TITLE: The Psychological Aspects of the Life in a Shelter AUTHOR: PhDr. Roman Čepelák DEPARTMENT: Katedra psychologie SUPERVISOR: Doc. PhDr. Miloš Kučera, CSc. ABSTRACT: The master thesis explores, by analytic way, the life of clients in shelter for families with children. The thesis describes the specific shelter home in Prague - Horní Pocernice and observes its specifics in a context of other shelters. It maps the target group of users, who are mostly clients from Roma population. The thesis aims at clients' motives to live in a shelter, their coping with shelter norms and their adjustment of shelter rules to clients' own needs. It notices individual behaviors in a community of clients, describing interactions with social workers and between each other. The specific chapter is devoted to children as the youngest users of a shelter, their coping with the environment and the possibilities shelter home offers to them. The last chapter implies a certain similarity in shelter clients thinking with thinking of people living in an oral culture. The thesis disputes declared purpose of shelter home(s) as training of their own home living, since their repetitive "coming home" returns to shelter(s) witness another motives for shelter life as well. KEYWORDS: Shelter, Roma, social worker

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This study explores which factors are better predictors of job satisfaction by measuring the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational characteristics; job satisfaction and job task factors; and job satisfaction and personal characteristics among social work supervisors and administrators in the United States. The Afrocentric paradigm, which has the potential to address human conditions regardless of worker race, ethnicity, gender, social or geographical location, provides understanding for how social work supervisors and administrators utilize resources and roles to increase leader job satisfaction rates. An Afrocentric approach is used in this study to show how social work supervisors and administrators can be effective change agents and active participants in promoting levels of satisfaction, and in advancing the importance of leadership initiatives that focus on increasing leader job satisfaction rates. The Afrocentric paradigm provides a means for reducing stress levels and countering the negative images and challenges that prevent worker’s functioning at their highest potential. The merits of this study provide organizations an opportunity to draw from social work supervisors’ and administrators’ experiences to establish new ways to respond to the social service executive management challenge of maintaining stable social work leader job satisfaction rates. .

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Heroin usage is on the increase in the Western Cape province of South Africa owing to globalization and to increased access to the drug in this province. The goal of this study is to explore the experiences of coloured heroin users in the Metro South area of Cape Town, which stretches from Simons Town and Muizenberg to Retreat, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park, Parkwood and Wynberg. These individuals have been found to congregate in the Wynberg CBD. The overarching theoretical framework for the purpose of this research is social constructionism and symbolic interactionism, using a qualitative means of inquiry. Snowball sampling was used to recruit prospective participants and data was collected by means of in-depth interviews, with a semi structures interviewing schedule. The questions informed the subsequent themes and categories that arise from the data collection process. Snowball sampling was employed in this case, a non-probability sample, in which participants were recruited via key informants. The sample distribution included 13 participants, 10 of which were heroin users (5 female, 5 male) and the remaining 3 were key informants which contributed to triangulation of the data. In terms of the findings, participants spoke of mostly being involved in intimate relationships, which according to participants had dual benefits. For female participants intimate relationships offered a form of protection on the often dangerous streets of Wynberg and for certain males, intimate relationships offered an opportunity to fund their habit, by trading their female partners to perform sexual favors for money to acquire heroin. While the study found females were mainly involved in trading sexual favors for money, heterosexual males were also implicated in having sexual relations with homosexual men for money. Furthermore, the study found that heroin users in Wynberg represented a surrogate family, where, because of their lifestyle, they were disconnected from their own family. This family surrogate was found to be supportive, caring to a large extent, shared a living space, protective of each other and shared a common language and understanding.

<p>Empati är att kunna uppleva och förstå andra människors känslor. Tre studier gjordes för att undersöka socialsekreterares empati för sina klienter och hur de upplever sin professionella och genuina empati. Två studier var kvantitativa och en var en mixed design. Deltagarna var 26 socialsekreterare och 57 socionomstudenter. Studie 1 och 2 visade att socialsekreterare och studenter på socionomprogrammet hade mer empati för en sympatisk person än för en osympatisk. Studie 3 visade en tendens till att socialsekreterarna upplevde mer distans vid professionell än vid genuin empati. Ju fler antal år en socialsekretare har arbetat desto mindre spelar det roll hur klienten uppträder vid mötet, detta gäller även för socionomstudenterna.</p>

<p>Förskola och skola kan upptäcka om ett barn far illa och anmäler till socialtjänsten som utreder fallet. Studiens syfte var att med kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer undersöka hur samarbetet mellan dessa instanser upplevs, samt vilka möjligheter och hinder som upplevs för att hjälpa barnet. Tio personer från de olika instanserna intervjuades. Studien visade att (1) möjligheter finns att hjälpa familjerna, (2) det är svårt då föräldrar inte samarbetar samt då samarbetet mellan förskola, skola och socialtjänst begränsas genom socialtjänstens tystnadsplikt och (3) samarbetet mellan instanserna är bra men kan förbättras med mer insikt i varandras arbete. Det framkom att ett behov av bättre samarbete behöver utvecklas. Åtgärder på ett tidigare stadium skulle vara resursbesparande.</p>

Introduction   Client violence toward social workers has become recognized as a common problem, and major concern has been raised with regard to its impacts on the workers’ practice, and physical and psychological health. More than half a century has passed since the social work profession was established in Iran, and yet client violence and the associated health-related consequences remain unexplored. This thesis aims to address this gap in knowledge. Methods   A national survey was conducted involving 390 social workers from the Centres for Socially Injured People (CSIP), affiliated to the Social Affairs Department of the State Welfare Organization, Iran. The survey included self-administered questionnaires, namely, the Workplace Violence in the Health Sector questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), the Ways of Coping questionnaire, the Burnout Measure, and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. Results   A high proportion of CSIP social workers (67%) have experienced violence. Psychological violence was about three times more common than physical violence. A high tendency of not reporting psychological violence to managers/supervisors was found. Psychological violence was associated with poorer mental health. Social workers with experience of psychological violence were found to be more worried about occurrences of violent events. Worrying about violence was significantly correlated with poorer mental health. Active coping had a direct effect on health, suggesting a poorer health status with more frequent use of active coping. Burnout was experienced by 10.9% of social workers, and 17.4% were found to be at risk of developing burnout symptoms. Low self-esteem and experience of violence were associated with burnout. Conclusion   The results suggest the importance of not neglecting cases of client violence and of putting the health and safety of social workers on top of the agenda. A victimized social worker with limited resources at work needs to note that coping skills may reduce the impact of stressors, not only by changing the stressors themselves, but also by changing how the social worker responds to them.

Förskola och skola kan upptäcka om ett barn far illa och anmäler till socialtjänsten som utreder fallet. Studiens syfte var att med kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer undersöka hur samarbetet mellan dessa instanser upplevs, samt vilka möjligheter och hinder som upplevs för att hjälpa barnet. Tio personer från de olika instanserna intervjuades. Studien visade att (1) möjligheter finns att hjälpa familjerna, (2) det är svårt då föräldrar inte samarbetar samt då samarbetet mellan förskola, skola och socialtjänst begränsas genom socialtjänstens tystnadsplikt och (3) samarbetet mellan instanserna är bra men kan förbättras med mer insikt i varandras arbete. Det framkom att ett behov av bättre samarbete behöver utvecklas. Åtgärder på ett tidigare stadium skulle vara resursbesparande.

The purpose of this study was to get a better understanding of how newly graduated social workers within the elderly care and the need assessment sector forms a professional identity through a focus on their experience of the socialization process. The main questions concerned how work place culture socialized the newly graduated social worker in respect of her or his professional identity. The study’s theoretical underpinning lies in Symbolic Interactionism. We have combined focus group interviews with follow-up personal interviews with the aim of deepening to our understanding of the socialization process of social workers and what it means for their professional identities. Three main results were generated. First, that a well planned introduction and the teams’ significance to the formation of professional identity were shown to be important. Second that a needs assessment organization with a controlled and standardized professional role were noted to be too restrictive as they allowed little possibility for the new social worker to shape their own ways of working. This was particularly the case where new social workers were unclear about how to go about their work assignment. These results also showed that relation building and dialogue with clients was underemphasised and taken for granted.

Empati är att kunna uppleva och förstå andra människors känslor. Tre studier gjordes för att undersöka socialsekreterares empati för sina klienter och hur de upplever sin professionella och genuina empati. Två studier var kvantitativa och en var en mixed design. Deltagarna var 26 socialsekreterare och 57 socionomstudenter. Studie 1 och 2 visade att socialsekreterare och studenter på socionomprogrammet hade mer empati för en sympatisk person än för en osympatisk. Studie 3 visade en tendens till att socialsekreterarna upplevde mer distans vid professionell än vid genuin empati. Ju fler antal år en socialsekretare har arbetat desto mindre spelar det roll hur klienten uppträder vid mötet, detta gäller även för socionomstudenterna.