Klaipėdos universitetas

Laimutės Žalimienės ir Eugenijaus Dunajevo monografijos „Socialinės paramos struktūros dilema – tarp autonomijos ir paternalizmo“ recenzija

The paper presents the discourse of the social work professionalization from the viewpoints of practice, research, academic activity, and professional identity, by revealing the expression of social worker competencies in the changing society. By means of evaluating the 20-year-experience of social worker training in Lithuania, the authors reveal the identity of social work at two levels: professional (academisation and practice) and legal (profession and study status). For the purpose, a novel approach to the formation of the social work theory, study methods, and the education of intercultural communication and lifelong learning is employed.

Lithuania has been placed 35th out of 187 countries in the UNO Human Development Report 2014, which measures a Human Social Development Index. This is the best result in the history of the country. According to this indicator, since 2010, Lithuania has joined the club of 49 most developed countries in the planet. Despite the fact, poverty, which expresses the essential consequences of social differentiation, has deeply rooted in the social discourse of Lithuania. To understand the controversy of the official statistics and the reality of life, we can no longer think of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion stereotypically. These social phenomena are taking new shapes in the postmodern existence. Therefore, the article presents a philosophical explanation of the change in the perception of two social categories – time and work, which illustrate a dramatic shift of our social life towards the postmodern existence, based on the works of J. Habermas and Z. Bauman. Social categories of time and work are among the elements of social-existential change, which reflect clear differences of philosophical discourses and social consciousness of modernity and postmodernity from the earlier traditions of philosophical thought development. Today these categories acquire the power to reveal new forms of social inequality.

This article presents the aspect of the social work professionalization which responds to the new challenges of a global society that is the refugee migration. The refugee problem in the European Union has recently become one of the important social problems. Due to the political situation in Africa South European countries are already unable to manage the daily flow of refugees. EU Parliament is trying to solve this problem. Lithuania has to be ready to solve this problem as well. The country which receives refugees not only has to have the legal regulation of this process, but also the professionals who could ensure the success of their adaptation. The authors, using different empirical research materials which were conducted in Lithuania in the years 2011–2014, reveal the depth of the needs and the possibilities of the social work services while implementing these needs in the context of social services in Lithuania. This is the presentation of the experience available. This article can help you to assess the situation and the opportunities that are ahead for the Lithuanian society when helping to solve the problem of today’s refugees in the European Union. At the same time this article reveals one more aspect of the identity in the social work profession, revealing the depth of the social worker’s competencies in a changing society and his ability to operate in unspecified situations.

The article presents the concept of the cross-border method that was developed in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme project. The aim of this method is to provide students on PhD/Mg programmes with theoretical knowledge and practical competencies on how to properly develop and conduct research on social and health issues of the elderly in care institutions and in the family environment by using the cross-border method through collaboration and the transfer of innovation. This method was constructed as an attempt to understand the challenges of an ageing society in the modern world, and to be able to assess them in research thereof from both intercultural and comparative perspectives. In order to adopt innovations and to transfer experience in the context of addressing the problems of an ageing society, there is a potential to contribute to the stability of social protection and the accessibility of social services for the elderly. The article presents the concept of the method as one of the results of the project, and as a part of the long-term scientific contributions to revealing the importance of international cooperation and innovation in meeting the challenges of an ageing society. A properly chosen method and well-conducted studies show the essence of the phenomenon of an ageing society and its patterns. The methods determine the quality and reliability of the knowledge of the research subject, and open up opportunities for developing political, learning and care strategies for the social protection of an ageing society in the context of demographic change.