The article is a historical comparative study of the development of social work as a female activity in some countries of Eastern Europe. A special focus is given to the comparison of the women's department of the Russian Zhenotdel and the Yugoslav and Slovenian Antifascist Front of Women from where the early female social workers were mobilized. The study has shown some differences among the countries of Eastern Europe and some similarities which were erased due to the so called »cold war methodology« in the past.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3815013
The growing problem if human infertility has made human reproduction more than ever dependent on the medical reproductive technology. This fact has changed the perspective on human biological reproduction, increased the number of persons involved in it and brought about new ethical dilemmas. The article is a comparative analysis of these processes across Western countries and Slovenia. Different social contexts and moral norms influence national legislations and practices in relation to the reproductive technology access , its types and medical practices. Additionally there are many differences in the ways of how individuals and broader society view the issues of the anonymity of the donors, the right of the children to have access to their reproductive history and more.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1536250052
The past concepts of life and work in homes for the older people in Slovenia are no longer adequate to meet the needs, wishes and requirements of their current users. As the author points out, one of the basic premises relying on Goffman’s concept of the total institution is that the first and foremost characteristic of homes for the older people is that they are institutions. The theoretical starting point, namely that Goffman’s concept of the total institution is ideal-typical, was corroborated by an investigation of the presence of elements of the total institution in Slovenian homes for the older people, proving that not all features of the total institution can be found in any chosen empirical selection of institutions. This also applies to homes for the older people with the data showing that those characteristics which are present do not exist in the ideal, that is in the most pronounced form. The homes’ users are given consideration, their personnel are adapting to their needs and requirements, even though this occurs within the functioning of an institution whose aims, i.e. to care for a large number of people living in one place, make life in such an institution subordinated to rules, along with the bureaucratisation and routinisation of services.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3099237
Monograph is an attempt and an essay at a taxonomy of doing in social work and social care. It may serve as a basis for deliberation on social care organisation and its official taxonomy, as well as a basis for the further development of the science of social work. Social care and social work provide services, programmes, means and measures. Monograph analyses and classifies services according: the intensity of ingress into the life-world, duration, location, complexity, providers, resources, types of situations, users, purposes and modes of operation, registers and spaces of action, of contracting, funding and the ways of payment. It focuses on predicate categories of the intensity of ingress and of the matrix of welfare resources. A critique of talking registers and dispositives is highlighted and social work spaces analysed. It indicates possibilities of syntax of doing in social work and care. It is an proper tool for drafting legislation, research in social work and social care, it enables orientation of practitioners and, of course, it is a necessary basis for development of social work science.
COBISS.SI-ID: 85461249
Work is based on the investigation of social work dispositives, analysis of the basic operations and was of functioning of social work. It problematizes concept of help and seeks to uncover the syntax of social work. Looks into social work resources transcending the concept of welfare triangle and pointing out the merit of social movements. On this basis conceptual framework of direct social work is conceived, the imitative in 15 o movement, providing experiential and programmatic document of the events we are witnessing. The work has proved to be a good orienting tool for social work today and a tool enabling a conception of new ways of working in practice as well as in conceptualisation of social work in new social conditions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 264932608
The article draws attention to the loss of contract power of people, especially those with mental disabilities. It shows a gap between policies and ideology of participation on the one hand and lived experiences of participation practices in the care proceedings' systems on the other. Users' participation seems to be a trademark of contemporary EU social policy or mental health policy, while children's participation is the most emphasised part of child-friendly justice discourse, but the question arises whether they really are in place. The national and European research projects conducted by the author and her colleagues in the last years are used to emphasise the most problematic points, but also innovative social work and advocacy practices. The central focus of the article is therefore the author's recent EU research project 'Access to Justice for Children with Mental Disabilities', which has addressed the participation of children with mental disabilities in all stages of the legal processes. In the case of Slovenia, these are mainly taking the place at centres of social work. The findings showed that in spite of the progress towards participation of children in general in social care decisions, children with mental disabilities remain virtually invisible.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4712805
Even though Slovenia is situated below-average regarding the at-risk-of-poverty rate in the European Union and has relatively low income inequality, all indicators of the welfare state are unfavourable and worrying. The paper shows how Slovenian public opinion responds to this troublesome condition, particularly in relation to the prevalence of bonds of solidarity. These are not just above-reciprocal (a very rare phenomenon), but also reciprocal. Among them, we can distinguish two types of reciprocity: generalised and balanced. The main research question of this paper is what is happening with both types of bonds of solidarity in relation to changes in the welfare state. Comparing public opinion data on (the relationship to) solidarity and the share of wealth allocated to social protection, we can confirm the thesis that increased social protection is coinciding with smaller shares of balanced reciprocity in relation to generalised reciprocity, and vice versa. In the context of the modest or absent welfare state, people are forced to compensate access to important resources by developing balanced reciprocity because generalised reciprocity has a limited range when it comes to reducing risks.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4605797
This article discusses the citizenship practices of the victims of the erasure and interprets these practices as emancipation processes: the erased used grass roots and legal means to attempt to obtain the right to dignity, the right to stay and the right to compensation for their ‘lost years’. The effects of their struggle went beyond matters of mere utility: by publicly defining themselves as ‘the erased’ and acting upon injustice; the erased challenged the boundaries of citizenship in terms of membership and content.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4110181
The evidence base for the methodological validity of conducting participatory research is becoming established. This article reviews the experiences of two researchers undertaking Ph.D. studies in Slovenia and UK, respectively, and considers the value of involving service users and carers in social work research. The Slovenian research involved user- researchers who developed research tools and undertook qualitative research. The first author explores the co-researchers' impact on the research process and its outcomes, identifying both individual and collective empowerment of the co-researchers. The English study involved people from diverse backgrounds, who developed a recovery training programme for carers of people with schizophrenia. The second author describes how the steering group, and the carers who participated in the programme were impacted by the research process and experienced a sense of empowerment and how they influenced the development of new knowledge through the reflexive cycle. The authors draw out the commonalities and differences in our research that add to the existing evidence base supporting the development of participatory inquiry. We conclude by affirming the value of user participation in research in leading to the empowerment of users, the development of new research perspectives, and in contributing to theory in social work research and practice
COBISS.SI-ID: 4730725
This article is based on an investigation that involves five experts by experience in the field of mental health and eight students of social work. Both groups investigated the experiences of people with mental ill-health living in group homes. The article identifies the advantages if the researchers are expert by experience and the epistemological shift produced by the inclusion of people with the lived experience. Expert by experience research is a challenge to both experts by experience and for social work practice since it promotes the basic principle of social work as the science of doing. This study was based on the assertion that the real integration of theory and practice will not come from a rigid body of knowledge, but from the humility to learn from experts by experience.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4712293