The article presents an example of social work education, in which reflexive practice learning was used to help students work competently in professional practice. Within an action research project, ...new forms of mentoring support for students working with families facing multiple challenges were developed as part of their practice learning. This paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis of the students’ reflections on mentoring meetings. Content analysis was used for data analysis. The analysis shows that practice learning should be framed as a reflexive dialogue between mentors and students. Students need opportunities to share experiences and expand their knowledge with other students in small mentoring groups. The continuous and concrete support that the mentoring group provided to the students in practice enabled them to deal with the sense of uncertainty that often arises in collaborative processes of help.
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.
The findings on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and outcomes in adulthood cover a wide subject area. In order to understand the results of ACE studies and plan adequate ...measures, the role of social work should not be disregarded. This paper studies the topic of ACEs, positive childhood experiences and the association with the subjective experience of poverty, which has rarely been addressed, but is relevant to social work. The research was based on simple and extended ACE questionnaires and was conducted amongst the adult population of Slovenia (n = 4939). The results found that adverse material position is associated with a higher amount of adverse and a lower amount of positive childhood experiences (on average, people with adverse material position have 3.43 ACEs and 7.77 positive experiences, while those with better material position have only 1.75 ACEs and 9.82 positive experiences). Social work needs to provide measures on a systemic level to improve the material position of families and to develop programmes based on the poverty aware paradigm to support partnership and interparental relationships in order to decrease the incidence of ACE. In addition, people need adequate support (e.g. trauma-informed care) when recovering from ACE and to enhance their resilience.
Families facing poverty suffer from many other stresses, with children's school performance being one of the common topics. A life of poverty and the related unfavourable circumstances should not ...define children's life stories. Ensuring this is not the case is partly the responsibility of professionals working with families. It is important to overcome the problem of the frequently dispersed help given to multi-challenged families. We proceed from the premise that the vicious circle of failures can be broken by providing support and help to the family and by establishing a co-creative working relationship involving all of the participants in a joint working project. The results of the plural case study confirmed the importance of working with multi-challenged families, which includes dealing with the children's poor school performance, in their homes. They also showed the inadequacy of the often dominant discourse claiming that families do not want to receive help. The results prioritise the role of social workers and the relationship established at the beginning of the collaboration with the family. The presence of a social worker who persists with a joint project even in the case of failure represents an important new experience for families. Although multi-challenged families are resilient, they sometimes need an interlocutor to help them recognise and strengthen that resilience. (DIPF/Orig.).
Gospodarska kriza pridonijela je porastu broja obitelji koje se suočavaju s višestrukim izazovima u Sloveniji. To postavlja nove zadatke za kreatore socijalnih politika i socijalne radnike da ...odgovore na nove izazove na makro i mikro razini. Aktualno pitanje reorganizacije centara za socijalnu skrb u Sloveniji također otvara pitanja o vrstama promjena koje su potrebne. Razvili smo model rada s obiteljima koje se suočavaju s višestrukim izazovima i proučavali iskustva s ovim oblikom pomoći. Rezultati potvrđuju da je za kompetentnu pomoć obiteljima nužno osigurati kvalificirane socijalne radnike koji dosljedno primjenjuju načelo su stvaranja u individualnim projektima pomoći u zajednici i institucionalnim kontekstima. To će pružiti podršku profesionalnom socijalnom radu.
Social work with families is a specific social work field in which the social worker works in the midst of complex interactions between individuals, the family and the community. The proposed model ...of social work with families presented in this paper is designed for students, practitioners and academics to help them reflect on theories used in helping processes and their influences on direct practice in those instances in which social workers seek answers on how to act in complex processes of providing help to families. The model encourages the use of theoretical knowledge and offers social workers a choice of different theoretical concepts, which they can reflexively use in specific practical cases to co-create good results for families, while their members and the social worker collaborate in a unique working project of help. At the same time they all contribute to the development of a useful theory for the practice of social work with families. Adapted from the source document.
Pri tem gre tudi za ključen premik v odnosu socialne delavke ali socialnega delavca - od strokovnjaka s specializiranim znanjem, ki popravlja disfunkcije, k zavezniku, ki podpira ljudi v tem, da bi ...uzrli želeno življenje in se podali na pot želenih sprememb (Madsen, 2014). Več o projektu lahko preberete v članku Tadeje Kodele z naslovom »Izzivi socialnih delavk in delavcev pri delu z družinami s številnimi izzivi: podpora za refleksivno uporabo in razvijanje znanja v mentorski skupini projekta LIFE« v tej številki. 2 Npr. Theory in practice: increasing professional effectiveness. The heart of the matter 2: integration of ecosystemic famiiy therapy practices with systems of care mentai
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