Welfare (not) welcomed. A few words about NIMBY for social workers

The article deals with an issue of social consent for institutional social help activities in the functional area of the local community. When planning the development of social infrastruc-ture for social help purposes, it sometimes happens that some elements are not taken into ac-count such as the consent of town residents (neighbours) to the location of the infrastructure. Plans to create a social facility encounter resistance of residents who are concerned about their own safety. The source of such anxiety are clients of institutions, for whom the inhabitants have negative stereotypes. We experience then a conflict situation, social protests, referred to in the scientific literature as the NIMBY syndrome. We learn most about the local protests from the media, about the reasons for the protests, NIMBA actors. The article gives examples of such protests regarding the location of a social institution. Examples come from public sources – local and national newspapers, internet sources. The development of events is tracked by the media up to a certain point – for example, reaching consent or moving away from the intention to locate the institution. For social workers, this is a sufficient package of information to take into account the potential resistance of residents. In this light, it is possible to predict the lack of consent of the local community to the neighborhood with a specific cat-egory of clients of social institution. Therefore, an appropriate information campaign, ahead of the implementation of the project, can protect investors by confronting the inhabitants of the city, time-consuming and expensive procedures, and above all negative emotions. Thanks to that avoidances of hostility, aggression towards employees of institutions, clients of institu-tions and objects of this institution will be avoided.