scholarly journals Elderly people as recipients of social services in the views of social work specialists

2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
V. V. Sychova ◽  
◽  
L. M. Khyzhniak ◽  
O. V. Khyzhniak ◽  
◽  
...  

The article is devoted to the matter of the interconnection of social services and the image of their recipients. Among the latter, special attention is paid by scientists and practitioners to elderly people in an ageing population. The authors promote awareness of the importance of the social work principles with the elderly and its compliance with spectrum, level, and hierarchy of their social needs. The range of needs of the elderly people, which are met through social services, is constantly expanding; conditions and approaches to their typology and satisfaction are also changing. The authors offered to consider the image of the elderly people in a deeper sociological dimension: through the views of experts in social work about this group of social service recipients. During the expert survey, conducted by the authors among specialists of the territorial centres of social services for the city of Kharkiv and Kharkiv region inhabitants, it was revealed that the image of the elderly people is fixed through the emotional perception; the idea of what is missing for the elderly people (their needs that are not satisfied); associations that appear towards them as a problem group. Elderly people at the social work professionals’ emotional level (regardless of their gender, age, signs, educational potential, accommodation) bring out mostly positive emotions, setting them up to perform their professional duties. Differences in the views of experts on the needs of elderly people are due mainly to a spatial factor – a place of residence. It is shown that the views of social work specialists about the image of their clients are formed based on the acquired in the process of professional activity, specific sensory impressions about the elderly. The authors determined the requirements for the views of social work specialists about the elderly. The latter must correspond to the triad: to be creative, critical and productive. The creative imagination of social work specialists is in demand, which involves their independent creation of new images of the elderly people as recipients of social services depending on the specific time, life situation and personal strategies of social participation/social exclusion of the elderly.

The article is devoted to the problem of social work with the elderly, which requires the study and determination of the features of such work for various modern social services. The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the growing number of clients of social services among the elderly. Previous studies of the social needs of this category of the population predict worsening a number of problems due to the shortcomings of state social security. The solution to the problem, according to the authors of the article, is related to the activities of non-governmental organizations that can provide social services to the elderly. In particular, the article describes the experience of a charitable foundation that operates according to an atypical scheme of aid organization. Not through the provision of funds, but primarily through the implementation of their own projects with the support of other social services of various forms. The article discusses how the needs and characteristics of the elderly can be taken into account in practical social work with clients. The authors rely on the materials of their own research, which was conducted by case study from April to October 2019 on the experience of the Kharkiv Charitable Foundation «Social service of assistance». The article states that the main directions of social protection of the elderly in modern conditions should be not only to improve their difficult financial situation, provide a sufficient level of medical care but also to improve the psychological and emotional state of people. The results obtained by researchers can contribute to the dissemination of successful experience of social work with the elderly; scientific analysis of problematic issues and obstacles in the activities of the charity fund with the elderly; optimization of further work of funds and other social services in this direction. In addition, according to the authors, the hypothesis of indifferent attitude of society to the problems of the elderly needs to be studied scientifically, because this factor significantly hinders the implementation of social assistance to this group of clients by various social services, including charitable foundations.


Author(s):  
Atef ATA ◽  
N. M. Fonseca Ferreira

Over the engineering history, environmental and social needs inspire the development and innovation of many wonderful applications. For example, when the industrial robots entered our industrial life, great advances especially in automotive industry where the industrial robots cover about 90 % of the car industry activities started to change our own life. As the number of elderly people is increasing rapidly all over the world, this requires us to focus on their needs as their children left them alone in our busy daily life. Mechatronics and robotics can offer many possibilities to help elderly people by providing smart solutions for their daily needs as well as entertaining them during their lonely long stay at their homes. Many companies are providing smart mobile robots in different platforms (wheeled or walking) to help the elderly people depend on themselves in receiving their food and medicine at prescheduled times. Other companies are interested in providing smart wheel chairs to help the elderly people navigate indoor and outdoor freely and conveniently without any external help. Meanwhile, some companies are providing entertainment robots in different shapes to talk, play and communicate with elderly people in a nice way. The objective of this paper is to explore the mechatronics and robotics capabilities to assist elderly people and to make their life easier, comfortable and self-governing without any external help. This paper will highlight also the effect of the environment and the social needs in inspiring new innovations. As an example, the innovations by Badi Az-Zaman Ismail Al-Jazari, a Muslim scientist, will be investigated. This paper is going to discuss also the idea and the motivation behind two of Al-Jazari’s robotic applications (Although the term robot was not coined at that time). These two devices are the washing hands and the peacock fountain. Although he used to apply mechanical structure and fluid for controlling the motion of the two devices, they were very beautiful and resemble some of the robotic applications nowadays.   


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-148
Author(s):  
K.Е. Tauenov ◽  

The article is devoted to studying the issue of social services in nursing homes as a factor of successful adaptation of elderly people in new conditions. The main legal acts in the field of protection of the rights of the elderly and disabled people are considered today. The subject of the research is the living conditions of elderly people living in nursing homes, and the impact of social services provided to them on their socio-economic and psychological adaptation. In order to improve the quality of social services in the future, to facilitate the social adaptation of the elderly, to develop proposals to Supplement the legislation on social protection of the elderly in General. Thereby increasing the ability of older people to adapt to social homes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 6374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Colnar ◽  
Vlado Dimovski ◽  
David Bogataj

The growing shortage of skilled social workers, accompanied by an ageing population and the increasing number of fragile, elderly individuals that require social services, poses a serious challenge for our society. The magnitude of this problem is seen in the various predictions hypothesizing that, globally, there is likely to be a shortfall of millions of social workers for the successful provision of social services. To make matters worse, there are not enough social work students to fill that void, whereas the existing employee turnover is another serious concern for the social work field. Policy makers in many countries do not yet understand the pattern of growing needs and have no tool to forecast the future increase in educational requirements for creating a pool of adequately skilled social workers. In addition to this, understanding the patterns of workforce entrance and exit for social workers and the dynamics of transition becomes important for national policy and decision makers. In our paper, we build on current research about knowledge management in social work settings to demonstrate that knowledge management can have a positive impact in helping to fulfil the important role of social work in any ageing society. With our research, we contribute to the underdeveloped literature about knowledge management in the public sector and especially in social work settings and to the knowledge-based view of the organization. We present a multiple decrement model of social workers’ entrance and transition from social work student and social worker trainee to fully productive social worker, to their exit, whether by changed profession, retirement or death. We argue that the availability of social workers in a national economy depends on the development and operationalization of appropriate policies, where knowledge management can be influential. Our model allows measuring the quality of the national policy system related to the social work profession, something which has not been achieved yet, and shows how knowledge management solutions can positively influence the whole field of social work. We apply an objective measuring tool, grounded in an already developed actuarial–mathematical method. Our case relies on the collection and analysis of relevant data found in publicly available statistical reports for Slovenia. Existing data enables us to provide assumptions on how to better forecast the transition of social workers.


Author(s):  
Volodymyr Dzhuhan ◽  
Ruslana Dzhuhan

The relevance of the article is due to the process of progressive aging of the population, so it requires from society to find new ways to work with the elderly and their needs’ realization. The article characterizes the current state of the category of elderly people in Ukrainian society. It is noted that support for the elderly is provided through a variety of resources, for example, formal and informal support networks, volunteering, the state, family, community, and society in general. The formal support network is implemented through the social policy of the state, which is focused on assisting in ensuring the rights of the elderly to their social protection of constitutional rights and freedoms. The aim of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the needs’ realization of the elderly through formal and informal support networks. Research methods applied: generalization − to study the formal network of support, which is implemented through the social policy of the state and focused on constitutional rights for the elderly and social protection; analysis − combining and representing connections of individual elements, parties, components of a complex phenomenon and so in the comprehension of the whole in its components’ unity. The directions of reforming the system of social services are aimed at an authoritative legal framework, where social protection of the elderly would be enshrined at the appropriate level. They includ: deinstitutionalisation through the creation of a wide network of services and facilities that can provide quality services in the community; involvement of non-governmental organizations in the provision of social services; approach of social services to the place of residence; decentralization of management processes, financing, location of services; empowering older people to choose services and participate in the process; increasing the effectiveness of the provision of social services through the study of needs at the individual level and within individual administrative-territorial units; introduction of quality improvement technologies, including monitoring, evaluation and control.


1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Thorslund ◽  
Marti G. Parker

ABSTRACTThe growing number of oldest old has increased the need for social services and medical care in many countries during the last decade. These needs have been met with various strategies to make more effective and efficient use of resources. In many ways these changes have been successful, but at the same time the amount of success correlates negatively to the potential for further gains. That is, when the slack in the system has been drawn in, it is doubtful whether further gains can be made with these strategies. So what can be done if the public resources are restricted and needs continue to increase? Adequate solutions will require a wide perspective encompassing all the various services needed by elderly people. Decisions made in one sector necessarily have repercussions in other service areas. It is also essential to recognize the differences between sectors; guidelines and strategies developed within the medical sector are not always applicable in the social services sector. With Sweden as an example, the organizational and administrative changes that have occurred during the last decades are presented along with arguments for extending the discussion of strategies and priorities to include all kinds of service to the elderly population.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetyana Semigina ◽  
Andrii Karkach

Ukraine belongs to ‘greying’ nations and has one of the worst health profiles in the European region, characterized by high mortality, morbidity, and disability rates. In early 1990s, the country had in-herited the Soviet paternalistic model of social welfare with no professional social workers. Since that time the new services for elderly people have been gradually introduced. Looking through lenses of a number of theoretical concepts (the institutional framework, concept of dependency and geragogy theory) the chapter reviews the key features of the Ukrainian model of elderly care built up in 1990-2020 and the peculiarities of modern social work with elderly people. It reflects the country’s controversial experience of balancing the indigenous social patterns of paternalism, famial-istic informal care, marketization of social services, and professionalization of social work. The case of the municipal social service for elderly persons operating in Poltava region is presented. The spe-cial focus is made on specific interventions implemented in order to encourage older people to use computer and information technology in their daily lives, and to overcome digital inequalities in today's information and network society. The educational activities for elderly people undertaken in this centre within the University of Third Age were evaluated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 3001-3011
Author(s):  
Tetyana Semigina ◽  
◽  
Anna Kachmaryk ◽  
Olena Karagodina ◽  
◽  
...  

Since 2014, Ukraine experiences armed conflict on the territory of its eastern part. The Ukrainian government had announced the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) to combat the separatists. This paper reports on research exploring the social needs of ex-combatants in Ukraine and pathways for social reintegration available to them. The research data reached theoretical saturation by interviewing ten ex-combatants and 11 representatives of different services (social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists, priests etc.). Additionally, field notes and grey literature were also considered for the analysis. To triangle, the data received from an interview the analysis of national legal acts on social protection of ex-combatants were analysed. The following emerging themes came from the study: 1) expectations vs ambivalent attitudes and needs; 2) needs in social workers vs lack of social services. First, the study demonstrates that the primary need of the ATO (OOS) participant after returning home is social and psychological support. ATO participants say they have high expectations for the family and society, not from the state. However, some of the ex-combatants face ambivalent and hostile attitudes. Conducted interviews reveal that social support to ATO veterans is reduced mainly to material benefits: privileges, subsidies, cash payments, etc. There is still no single model of social support for ATO participants that is legally defined. In addition, there is no prescribed standardised mechanism for providing social services to combatants. The Ukrainian legislation includes several acts related to providing various benefits and guarantees of social protection for veterans. However, the ex-combatants stated that they filled unprotected. Opportunities for employment, education and good quality of life overall without the support promised by the legislation was rather tricky. Data suggest that transition to civilian life for ex-combatants is undermined by inadequate procedures, lack of support, and complicated administrative demands. Based on the study findings, the recommendations to amend the state program of physical, medical, psychological rehabilitation and re-adaptation of ATO participants were proposed. The changes to the program might include the introduction of social and psychological support to be provided by all centres and services for ATO veterans. Furthermore, social participation and inclusion of ex-combatants concerning the DDR (Disarmament –Demobilisation and Reintegration) concept and resilience-based approach should be a core idea of social work approach instead of paternalistic social welfare approaches inherited by Ukraine from the Soviet model of social assistance. The findings indicate pitfalls in the protective framework of war veterans. Currently, the available social support comes down to material benefits: benefits, subsidies, cash payments and more. Respondents point out the need to develop comprehensive social work interventions for combatants. This paper concludes that more needs to be done to enhance the social services for the new group of social work clients, including services that could enable ex-combatants to develop the skills they need to reintegrate within their community.


Author(s):  
Svitlana Cherneta  ◽  
Olena Bіelkina-Kovalchuk 

The problem of training of social work specialists for the professional activity on social services provision has been actualized in the article. The purpose of training social workers in Ukraine is to form a highly educated, highly humane, comprehensively developed personality, who have a high culture and generally meets the qualification characteristic of the profession. The purpose of the article is to characterize the content of professional activity of social work specialists in social services provision. Research methods applied: analysis of scientific literature, normative-legal documents in order to clarify the essence of key concepts of the research; synthesis, comparison and generalization – for determination of the areas of work of a social work specialist in the local community; system-generalizing method – for formulation of competencies and conclusions based on research results; prognostic – for determination of the prospects of improving the system of training social work specialists to provide the social services in the community. The professional activity of a social worker is based on international ethical standards, taking into account the uniqueness of each client, their capabilities and rights, awareness of responsibility for their behavior in a particular situation, the purpose of such activity should be restoring the ability of clients (citizens of the community) to overcome difficult life circumstances on their own. The training of future social work specialists in the higher educational institution is to be aimed at forming their readiness to realization of the functions of professional activity. This readiness is manifested in the formation of relevant competencies, which we will identify and analyze through the prism of the functions of the professional activity of social work specialist in the process of providing social services. It is determined that diagnostic, prognostic, transformative, designing, communicative, organizational, human rights, preventive, psychotherapeutic, promotional, social and pedagogical and social competencies should be formed for performing the functions of professional activity of social work specialists in providing social services. The list of presented functions with the relevant competencies of a social work specialist can be supplemented depending on the purpose, tasks, forms, methods of social work in the process of providing social services in the local community.


Author(s):  
Triana Rosalina Noor ◽  
Isna Nurul Inayati

Islamic education is important to be given through the cultivation of religious values from prenatal to old age. This is because in old age, it is a time when man has a developmental duty to draw closer to God. Not all elderly people spend their old time together with their families at home, but there are elderly people who have to spend the rest of their life in a griya werdha. The social services provided in griya werdha are not only physical, but also spiritual. The research method used is the study of literature, namely conducting the process of studying books, theories that exist to be related to the topic of religious soul development in the elderly. The results of this study show that through Islamic religious education, the elderly will be helped to be able to heed the feelings of helplessness and waste felt through activities that increase the spirituality that exists. This means that even in the elderly stage, the elderly can still perform their functions and roles appropriately based on their status in the situation and conditions they face.


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