Klaipėdos universitetas

The focus of this article is on the personality of a social worker as most qualified representative of the profession. The task of the article is to explore social worker’s personal agency and context beliefs as a factor to increase the motivation of social worker’s professional activity. The methodological basis of the research is the Concept of Effective Functioning (Motivational Systems Theory, Ford, 1992). The talk – interview was used to gain factual information about social worker’s capability beliefs related to the main elements of problem solving process. To explore social worker’s context beliefs, a construct embracing essential factors characteristic to social organizations was made. The research provide information about the mentioned parameters of the beliefs and reveal the dominating patterns of social workers’ professional functioning indicating the level of their motivation.

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.

The article looks into the prospects of social work in the probation system. The probation system provides convicts with the opportunities of social integration in the conditions of freedom. The system is currently under intense development, projects appear, and the need for different professionals emerges. The goal of social work is to empower individuals to help themselves and their immediate environment by activating internal and external resources and promoting empowering collaboration. The article presents the discussion of the conceptions of the probation system in the convict resocialisation process. On the basis of empiric research, the opportunities of social work as a supporting profession and its place in the probation system in the pursuit of convict resocialisation is designed.

In this article the efforts of social workers to promote inclusive practices in children day care centres is analysed. Changes in education based on life-long learning culture require active and conscious participation of parents in child’s education process. However, this participation becomes overburden if family is socially excluded because of the deviant lifestyle or poverty. Indeed, practical observations together with results of the studies reveal that the collaboration between social professions, which aim to implement child welfare and parents is insufficient. In order to help these families children day care centres were established. The aim of the article is to reveal how social workers construct professional help with parents on the purpose to help overcoming child’s issues at school. The study is based on hermeneutical methodology. During Soviet period development of child’s skills belonged to the educational institutions outside the family. Research participants still struggles for the ownership of these developments, pushing neglectful parents aside. The research revealed that within transformation process social workers adapts the forms of professional posture, however, the content of their performance is inherited from the past experiences and historical development.