COMPETENCE-BASED APPROACH TO TRAINING SOCIAL WORKERS IN WORKING WITH CHILDREN FROM FAMILIES IN DIFFICULT LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES
Authors:   Senior Lecturer of Sociology and Social Work Department, Lviv Polytechnic National University, BIK Olesya 
Published: November 2020

The family is recognized in the international community as the best condition for the survival, protection and development of children, the main center of society, the natural environment for humans. As has been repeatedly noted, the efforts of the state and the public should be con-centrated at the well-being of the family, creating conditions for the protection of its rights in society and the rights of family members. Today, there is an urgent need not only for social support for a family that has certain problems in its life, but also for special work with families who find them-selves in difficult life circumstances and have more serious psychosocial problems, such as systematic violations of human rights. Such families are traditionally dealt with by law enforcement agencies, human rights are protected by law, but prosecution cannot be the only approach, since our main goal must be to preserve the integrity of the family (its family feelings, ties). First of all, long-term socio-pedagogical work aimed at re-education, training of its members in new techniques and methods of interaction should be carried out. International experience shows that majority of govern-mental social programs are focused on families. Existing family life adaptation programs in the United States are designed for families at different stages of development, each targeting different types of family issues. One more program - "Intensive course for adults on raising children”. In England there is a John Barnes program, which aims to work with children in families experiencing a crisis. The job of a social worker or a teacher is to study such a family, tosimulate the change in relations between its members, tohelp in adaptation, to train parents in self-control. Teach them and their children how to set strategic and supporting goals. Help to overcome obstacles without corporal punish-ment. In Croatia, children, who exhibit deviant behavior, are engaged in “peer-to-peer” school mediation programs, while specialists work with parents, revealing the shortcomings of family psycho-emotional and educational dynamics. Professional social activity is currently intensifying and improving in Ukraine. Therefore, the social education sys-tem must be flexible, mobile, respond quickly to changes in social policy and the social sphere, the needs of individuals and society as a whole. The education of students majoring in "Social Work" at the National University "Lviv Polytechnic" is determined by the Canadian-Ukrainian model of training of social workers, adapted to national conditions and needs. In terms of pro-fessional competencies in working with children and fami-lies, such training includes the acquisition of knowledge and practical experience. This further gives the opportunity to develop their own innovative programs, based on experi-ence gained on the problems and needs of the client. The most widely represented is the cycle of profession-ally oriented disciplines, which includes a 90-hour course "Social work with children and families." The content of the discipline covers all the main aspects of the social worker's work with this category of clients: from the concept of fami-ly, its functions and role in the child's life and identifying aspects of family risk of crisis, to the processes of interven-tion and improvement of children's social security. Particu-lar attention in the subject is paid to topics of deviantology, causes, manifestations and types of deviant behavior. The section "Interventions" covers such topics as: the functions of a social worker; theoretical principles of family counseling; methods and forms of family counseling; pro-fessional intervention focused on the family; institutional model of care for abused and neglected children; preventive measures. The study of the "Improvement of children's social security service" topic includes a mandatory study of possible changes in the system of services and possible ways of policy formation in the field of social security. A characteristic feature of the training of social workers according to the Canadian-Ukrainian model is the teaching of professionally-oriented disciplines in the form of integrat-ed classes, which are divided into two main categories: lecture-practical and lecture-laboratory. Students' educational activities are diversified by excur-sions to social services, video classes, participation in vol-unteer actions, educational conferences, trainings, work of the international scientific-practical seminar organized at the Department of SR, meetings with well-known experts in the field of social work, etc. According to the concept of training specialists in the field of social work, the leading place in this process is occupied by practical training of students. The cycle of practical training of students includes different types of practical educational activities of students: internships within the semesters, organized by "blocks", and educa-tional and research workshops conducted on the basis of social services, lasts 4 semesters (years of study 3rd and 4th) and occurs once a week during a full working day. The workshop aims, in particular, to develop students' skills to carry out scientific research, during which they have the opportunity to collect the necessary empirical material to perform individual tasks in professionally-oriented disci-plines that have a research nature, and writing term papers and dissertations. When performing the tasks of educational practice and educational-research workshop, students have a real oppor-tunity to apply the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in professionally- oriented, fundamental and other disci-plines.