Social services in accession countries

The 1st May 2004 10 new countries joined the European Union. It is one of the most impor-tant events in the history of the European Union and all of Europe. New nations are accessing the Community and so new challenges are emerging. An important challenge is the exchange of information in order to better understand each other. This article aims to outline informa-tion on the social services in selected accession countries - Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (hereinafter "Visegrad countries").

Decentralisation and Social Services in England

Although Great Britain is not normally credited with the achievement of having been the first nation state to implement measures characteristic of a welfare state (this honour goes to Germany and Bismarck's strategy of promoting social insurance in the 1880s) it nevertheless pioneered many models of welfare services in view of the early onset of industrialisation in that country and the subsequent social problems it created. Organisations like the Mutual Insurance and Friendly Societies, the Charity Organisation Society or the Settlement Movement characterised an early approach to welfare that is based on initiatives at the civil society level and express a sense of self-help or of self-organisation in such a way that it did not involve the state directly. The state, traditionally, dealt with matters of discipline and public order, and for this reason institutions like prisons and workhouses represented the other end of the scale of 'welfare' provisions.

Social Work in Republic of Buryatia/Russia

The Republic of Buryatia is situated in Eastern Sibiria, the eastern coast of Baikal Lake. The total area of the republic is 351 thousand square kilometers. The capital of Republic is Ulan-Ude. The modern social-economic situation in Russia is extremely paradoxical and multiaspectual - negative processes take place almost in all spheres of the society. The introduction of market economy principles, the process of privatisation, and the last economic crises in the Federation of Russia have brought many social phenomena - among them increasing poverty, homelessness and still high rate of unemployment are the worst one. It makes the changes in the state social welfare programmes and functioning patterns be implemented. Social problems are especially very important in the so-called "depressive" regions of Russia (Buryatia Republic is among those regions). The most important is the staff supplement of social services and the level of professionalism of people who work there. This problem consists of two aspects: first, the number of specialists with professional education of social workers is not enough; second, the level of professionalism of the workers is very low.

Running Head: Social Work Developments in Lithuania

Following the end of a half-century of Soviet occupation, Lithuania, like other former Soviet republics, has been in socio-economic disorder. Now that Lithuania is free, the system of social welfare is characterized by under-funded health services and pensions, and a large number of institutions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and practitioners focusing on community development, using Lofland’s model of social setting analysis.Results indicate that the collaborative efforts successfully produced a revolutionary and successful social service program, a multi-generational living facility offering full-time social services to unwed mothers, infants, and elderly residents.This article is based upon the qualitative study of social work practitioners and social work students and chronicles the successes and difficulties encountered within the process of community development.

Professional development of social work in Russia

The aim of the paper was to get an understanding about how the profession of social work explains its relevance and legitimacy in today's Russia, to enlighten the importance of socio-political, professional and educational contexts in explaining the societal position of the social work profession in Russia. This paper begins with the analysis of the processes of legitimization, professionalization and constitution of social work in today's Russia. In addition to functionalist and critical perspectives on these three processes, in its second part the paper employs phenomenological approach looking into everyday life theory of social work that is constructed in routine work at the social service agencies. The third part of this paper talks about the issues of social services and social work with family and children in contemporary Russia.

Resisting Postmodernity: Swedish social policy in the 1990s

The purpose of this paper is to introduce ideas that have emerged during the course of writing a book on Swedish welfare in the 1990s. The book is the result of many years of writing about two subjects: Swedish drug policy and the Swedish welfare state. The one very specialised, the other, more general. I first became interested in Swedish drug policy on a research visit to Örebro Län in 1986. A social worker showed me a copy of the county's drug policy programme and explained the significance of the 'restrictive line'. I have spent the years since that visit, trying to understand and explain the Swedish goal of a drug-free society (Gould 1988, 1994, 1996b). I only began to write about the welfare state in Sweden in the early 1990s, just as things were beginning to go wrong for the economy (Gould 1993a, 1993b, 1996a, 1999). For the last few years I have intended to write a book on the events covered by the period 1991-1998 - the years of a Bourgeois and a Social Democratic Government -which would bring the two halves of my work together. Material for this study has been accumulated over many years. A number of research visits have been made; large numbers of academics, politicians, civil servants, journalists, unemployed people, social workers and their clients have been interviewed; and extensive use has been made of academic, administrative and public libraries. Since September 1991 I have systematically collected articles from Dagens Nyheter about social services, social insurance, health care, employment, social issues and problems, the economy and politics. The journal Riksdag och Departement (Parliament and Ministry), which summarises a wide range of public documents, has been invaluable. Friends and informal contacts have also given me insights into the Swedish way of life. The new book is based upon all of these experiences. This paper will begin with a brief account of major global social and economic changes that have occurred in the last twenty years. This is intended to provide a background to the more recent changes that have occurred in Swedish society in the last decade. It will be suggested that the changes in Sweden, particularly in the field of welfare, have been less severe than elsewhere and that this is due to political, institutional and cultural resistance. The paper will conclude by arguing that Sweden, as an exemplar of an Apollonian modern society, has had much to fear from the Dionysian characteristics of postmodernity.

Comparative Analyses of Child and Youth Services in Europe

This paper contains a comparative evaluation of the reactions of welfare states to the isomorphic pressures emanating from the European Union based on two case studies taken from the Child and Youth Welfare System. In the European Community different concepts of welfare policy exist. In the unification process every member state has to find answers to the pressure of assimilation invoked by the legislation. The objective of this explorative study is to show that countries can learn from each other in order to improve their own system of social services.

Ausbildung und Praxis gehören zusammen - Die Bedeutung der Praxisorientierung in der Ausbildung von SozialarbeiterInnen und SozialpädagogInnen

In this paper the authors review the expectations of the “practice field” of the social services in Southern Tirol in the light of the “Recommendations for a university-based study programme for social work” (Empfehlungen zum universitären Studiengang für Soziale Arbeit), published by the “Autonomous Province of Bolzano“. They stress the mutual relationship -“give and take” - between the two learning areas (Lernfelder) i.e. the practice field and the university setting in the process of professional education and training of Social Workers and Social Pedagogues. In this context the “practice field” offers various means to the University in order to enhance the development of “Social Work” both as a professional activity and an academic discipline. Additionally the authors express their gratitude to Walter Lorenz and underline his contributions to and impact on the practice field in the region.

Soziale Dienste, Schule und zivilgesellschaftliches Klima

In an international perspective cooperation between social services and school has a long tradition. In the German speaking countries we can recognize a historical distance or gap between school and “social pedagogy”, but despite this tradition new forms of cooperation are arising since the last few years. This tendency is part of the development of European societies into “knowledge-based societies” where knowledge and cultural capital are becoming ever stricter criteria for participation in society. This puts particular pressure on those adolescents who threaten to fail in the positional competition for educational qualifications. And it tends to the reproduction and reinforcing of social inequalities due to inequalities in education. For that reason in the article the development of school related social services in different European countries is investigated and it is shown that the increasing pressure to qualification and selection in school creates various problems of integration. Social dimensions of education are pointed out delivering starting points for the cooperation of social services in school and opening opportunities for productive forms of coping with differences between family background, informal social environment and educational milieu in school. Particular attention is paid to differences in socio cultural habits, in socio economical opportunities and in collective practices of interaction. A central focus in the contribution is the orientation towards a participative civil society climate relevant for the interaction between teachers and pupils and between professionals and addressees of social services as well. It is a task of future research in school related social services to analyse their institutional structure and their practices of professional interaction and to find out by European and international comparison in which way social services can contribute to the establishing of a participative civil society climate in school.

Servizi Sociali Territoriali e Università: Esempi di Sinergie Possibili per un Percorso di Qualità

Although – or because – social work education in Italy has for some 15 years now been exclusively in the domain of the university the relationship between the academic world and that of practice has been highly tenuous. Research is indeed being conducted by universities, but rarely on issues that are of immediate practice relevance. This means that forms of practice develop and become established habitually which are not checked against rigorous standards of research and that the creation of knowledge at academic level pays scant attention to the practice implications of social changes. This situation has been made even worse by the dwindling resources both in social services and at the level of the universities which means that bureaucratic procedures or imports of specialisations from other disciplines frequently dominate the development of practice instead of a theory-based approach to methodology. This development does not do justice to the actual requirements of Italian society faced with ever increasing post-modern complexity which is reflected also in the nature of social problems because it implies a continuation of a faith in modernity with its idea of technical, clear-cut solutions while social relations have decidedly moved beyond that belief. This discrepancy puts even greater strain on the personnel of welfare agencies and does ultimately not satisfy the ever increasing demands for quality and accountability of services on the part of users and the general public. Social workers badly lack fundamental theoretical reference points which could guide them in their difficult work to arrive at autonomous, situation-specific methodological answers not based on procedures but on analytical knowledge. Thirty years ago, in 1977, a Presidential Decree created the legal basis for the establishment of social service departments at the level of municipalities which created opportunities for the direct involvement of the community in the fight against exclusion. For this potential to be fully utilized it would have required the bringing together of three dimensions, the organizational structure, the opportunities for learning and research in the territory and the contribution by the professional community. As this did not occur social services in Italy still often retain the character of charity which does not concern itself with the actual causes of poverty and exclusion. This in turn affects the relationship with citizens in general who cannot develop trust in those services. Through uncritical processes of interaction Edgar Morin’s dictum manifests itself which is that without resorting to critical reflection on complexity interventions can often have an effect that totally the opposite to the original intention. An important element in setting up a dynamic interchange between academia and practice is the placement on professional social work courses. Here the looping of theory to practice and back to theory etc. can actually take place under the right organizational and conceptual conditions, more so than in abstract, and for practitioners often useless debates about the theory-practice connection. Furthermore, research projects at the University of Florence Social Work Department for instance aim at fostering theoretical reflection at the level of and with the involvement of municipal social service agencies. With a general constructive disposition towards research and some financial investment students were facilitated to undertake social service practice related research for their degree theses for instance in the city of Pistoia. In this way it was also possible to strengthen the confidence and professional identity of social workers as they became aware of the contribution their own discipline can make to practice-relevant research instead of having to move over to disciplines like psychology for those purposes. Examples of this fruitful collaboration were presented at a conference in Pistoia on 25 June 2007. One example is a thesis entitled ‘The object of social work’ and examines the difficult development of definitions of social work and comes to the conclusion that ‘nothing is more practical than a theory’. Another is on coping abilities as a necessary precondition for the utilization of resources supplied by social services in exceptional circumstances. Others deal with the actual sequence of interventions in crisis situations, and one very interestingly looks at time and how it is being constructed often differently by professionals and clients. At the same time as this collaboration on research gathers momentum in the Toscana, supervision is also being demanded more forcefully as complementary to research and with the same aim of profiling more strongly the professional identity of social work. Collaboration between university and social service filed is for mutual benefit. At a time when professional practice is under threat of being defined from the outside through bureaucratic prescriptions a sound grounding in theory is a necessary precondition for competent practice.

Changing Europe and The Relevance of Care and The Caring Professions

The aim of the paper is to introduce the challenges of the international care debate of the last ten years in order to grasp basic social needs, to analyse their treatment in the public and private sphere and to look at the orientation of professional answers by the care-professions. The concept of care enhances the societal dealing with - or ignoring of - different forms of dependency on informal and formal personal and social services throughout the life-cycle (child-care, nursing sick or handicapped persons, supporting the elderly) and in special life situations (from help to lone mothers and their children, via help to drug-addicts to help for homeless people). All societies have different approaches to deal with these life-situations, they do so by employ-ing various mixtures of: familial support, mostly provided by women, social politics, organized by the state, public and/or private social services. This welfare-mix shows different combinations of private and public obligations, paid and und unpaid work, professional and laymen's tasks based on a specific understanding of mo-rality and justice embedded in the gender structure and intergenerational relationships. The importance of social work as a profession in this context differs according to the historical developments and cultural traditions. Characteristic for the profile of social work is the rele-vance of a care ethics and the existence of social rights, the tension of mothering and profes-sional methods, the relationship between help, denial and punishment and the ways of institu-tionalisation. The actuality of this debate is closely intertwined with the restructuring of societal bonds in the face of globalisation, the political reorganisation of states, the changes in the living to-gether of different generations and both sexes and the consequences for the organisation and contents of welfare. Looking at Germany and Eastern Europe two new phenomena of social relevance for the dis-cussion of care work and care needs can be taken as an example: the extent of cheap illegal women laborers travelling between east and west, especially Polish women working intermit-tendly in private care for old people and the highly organized traffiking of women from Russia to Germany to work in the sex business. The care debate entails a reframing of welfare issues in the light of social justice between classes, ethnicities and gender groups.

The Role of a Non-Governmental Organization in the Improvement of Employment in Finland: A Case Study

This study discusses one Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) as an alternative institution for the improvement of employment in a Finnish city. Empirical data was collected from 16 employees and from an official of the organization using questionnaires, interviews and participant observation. The data was analyzed qualitatively and the findings revealed that, the organization plays complementary role in cooperating with the government to provide social services to underprivileged groups of people, through which the organization is able to create jobs for long-term unemployed people in the city of Jyväskylä. However, the skill development training of the organization was found to be inadequate for boosting the employability of their employees in the open labour market, once the latter’s 1-2 year contract ended. The study concluded that for the organization to become a viable alternative institution for the improvement of employment in the city of Jyväskylä, it must improve the skill development training of their employees, as well as increase collaboration with other actors that are working towards the same goals.

The Role of a Non-Governmental Organization in the Improvement of Employment in Finland: A Case Study

This study discusses one Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) as an alternative institution for the improvement of employment in a Finnish city. Empirical data was collected from 16 employees and from an official of the organization using questionnaires, interviews and participant observation. The data was analyzed qualitatively and the findings revealed that, the organization plays complementary role in cooperating with the government to provide social services to underprivileged groups of people, through which the organization is able to create jobs for long-term unemployed people in the City of Jyväskylä. However, the skill development training of the organization was found to be inadequate for boosting the employability of their employees in the open labour market, once their 1-2 year contract ended. The study concluded that for the organization to become a viable alternative institution for the improvement of employment in the City of Jyväskylä, it must improve the skill development training of their employees, as well as increase collaboration with other actors that are working towards the same goals.