This article analyses the importance of social support for young people from areas directly affected by the war in Croatia. The aim was to establish the quality of social support as perceived by high-school seniors from the areas of special state care in the Sisak-Moslavina County. The sample included 268 students from all senior classes of all high schools in this county (from the towns of Glina, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Topusko and Petrinja). 183 of these were seniors attending four-year programs (68,3 per cent), and 85 were seniors attending three-year programs (31,7 per cent). The analyzed variables included their perception of the quality of social support provided by immediate and extended family, friends and the community, that is, how they felt about relying on various formal and informal sources of support in trying to realize their personal goals in the future. The results showed that young people from the areas directly affected by the war at the end of their high school education have highest confidence in the support coming from their immediate family, and that in the realization of their personal future goals they rely mostly on themselves, while expressing a very negative attitude to the support of state institutions. The results suggest that a powerful source of support for young former refugees exists within informal sources (family, friends, and relatives), while at the same time they express a strong distrust of formal, institutional sources of support.

Social support Trust towards formal and informal sources of support Realization of future personal goals Young former refugees

controlled study war normal human Trust social support expectation refugee Croatia high school Article community human friend family attitude Adolescent