Tiltai

The paper focuses on the currently rather intensive process of the social work professionalisation and proposes to place a greater emphasis on the human dimension, i.e. social worker’s personality as a guarantee of professional success. The occupational burnout syndrome is discussed as a negative subjective circumstance of the profession of social work. The principal traits of the occupational burnout syndrome are revealed, and the dimensions of the occupational burnout syndrome are identified and characterised. On the basis of the works of Lithuanian and foreign researchers on the said subject, the discourse of the occupational burnout syndrome in social work is presented, and the factors that influence the emergence of the phenomenon (both individual and job-related / organisational) in professional activity are discussed. The empirical research by means of the so far the most popular Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (MBI) reveals the effects of the occupational burnout on social worker’s personality, practical activity, and the status of the profession of social work in the society.

Recently, health-related quality of life has become one of the main underlying assumptions for public health practice, especially for gaining insights into highly complex health problems that are mainly determined by social factors. Children’s health is highly determined by social factors, especially those in the family environment. We follow a newly emerging trend to investigate health-related quality of life within a family-centered social system instead of individualistic approach; therefore, we chose KIDSCREEN52 questionnaire. We consider KIDSCREEN52 questionnaire significant for public health practice.

In this article an emergency medical assistance and the inter hospital transfer problems are analysed in context of the restructurization of health care institutions and services, also of regionalization and centralization policy in Lithuania. Though the increased accessibility of health care services and improvement of the quality, also reduction of social exclusion and unevenness of provision of health care services are declared as the main objectives (purpose) of restructurization, however increased number of inter hospital transfers and crowding of the Emergency Departments indicate the possible negative tendencies. One of the substantial (fundamental) requirement of the inter hospital transfers is the continuous emergency care during transportation. The article provides a unified concept of second transportation between hospitals. The survey results contain the points of specialists and executives of emergency medical assistance on the current management situation of inter hospital patient flow and the ways how the management of patient flow can be improved. The study was made using questionnaire survey, the questions were divided into separate groups by the objectives of this study. Reasoned conclusions and the scheme of the emergency medical care patients flow are developed with reference to the results of this study.

The article analyses the development of employee financial participation in Lithuania, describes the legal environment of financial participation, and supports this participation. Two methods were used to analyse employee financial participation: 1) the method of logical analysis in examining the internal documents of companies; 2) the qualitative research methods of focus group and semi-structured individual interviews. Theories of the agency and stakeholders were used to analyse the data collected. These theories are usually applied in research in an integrated way, analysing employee financial participation to elucidate the phenomenon of employee ownership, and examining the agent’s performance. It has been established that in Lithuania four employee share ownership programmes and plans usually apply: extensive employee share option programmes (granted to public limited companies whose shares are traded on stock exchanges); granting employee stock options to executives (so-called executive stock option programmes and one-time decisions); stock option programmes in start-ups; and shares granted by shareholders to employees.

The aim of this study is to seek answers to the following questions: 1) How has the formation and development of the history of education interacted with teacher training in universities? 2) How did the Iron Curtain influence the development of the history of education in Latvia and how can the consequences of Soviet era in the history of education be overcome? 3) What kind of history of education is suitable for teacher training programmes today? These questions are researched based on the analysis of the history of pedagogy as a course in Latvian and Belgian universities.

The aim of this study was to describe family social work through analyzing the roles of social workers. Qualitative research was carried out in three big cities of Lithuania: Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipėda. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 family social workers. A discursive psychology approach was chosen. Family social workers’ interpretative roles repertoires appear among professional, public and organizational discourses. The results showed that family social workers categorise professional roles in relation to different everyday practices that depend on situated language use in the contexts in which they take place.

The article analyses theoretical development of positive social work approach via highlighted strengths of client. The professional social work compounds analysis of problematic relationships of individuals, families and communities, seek for social change and orientation towards maintenance of quality of life. Strength – oriented model is essential for its application towards vulnerable groups in pluralistic context of social work methods. It is discussed in the article that despite critics towards strength-oriented model, positive approach is fundamental basis for effective communication. Negative expectations, questions, and problem-based attitude impacts client’s attitude towards self, the same it changes attitude of social network towards the client, and it affects behavior and relationships. In such a case the relationships of social worker and client to be not mentioned by distance, control and different possibilities is hardly expected. This understanding gap will be much more noticeable if social worker empowers his knowledge to name and solve the problem. Therefore, social worker influences passiveness of client. The article discusses that strength-oriented social work model does not mean fulfilling all the dreams and wishes of client as well as any willingness of client is best for this client. The most essential aspects discussed in the article is seen via close collaboration of social worker and client as well as tight both-sided interaction. Positive social work is approached towards analysis of concrete choices of client instead of accentuation of disorder.

In the article the importance of national cultures towards effectiveness of public sector‘s modernization reforms is analyzed with the aim of creation of public value abstractedly – on the governance macro level, as well as on meza level – concretely and adequately corresponding to the trajectories of national states development. The significance of national cultures in the article is analyzed in such dimensions as acquired status, length of service, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, contradiction with hierarchy, standpoint of time, universalism and particularism, integration, individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity.

Habilitation of children with hearing impairment is becoming an integral part of the education system in Republic of Moldova, which remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. The research data presented in this article show that accessibility to education for children with disabilities is full of contradictions. The research focuses on the ongoing reform of special education and assesses the adaptation of democratic values in education from the perspective of habilitation. The families involved in this research were low income full families who had a school age children with hearing impairment, lived in an urban environment of the big city and experienced shortage of services for their children. The assumption was taken, that in search for solution these families tend to compensate for the lack of services by self-creating the resources of habilitation. Results of the qualitative research highlighted two problems: social and economic. The essence of these problems – management of social stigmatization through realization of habilitation resources as a mean to compensate and replenish the lack of services. Research data also revealed the necessity of further construction and conceptualisation of habilitation resources.

Intellectual capital (IC), technology transfer and knowledge management gained a high topicality in knowledge-based economy. The aforementioned concepts emerged in a business world to show competitive advantage of enterprise in a knowledge-based economy. Identification of IC was oriented to demonstrate that enterprises are concerned with knowledge creation and not solely with financial accounting. On the contrary, IC is an organic entity of university life. However, in nowadays society universities should transform IC into competitive advantage; therefore, it is important to evaluate IC at universities using management categories. The article calls for scientific discussion that encourage understanding of IC as organization’s relationship with knowledge concept instead of fixed index. Moreover, IC concept is developed in a knowledge-based economy context, but now-days we need reconsider IC meaning in innovations context. The article aim to reveal the potential of IC to strengthen cooperation between science and business.