Socialno delo, Vol. 56 (2017), Issue 3
ARTICLES
Erosion of family policy: A shift from a social to birth-rate centered policy - 157, (Abstract)
Integrated care of residents with dementia:A case of introducing innovative care in the Dom Petra Uzarja Tržič home for older people - 179, (Abstract)
What is important for quality field placement in social work: The view of field instructors - 197, (Abstract)
REPORT
A comparative look on well-treatment of people in European specialised institutions - 221, (Abstract)
Abstracts
Srečo Dragoš
Erosion of family policy: A shift from a social to birth-rate centered policy
The paper analyzes the proposal for the Resolution on Family Policy 2018–2028, which was put into the public debate by the ministry for the relevant area. This document raises mixed feelings. On the one hand, its content is expected, as it is a consistent reflection of developments in the field of social policy. On the other hand, it is a surprise as it offers some radical solutions that we were not familiar with so far. For this resolution, family policy is definitely (declaratively) separated from social policy and transformed into a natality policy. The paper deals with the harmfulness of such policy in four sections, which show "blind spots" of the planned policy already by their names: autonomy, birth rate, inequality and binding container. At the end of the paper, a suggestion is given as to how to resolve the new family policy without making it dysfunctional. But the proposed solution is pessimistic, because in current political framework it is not realistic. But there are no others.
Keywords: family, family policy, autonomy, welfare state, social work, birth rate.
Srečo Dragoš, PhD, is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana. Contact: sreco.dragos@fsd.uni-lj.si.
Jana Mali, Anamarija Kejžar
Integrated care of residents with dementia:A case of introducing innovative care in the Dom Petra Uzarja Tržič home for older people
Integrated care for residents with dementia is centred on the individual, not on the institution or the experts employed by the institution. A resident at home and an expert create a partnership relationship, looking for solutions in the actual situation of the user's life situation. The realization of such a paradigm is shown in the case of changes in the care of dementia residents in a particular home. In addition to the changed relationship and relations between tenants with dementia and employees, integrated care also introduces changes in the role of relatives and the wider community in the care of dementia residents. The central position of a resident with dementia and the equal representation of all other representatives of the social network of the resident, provide the conditions for strengthening the power of the residents with dementia. By empowering them, we guarantee the conditions for new methods of work and the provision of services that is adapted to the needs and abilities of the residents with dementia.
Keywords: older people, institutional care, methods, long-term care, innovation.
Jana Mali, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana. Her areas of research and teaching include social work with older people, social work with people with dementia, supervision and methods of social work, long-term care. Contact: jana.mali@fsd.uni-lj.si. Anamarija Kejžar is a Doctor of Management in Nonprofit Management, employed at the Home for older people Petra Uzarja in Tržič. At the Faculty of Social Work, she deals with social work with older people. Her research and practice areas include: attitude to old age, professional approaches and therapies for people with dementi, and changes of the philosophy and culture of the homes for older people. Contact: anamarija.kejzar@dputrzic.si.
Tamara Rape Žiberna, Aleš Žiberna
What is important for quality field placement in social work: The view of field instructors
Practice placement is an important part of social work curriculum and has many stakeholders, the key ones being students, field instructors (mentors in the field) and practice teachers (faculty mentors). The paper focuses on field instructors’ perception of current practice for students at the Faculty of Social Work (University of Ljubljana). From gathered quantitative data (from the study year 2014/2015), we can conclude that field instructors identify motivation of student and their own as the most important for successful placement. Instructors also expect proactive behavior from students, flexibility of placement curriculum (tasks) on one hand and good structure of placement on the other. For their successful work as student mentors, ability to get additional information and solve potential problems is also important. On average, field instructors are satisfied with practical placement as a whole and also with most elements of practical placement. A positive correlation between average values for satisfaction and importance by elements of practical placement can be observed.
Keywords: practice placement, satisfaction, mentorship, higher education.
Tamara Rape Žiberna is a social worker with MSc in Management of non-profit organizations, and a doctoral student at the Faculty of Social Work. She works as an assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Social Work (Chair for Research and Organization), University of Ljubljana, and is a member of the Centre of practical study at the same faculty. Contact: tamara.rape@fsd.uni-lj.si. Aleš Žiberna has a PhD in Statistics and is an associate professor of Statistics at the Faculty of Social Science, University of Ljubljana. He coordinates modules Social statistics at the Masters programme in Applied Statistics and the PhD programme of Statistics at the University of Ljubljana. Contact: ales.ziberna@fdv.uni-lj.si.
Emanuela Fabjan, Suzana Oreški
A comparative look on well-treatment of people in European specialised institutions
»A comparative look on well-treatment of people in European specialised institutions« is the official title of an international Erasmus+ project, financed by the European Commission and involving one NGO and one educational institution from three countries: France (Reims), Portugal (Porto) and Slovenia (Ljubljana). The project will last for three year, its aim being to compare good practices from the field of caring for people with mental health issues and physical disabilities in the mentioned countries. The report describes the visit of all the partners that took place from the 18th to 22nd of Seprember 2017 in Reims, where the coordinator of the project is located: Regional Institute for Social Work of Champagne-Ardennes (IRTSCA). The report comprises observations by an assistent from the Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana, and by the president, users, an expert worker and a volunteer from Društvo Altra, an NGO from Ljubljana working with people with mental disabilites.
Keywords: social services, mental heath, physical disability, quality of life, deinstitutionalisation, Društvo Altra.
Emanuela Fabijan is an Assistant at the Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana. Her fields of interests include ethnic groups, migrant workers from ex-Yugoslavia in Slovenia, psychiatric institutions, total institutions, institutionalisation, gendrification, resistence. Contact: emanuela.fabijan@fsd.uni-lj.si. Suzana Oreški, PhD, is the president of the Društvo Altra Association – Commitee for Novelties in Mental Health. She has been working in the field of development, design and implementation of community forms of assistance for 20 years. Contact: suzana.oreski@altra.si.