Socialinių darbuotojų, dirbančių Vilniuje su socialinės rizikos šeimomis ir teikiančių joms socialines paslaugas, patiriami sunkumai

Abstract

Social work in Lithuania covers a number of different fields, and one of them is social work with the social risk family. Frequently, such families have low income, have a number of dependents, are not full, have alcohol abusing family members who improperly take care of their children, and have insufficient social skills. Working with social risk families social workers encounter difficulties at their work in rendering assistance to these families, are exposed to risk at work that manifests itself in aggression or opposition of social risk family members, what makes the provision of social services difficult and does not contribute to the reduction in the number of social risk families. The opinion of social workers on difficulties encountered by them in providing social services to social risk families has not been sufficiently investigated. The goal of the survey is to examine difficulties encountered by social workers working with social risk families in providing social services to these families in Vilnius. Survey methodology. Applied survey methods: analysis of reference sources, legal acts of Republic of Lithuania; half-structured interview; content quality analysis. An interview using preliminary prepared questions was performed in July 2012 – March 2013. 20 social workers who work with social risk families at the Family Support Division of Vilnius Social Support Centre and rendering the services of social skill development and maintenance have been surveyed. The empirical survey disclosed that social workers who work with social risk families by providing social services to these families in Vilnius most often encounter difficulties related with the conditions of workflow organization and difficulties related with clients. By analysing the difficulties relating to the conditions of workflow organization it turned out that social employees have a huge workload, and social services must be rendered to at least 40 social risk families. Poor work conditions, lack of a car, separate room and insufficient confidentiality makes the work more difficult, reduce the efficiency and quality of social assistance. Every second social worker noted the lack of cross-institutional cooperation as an important measure of increasing the efficiency of social help to social risk families. This problem, however, despite the fact that it has been mentioned in research literature, has not been recognized at the institutional level. Nearly every third social worker distinguished gaps in the legal acts that inflexibly define the limits of their work, as result whereof they could not act the way they would like, especially in case of complicated, difficult situations. Also, there are areas to be improved and amendments related with the solution of alcohol dependence problems to be adopted. By analysing difficulties associated with social risk families it was revealed that the majority of social workers encounter aggression of social risk families; every fourth one feels unsafe due to aggressive, intoxicated, ill persons, their failure to understand the goals of visit aimed of helping them, negative attitude towards a social worker, and visiting a social risk family by one person. Social risk families often have a negative attitude towards a social worker, deny the existence of problems or do not understand the aim of social assistance. Nearly one third of the social workers observed the lack of motivation for making a change by members of social risk families. Addictions of social risk family members make the rendering of social services more difficult, impair their efficiency, impede the creation of environment of motivated change in solving social problems, and create unsafe environment.