Tiltai

With the increasing number of individuals diagnosed with oncological diseases in Lithuania, support measures that promote patients’ quality of life are becoming particularly relevant. International research indicates that art therapy can serve as an effective form of psychosocial support for individuals facing cancer. However, the implementation of art therapy is still in its early stages in the Lithuanian healthcare system. This article presents a single case study exploring the application of art therapy. for a woman diagnosed with cancer. The qualitative research findings suggest that art therapy may function not only as a supportive intervention for individuals undergoing treatment, but also as a transformative space that facilitates the processing of physical, emotional and spiritual changes associated with the illness.

The childcare system in Lithuania is going through extensive changes in order to ensure the preparation and assessment of people who want to care for or adopt a child, on-call guardians have appeared, care centres have started operating in all municipalities, a unified agreement of guardians (carers), on-call guardians, adoptive parents and community children has been approved, as has the GIMK training and counselling programme for nursing home workers. Individuals who want to become a child’s guardian are trained and evaluated, and mutual support groups have started being organised. This is one of the measures aimed at strengthening, supporting and providing assistance to guardians (care givers), and there is an opportunity to solve issues relating to child custody. There are more and more guardians (care givers) who face difficulties in communicating with the ward, their relationship is strained, and the child experiences learning and adaptation difficulties, as a result of which the guardianship process is becoming more and more complicated. The current problem is manifestations of non-constructive behaviour that arise in adolescence, which worsen if these problems are not solved. A frequent guardian (carer) turns to care centre specialists, social workers and psychologists for help. Children’s guardians (carers) need constant qualified assistance from specialists and the state, because only in this way can guardians properly and competently perform their duty and meet the child’s needs and interests. This article analyses the experience of a mutual support group for care givers, and presents a qualitative study. The results of the study confirm the effectiveness of this type of support, and allow us to predict and design other support measures for care givers.

Each responsible personality who seeks productive outcomes in the professional activity tends to experience stress. Stress is an inseparable element of the contemporary professional activity. The analysis of the causes of the experienced stress and an appropriate choice of the stress management techniques enable one to cope with stress and to prevent its negative manifestations in an organization. The aim of the research: after the investigation of the distribution of stress as a psycho-social factor and the ways of coping with it in Klaipeda district educational organizations, to make an action plan for coping with stress with the aim of improving the work climate in organizations. The material and methods. For the research, educational organizations in Klaipėda district were chosen (in accordance with the data of Klaipėda District Municipality of 2011, there were 19 organizations with the staff of 599 at the time). The survey was conducted in September 2011 in collaboration with school public health care specialists from Klaipėda District Public Health Office. 286 questionnaires were handed out, and 246 ones were returned and found appropriate for the investigation. 31 questionnaires did not meet the criterion of representativeness, and 9 people refused to participate. For the statistical processing of the obtained data, the methods of descriptive, comparative, and correlation analysis were applied. The statistical processing of the data was carried out by the SPSS 17.0 software.The outcomes. The stressors characteristic of the staff of Klaipeda district educational organizations were established: responsibility for the future of the staff in the organization; personal skills and abilities completely fail to be realised in the organization; the work is monotonousand full of tension; the necessity to suppress one’s genuine emotions and not to show one’s true feelings; andresponsibility for the actions of other staff members. Statistically significant correlations were established between the coping with stress and the skills of management oriented towards problems and emotions. Conclusions. The staff of Klaipeda district educational organizations tended to belong to Type B personality, i.e. people whose response to stress was rather calm, however, they experienced work-related stress. To reduce the stress or to cope with it, an action plan was recommended. The responsibility for the said plan implementation was to be taken by the head of the institution.

In increasingly globalised societies higher education meet challenge to integrate the international and intercultural dimensions into their services, strategic plans, education programmes and research. There were few discussions around the concept of “Internationalization at home” (IaH) during the last years in the academic community. This article generally outlines a process of IaH in higher education, by giving examples from the bachelor programmes of Social Work and Nursing Education at Malmö University, Sweden. The internationalisation of the curriculum at home was shown to have a much greater impact than individual mobility alone. The authors of the article present their own analysis about possibilities to understand the culture, profession in the process of IaH improving professional and intercultural competences. Modern society poses a challenge for professionals – to think globally and to act locally.

Emotional vulnerability and how to respond to it during the Corona pandemic are the focus of this article from the field of (pastoral) psychology. It outlines strategies for the accompaniment of people in crises and ways in which they deal with crises from monitoring to blunting, from behavioural immune systems to conspiracy theories. Revisiting old patterns of behaviour combined with a narcissistic rejection of one’s own fragility, or closing oneself off in acceptance of the call of a strong leader, as well as influencing social change based on solidarity, three psychological approaches can be identified as a way out of the crisis. It becomes apparent that we are not all in the same boat; on the contrary, the inequality between an inflatable boat and a luxury yacht is becoming more distinct. However, the Christian message of the resurrection of the dead brings hope, with caution and humility. After all, even the Crucified and Resurrected One allowed himself to be identified by his wounds.