 2003 that altered the major components of family policy in the country. Postwar system of family allowances is discussed at two different levels - as an element of labor market/wage policy in the conditions of command economy and as a key part of the anti-crisis policy of the state, focusing on the alleviation of social unrest. The institutional weakness of the family allowance system within the overall structure of social insurance before 1989, deepened during the 1990s as a result of regime changes, in conjunction with the unfavorable timing of the adoption and reform attempts in the past - all these factors partially explain the progressing degradation of this potentially key element of modern social protection. Another significant element influencing underdevelopment of family benefits in cash is linked to the utilization of this program as a political tool to combat the effects of repeated crises. Such action can also be observed after 1989 and before 2003, when the Polish government finally gave up the idea of widely accessible social insurance-based or universal family allowances. In the end, despite the emergence of new demographic challenges and the need for a new type of family policy for the growing middle class, family allowances can still be seen as a "rejected" legacy or a never realized promise of the Polish welfare state.

The notion of poverty has been changing over the past years: from extreme material poverty in the narrow sense, to the wider concept of poverty which considers the social context, the long-term perspective and many dimensions of the deprivation. These modifications have influenced the methodology of the statistical investigation of poverty, and have been reflected in the design and interpretation of poverty indices. The text describes main methodological changes, presents actual standard approaches to poverty measurement and indicates questions which remain debatable. Concluding section includes the short discussion of the gaps or weaknesses of poverty statistics such as: inability to provide rapid responses to the short-term economic events, inadequate treatment of changing family patterns and labor arrangements, as well as the lack of proper methods of poverty measurement for marginal and discriminated populations.

The paper describes selected active labour market programs carried out at the powiat level and targeted at persons excluded from the labour market. 'Traditional' programs turn out to be not efficient for all unemployed but there exist examples of tools and programs - also from the area of social economy - that help at least part of the long-term uinemployed.

The goal of the article is to analyse four models of interrelations between social exclusion and black economy. The analysis incorporates the perspective of black economy research. It decribes determinants of a risk of involving in activities of black economy and moving out as well as state policy targeting unregistered market activities.

The subject of this article is supplying the economically marginalized person's housing needs in contemporary Poland. The author was taking into account two categories of such people: the poor/bad housed and the homeless. In the article the practice of supplying their needs is discussed in two aspects: accessibility of cheap/social flats and places in institutions for homeless and their living standards. There are in Poland the question of lack cheap municipal flats and half - way rooms for the homeless. One of the effect of this situation is too long and unnecessary staying of many people in state of homelessness. In the article are presented recommendations for social policy in his area.

Inequalities in utilization of medical services have been of rising concern to the policy makers of EU and WHO in the last two decades. Results of the analysis presented in the article show that important changes in utilization of medical services took place in Poland. Firstly, despite cost-control health policy utilization of primary, secondary and hospital services has been growing between 1996 and 2004, with the most sound increase in utilization of the dentistry. This is a result of growing importance of health in a society with increasing educational and economic aspirations. Secondly, the results show that primary and hospital care are easily accessible to poorer educated, while dentistry is distributed highly unequally and these inequalities are growing. Thus, despite growing utilization, highly privatized dentistry seems to be less accessible to poorer groups of the society. It could be an evidence of a trend that the higher privatization level of medical services, the higher is a risk of exclusion of the poorer groups of the society from its utilization.

The aim of the article is to review and analyze the programmes of providing additional nutrition by public (territorial self-governments and government) institutions in Poland, as well as non-governmental organizations and companies (as a part of social corporate responsibility). The problem in question was not only if the programmes of additional nutrition realized are effective in relation to their main objective, i.e. combating poverty among children and youth, but also if in these programmes a sufficient attention is paid on health-related criteria of products and meals offered for children and youth with. There were reason for assuming that realized additional nutrition programmes take insufficiently into account health aspects of nutrition. The analysis was based on results of researches, which were done in Poland in that subject and on reports on realization of additional nutrition programmes of main responsible institutions. The analysis is of preliminary character because of highly insufficient information concerning the social and health outcomes of activities carried out. As a result of the review and the analysis there have been conclusions and recommendations formulated concerning the directions of social policy encompassing additional nutrition of children and youth

The author of the article shows the significance and the role of prevention in social assistance. She gives reasons why a social worker should be responsible for certain types of prevention in that field. The article develops the subject of cooperation between various institutions on different local government levels, especially the lowest level - the municipality. The author depicts social work as a unique working tool for social workers. In prevention, social assistance serves as a means of supporting the person under care and obtaining him as an active partner in counteracting difficult life situations. The article also shows the scarcity of research and theoretical conceptions that deal with social politics and the analysis of tools effectively used in the field of social security.

This paper examines links between financial behaviours of low-income individuals and their vulnerability to poverty in transition context of Poland. Based on a multidisciplinary approach and an analysis conducted on two qualitative and two quantitative datasets, this study shows that reactive financial behaviours in low-income households hamper asset accumulation and significantly increase vulnerability to poverty. Driven by levels of financial capability, the financial behaviours are instrumental in explaining vulnerability to poverty as they are the strongest predictor from a wide menu of other livelihood and asset variables. Limited long-term financial planning, saving and preparing for risks increase vulnerability, whereas borrowing and using financial services do not influence it much, though help to accumulate assets. The relationship between financial behaviours and vulnerability is weaker but also true for the poorest groups, which shows that the poorest can benefit from greater financial capability, especially if it is coupled with better access to safety nets. Given that vulnerability to poverty increased significantly over the last 20 years in the transition countries, I argue that determinants of reactive financial behaviours are key to develop sound vulnerability reduction policies. While different actors have been trying to eliminate structural vulnerability drivers during the transition period, there have been few actions to promote proactive financial behaviours. This study draws also important conclusions for microfinance. Achieving vulnerability reduction through 'access to finance' agenda uniquely is not evident in the context where individuals have low financial capabilities. It seems like microfinance will not be fully successful in meeting its development objectives in the transition context if it does not consider promoting proactive financial behaviours.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives also the right social security to everybody. However, only minority of the world's population can actually enjoy such security and protection in case they need it. The paper presents efforts aimed at changing this situation undertaken during the last years- by both developing countries themselves and the international community. International Labour Organization and other UN agencies promote the idea of the social protection floor, a set of social guarantees which would be feasible to implement relatively quickly even in the poorest countries. Exampled from a number of developing countries suggest, that this is possible to achieve.

The phenomenon of social exclusion has not only been attracting interest of new groups of analysts, but as one observes in the UK of the fin de siecle it has become a leading theme in the activities of political parties. Since 1997, that is overtaking the power, social exclusion has safely landed in the mainframe of the British politics. This paper aims at presenting solutions to combat social exclusion adopted in the UK, bearing in mind potential implementation possibilities in Poland. It presents politics, institutions and public policies to tackle social exclusion. Needless to say some elements are indeed worth to adopt, yet would require certain contextualisation.

EU SOCIAL INCLUSION STRATEGY - Maciej Żukowski
TWENTY YEARS OF POVERTY RESEARCH AND POLICY IN POLAND - Stanisława Golinowska
FAMILY ALLOWANCES AS "REJECTED" HERITAGE OF THE COMMUNIST WELFARE STATE IN POLAND - Tomasz Inglot
DYNAMICS OF THEIDEA OF POVERTY AND MEASUREMENT PRACTICES - Irena Topińska
ALMP AT THE LOCAL LEVELS - A WAY TO COMBAT POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION - Anna Ruzik
SOCIAL EXCLUSION A GREY ECONOMY- Marek Bednarski
MEETING HOUSING NEEDS OF THE ECONOMICALLY MARGINAL PEOPLE I N POZNAŃ - Andrzej Przymeński
ON EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES IN MEDICAL SERVICES UTILIZATION - Agnieszka Sowa
ADDITIONAL CHILD NUTRITION - Stanisława Golinowska z udziałem Dominiki Sochy
PREVENTION IN SOCIAL ASSISTANCE - Joanna Staręga-Piasek
POOR HOUSEHOLDS MONEY MANAGEMENT IN TRANSITORY POLAND - Michał Matul
SOCIAL PROTECTION FLOOR - Krzysztof Hagemejer
POLICIES COPING WITH SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN GREAT BRITAIN - Ewa Ślęzak