Klaipėdos universitetas

Within this article the need and possibilities of supervision to medical staff for their professional well-being are analysed. Case of supervision to medical staff in Lithuania is discussed using critical reflection. In health care professions, same as in other helping professions, burnouts, tensions, incertitude and existential anxiety may arise among the staff. Thus, conflicts may arise over social interactions at work. Critical reflection methodology, used in this research, revealed that medical staff does not yet identify the supervision as a potential mean of their professional support. Notwithstanding, the open dialogue, enabled by the process of supervision, demonstrated the lack of collaborative culture and culture of silence in healthcare work environments. Medical staff may be anchored to the long-established attitudes and beliefs of their organization, also they may face frustrations with regard to an open dialogue on the matters of their work, since they may feel rather disempowered for making substantial changes in their work. Medical staff may also face frustrations of leaving the so-called comfort zone and helpless when facing healthcare system barriers. Within this article, the need for support to medical staff through professional supervision is highlighted. The experience of the supervision in which an equal and dialogical relation is promoted, may be extrapolated to collegial relation in the organization. Supervision may also encourage the participants to leave the victim role and to acquire a constructive voice in professional relation. Thus, the supervision, in providing room for dialogue and reflection on professional relation, may be a great an opportunity for roles’ transformation of participants for constructive dialogues and organizational culture. Supervision contains the great potential to develop health system transformations through promoting dialogical professional relation and enrichment of professional identity of medical staff. Supervision might be a powerful support to medical staff in particularly critical situations such as engendered by COVID-19. The inter-institutional collaboration between associations of supervisors and medical staff is recommended, with the participation of representatives of health care institutions and universities.

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.

The article analyses a relatively new position in the field of social services for the family: the complexity of the professional activity of a case manager, and the prospects of applying supervision as a form of professional support. In the field of social work, supervision is already a well-known way of counselling professional relationships. While improving their professional qualifications, social workers seek to participate in group, team and individual supervision. The supervision of the manager and the whole organisation is also well known in social work practice. In Lithuania, as in the rest of the world, supervision first established itself in the field of social work, which only proves the complexity of this profession.Social work as a profession is undergoing constant change, services are expanding, and more and more attention is being paid to specialised methodologies when the global approach no longer satisfies the current situation of empowerment. The case manager is a new position, the content of which is still being formed. The research has revealed that employees experience stress and tension as a burden of responsibility, they become the creators of the content of this position, and they face obstacles to inter-institutional cooperation.The qualitative research presented in this article, the interviews with case managers, and the reflection on the experience of supervision, allow us to draw conclusions about the prospects for supervision, and allow us to offer specific forms of supervision; and individual and team supervision become unique in this situation.

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.