The main topic of this paper is the question, what can the state management of the COVID-19 pandemic tell us about the social system in Slovenia? Slovenia was among the countries that took tough ...measures to limit the spread of the virus and drastically limited the contacts of staff in social services with service users, rather than adapting the measures to increased need of people for support and help to ease social distress. We examined the problem with research on the operation of social services during the first and second wave of the pandemic. The results mainly showed big differences between social services, which indicates inconsistent functioning of the social system. In some places they prohibited personal contact between employees and users of services, while in others, with the constant search for innovative ways of acting, they enabled and even encouraged contact. The main conclusion of the research is that these inconsistencies are primarily a consequence of structural deficiencies and the government's lack of awareness of the importance of these services for general well-being.
This article aims to problematize a socially relevant, but politically overlooked issue of poverty among older women. Data show that poverty among women is a challenge for most EU countries and ...wider. However, it cannot be explained without understanding gender-specific life courses of women. We present the differences between older women and men in terms of the risk of poverty and compare them with those in EU countries. The article is based on secondary data, i.e. the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU SILC), which enable comparisons among EU countries. We have established that the gender gap in terms of risk of poverty widens in old age. The at-risk-of-poverty rate for women is much higher in Slovenia than in other EU states. The gap is especially large in the age group 75 and over. Slovenia has not been successful in coping with the risk of poverty problem, because it failed to introduce special measures to reduce the general risk of poverty and gender gap.
Abstract
The article discusses the results of a research study on social work during COVID-19 in Slovenia. Governmental measures to prevent the spread of the disease have increased the need for ...assistance to various groups of people but at the same time limited their access to social services. The main research question was to what extent social workers and social services were able to reorganise and adapt to crisis conditions and how this relates to the role of social work in society. Data were collected using mixed methods: online survey and interviews with social workers. Content analysis and selective coding, thematic analysis and univariate descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. The analysis shows that the ability of social workers to respond to the growing and changing needs of people during the pandemic depended on the context in which they worked. Social work was perceived as more effective and responsive in social services where professional autonomy was assured and valued and where horizontal relationships existed between staff and management. The study contributed to a better understanding of the context in which the pandemic occurred and identified some structural barriers to successful social work that are internationally comparable and relevant.
This article presents a mixed-methods study ‘Social work during COVID-19 in Slovenia’, in which data were collected through an online survey and interviews with social workers. The aim was to examine the response of social workers in social work centres (SWCs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of measures against the spread of the virus on social work, and their relationship to the role of social work in society. The measures taken in SWCs against the spread of the virus and the social context in which the pandemic occurred are related. The main findings were that, in SWCs where management was based on democratic negotiations and participation, staff were more satisfied than in SWCs with authoritarian management. Social work in Slovenia during COVID-19 was individualised and reduced to emergency contacts with service users. Social workers were excluded from national action planning, and social work engagement and visibility during the pandemic was higher in SWCs that were well-embedded in the local community. The lack of visibility of SWCs is related to the overall role of social work in society, where the needs of SWCs and their staff have been long overlooked.
In the last 15 years, transdisciplinary research of sustainability transitions has become an increasingly powerful approach. We discuss it as a perspective for social work discipline, and as a ...theoretical-conceptual frame of a new international doctoral training and research programme in social work taking place in seven European countries. In our qualitative study, we investigate how the participating social work doctoral students reflect upon transdisciplinarity and understand the interconnectivity between environmental, ecological, and social sustainability transitions-which is widely recognised as a highly complex challenge of sustainability. The data used included the students' learning diaries from the first summer school of this programme. As core findings of the analysis five joint themes expressing the interconnectivity emerged from the data: the indispensable role of nature for all life; the economy-based causes of unsustainability; the role of human rights; the researchers' own ways of life; and the practice-relevance for SW. Our results support recent theoretical arguments that transdisciplinarity comprises not only a disciplinary thinking but a way of being, where the holistic lives of researchers merge with the content of their work. Regarding our analysis of the pedagogical and didactic arrangements promoting transdisciplinary thinking, we can encourage direct collaboration and teaching inputs with other disciplines and demonstrable practice applications.
Socijalni rad je u Sloveniji kao i drugdje tradicionalno povezan s nadzorom, bilo da se neposredno nadovezuje na rad sudova (maloljetnički sudovi, razvodi itd.), bilo da ima ovlasti posezati u ...privatnost ljudi bez njihove suglasnosti (npr. izdvajanje djece, smještaj u udomiteljsku obitelj i sl.). Svijest o moći koja proizlazi iz ovih ovlasti već je tijekom sedamdesetih i osamdesetih godina prošlog stoljeća dovela do konceptualnih pomaka koji su ljudima omogućavali zadržavanje kontrole nad vlastitim životima, unatoč ovim intervencijama. Tada se govorilo o konfliktu između skrbi i nadzora, o dvostrukom ili čak trostrukom mandatu socijalnog rada, a kasnije su se razvili koncepti osnaživanja, zagovaranja te participativni pristupi i sl. Suština tih pristupa bila je u osvještavanju moći kojom se uspostavljaju autoritarni odnosi između stručnjaka i korisnika u okviru kojih problem nije moguće riješiti, jer korisnici pri tome gube kontrolu nad vlastitim životima. U ovom se trenutku suočavamo s novom vrstom nadzora koja više nije povezana sa sudstvom i zakonskim ovlastima, već je dio socijalnih politika koje postaju sve represivnije. Riječ je o politikama koje su usmjerene na jačanje individualne odgovornosti i krivnje pojedinca za situaciju u kojoj se našao. Te politike prije svega pogađaju nezaposlene i korisnike novčanih davanja ili nekih drugih socijalnih novčanih davanja. Tako se socijalni rad suočava s novim očekivanjima vezanim uz sudjelovanje u nadzoru i kažnjavanju ponašanja i osobnosti korisnika usluga, što dovodi do velikih suprotnosti između teorije i prakse socijalnog rada.
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