A contemporary debate on the issue of social work in Poland is focused on a search for new forms of help and support for the people functioning out of the mainstream. Change occurring both within the way of thinking and professional actions taken by social workers, comes from the assumptions of so called active social policy and from the complex series of social law regulations established in recent years. But this is also a result of defining and testing innovative ways of organizing socio-vocational life, mainly on a basis of civil organizations activeness. The Authors underline the necessity of combining activities in the area of labour market and the family policy, focusing on the poverty of children in particular. The lack of inter-sector approach to the problem is one of the most fundamental threats to the planned legally-institutional solutions concerning social economy in Poland.