This blog is a forum for Discussion among faculty and students from Loyola University of Chicago School of Social Work and Vytautas Magnus University, Schools of Social Work and Public Administration.
The agency provides a day care services for physically disabled people. These services include social care and feeding. Social workers generally assist people to resolve their personal problems - physical or psychological - through individual counselling or within a group environment. The clients can receive regular consultancy at the agency. Counselling is different from other forms of help. The focus is to enable you to clarify the issues about which you are troubled. It is also a very effective way of developing personal potential. According to a social worker the clients usually lack courage to ask for help. Therefore a social worker the first shows attention for client. This way the client gets more information about his disorder and also learns how to help himself. Clients are encouraged to assess their strengths, develop their weakness into strengths and improve their physical and psychological well-being. In the agency there is a group of mutual aid and conflict management, conducted by the social worker. The mutual aid group encourages individuals who need each other in varying degrees, to work on certain common problems. The worker focuses his attention on helping the group members become a system of mutual aid and seeks to enhance group autonomy. He also encourages the members of the group to share their personal experiences, to react to the feelings of others, to support and to show the attention and sensibility to one another. One of the greatest benefits the centre can give to the disabled person is the companionship of others. Many people with a disability often find it difficult to meet and socialise with others without a little help. The clients in these groups are thought to solve difficult problems and to cope with the conflict understanding it‘s causes and the nature.
To start with, Kaunas disabled Youth day centre Social services department for people with psychical disability is an agency, funded from the budget of Kaunas city municipality and no finances are bankrolled for the evaluation of services. If there were any resources to invite, for example, an independent evaluator, there would be a possibility to evaluate social services and get some critical attitude to the activities of the agency, but at the moment the government of Kaunas do not pay much attention to the evaluation as an important thing. We were talking and discussing about evaluation of the services with a social worker of this centre, and she mentioned, that the coordinator and other professionals (social workers, psychologist, occupational therapy specialists) really understands the need and importance of the evaluation of services, so all this evaluation is done by their initiative inside of the centre. So the question was, how do they do that? • Ordinary meetings of the professionals: these meetings are organized once per month to discuss, what was done during this time, for example, what services were provided, which of them were more popular and which were not, what new methods were used and how successful that was in their opinion, and other positive and negative changes in the processes of providing services. These discussions helps professionals to evaluate the need of particular services, the successes and problems in the process of providing services, and to evaluate and decide, if there is any resources to solve problems or create something new in the agency. But, to say the truth, the employees of the centre argued, that taking into account that this centre is a division of the other centre, making some decisions is often complicated because of control and limited resources. For example, social worker mentioned, that at the moment there is a problem with some services. Previously the psychologist was coming from the Kaunas disabled Youth day centre every week to counsel clients of this centre, but now he is coming only two times per month, because of limited financial resources the government of the leading centre decided so, and that is not enough, the need is much more bigger, as it was evaluated during the meetings of the professionals. So there are some difficulties in achieving the best quality of the services when the centre is under control of the other centre and municipality.
• Discussions with the clients: every morning at ten o’clock the clients of the centre are gathtering together around the table, drinking some tea and talking about their daily life in the centre. At the beginning they are reflecting about the last day- what happened, what new, positive or negative they experienced, what jobs accomplished and what problems had solved, what are their feelings and reflections about particular therapies, for example, some elements of the therapie of conflict management, that were integrated to a real situations of the clients’ lives. These discussions, of course, requires big trust and openness among workers and clients, but it is very useful in evaluating particular services. Clients are not afraid to say some critics and comments about the weaknesses and good aspects about the professionals work and they are courageously giving suggestions about how to organize one or another thing, so it is rather appropriate way to evaluate services inside of the centre. • Collaboration with the professional social worker from the foreign country: relations between the coordinator of the centre and Lies Gualtherie van Weezel, social work expert from Netherlands, established at the very beginning of creating this centre many years ago and are continued nowadays. Lies is coming to the centre from time to time and working here for a few weeks as a volunteer, not getting any reward for that. When the social worker was telling us about the activities of this expert at the centre, she mentioned, that the process of evaluation is included too. There were two roles of the evaluator distinguished- evaluator as a person who empowers and evaluator as a teacher.
Evaluator as a person who empowers: Lies as an expert comes to the centre for a few weeks and observes the services that are provided, psychological climate inside the centre, communication among professionals and clients and other indicators that she notices, and discusses about that with the coordinator. She helps to find out whether the services that are provided works as expected and which are functioning better and which are not. To say shortly, she empowers the professionals of the centre to understand and interpret their own experience in working with the clients. Evaluator as a teacher: the expert of social work, observing this day centre, makes some conclusions about the services that are provided using her own knowledge and skills and she makes some suggestions, what can be done in another way, what changes will be useful to the clients and all the centre functioning as a system, and, of course, she shares her experience from her country, that can be integrated in Lithuania. So, evaluator as a teacher gives some specific knowledge, which was created at the process of the evaluating social services.
4. Researches that are carried about the services:
Currently in Social services department for disabled people with psychical disability no researches about quality of services, influence and impact for clients had been made. Centre’s social worker notices that people in day centre quality of life is improving. Clients considerably less time gets to mental institutions, some of them even becomes volunteers in assisting to the other people that have mental disabilities. This alteration likely related with attendance to day centre. However exhaustive researches would help to take a deeper look and reveal impact of services. Hopefully it will be done it the future.
Kaunas disabled Youth day centre Social services department for people with psychical disabilites, was created with a help of Caritas in 2006. Caritas was the main financial sponsor and that let to open this center. At this moment Kaunas city municipality endows this day centre. It is the only source of revenue, no other financial sources were found. But this centre has other promoters and partners, which provides non-financial backing. It is individual companies, charity-maintenance funds, functioning in Kaunas. Support of following sponsors mostly consists of material goods, their own productions. Although number of sponsors is not inconsiderable, support is mostly one-off time, provided during the time of holidays. Also it is should not be forgotten, that this centre is affiliates with various museums located in Kaunas city, for example, Kaunas city musical theater, Kaunas Zilinskas art gallery. These institutions enable to visit museums or attend to spectacles for free of for a minimal price. Social services department for people with psychical disabilities collaborates with club “Bičiuliai” which is attended of people with various disabilities. Close relationships with this club is developed – day centre oftentimes invites member of centre to attend their events and celebrations. Sponsors are usually found by coordinator, active visitors of centre also involves in a search. Though all these sponsors provide non-financial maintenance, this support is very important for this centre and its activity’s development.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete2. The types of services provided:
ReplyDeleteThe agency provides a day care services for physically disabled people. These services include social care and feeding. Social workers generally assist people to resolve their personal problems - physical or psychological - through individual counselling or within a group environment. The clients can receive regular consultancy at the agency. Counselling is different from other forms of help. The focus is to enable you to clarify the issues about which you are troubled. It is also a very effective way of developing personal potential. According to a social worker the clients usually lack courage to ask for help. Therefore a social worker the first shows attention for client. This way the client gets more information about his disorder and also learns how to help himself. Clients are encouraged to assess their strengths, develop their weakness into strengths and improve their physical and psychological well-being.
In the agency there is a group of mutual aid and conflict management, conducted by the social worker. The mutual aid group encourages individuals who need each other in varying degrees, to work on certain common problems. The worker focuses his attention on helping the group members become a system of mutual aid and seeks to enhance group autonomy. He also encourages the members of the group to share their personal experiences, to react to the feelings of others, to support and to show the attention and sensibility to one another. One of the greatest benefits the centre can give to the disabled person is the companionship of others. Many people with a disability often find it difficult to meet and socialise with others without a little help. The clients in these groups are thought to solve difficult problems and to cope with the conflict understanding it‘s causes and the nature.
3. The way services are evaluated:
ReplyDeleteTo start with, Kaunas disabled Youth day centre Social services department for people with psychical disability is an agency, funded from the budget of Kaunas city municipality and no finances are bankrolled for the evaluation of services. If there were any resources to invite, for example, an independent evaluator, there would be a possibility to evaluate social services and get some critical attitude to the activities of the agency, but at the moment the government of Kaunas do not pay much attention to the evaluation as an important thing. We were talking and discussing about evaluation of the services with a social worker of this centre, and she mentioned, that the coordinator and other professionals (social workers, psychologist, occupational therapy specialists) really understands the need and importance of the evaluation of services, so all this evaluation is done by their initiative inside of the centre. So the question was, how do they do that?
• Ordinary meetings of the professionals: these meetings are organized once per month to discuss, what was done during this time, for example, what services were provided, which of them were more popular and which were not, what new methods were used and how successful that was in their opinion, and other positive and negative changes in the processes of providing services. These discussions helps professionals to evaluate the need of particular services, the successes and problems in the process of providing services, and to evaluate and decide, if there is any resources to solve problems or create something new in the agency. But, to say the truth, the employees of the centre argued, that taking into account that this centre is a division of the other centre, making some decisions is often complicated because of control and limited resources. For example, social worker mentioned, that at the moment there is a problem with some services. Previously the psychologist was coming from the Kaunas disabled Youth day centre every week to counsel clients of this centre, but now he is coming only two times per month, because of limited financial resources the government of the leading centre decided so, and that is not enough, the need is much more bigger, as it was evaluated during the meetings of the professionals. So there are some difficulties in achieving the best quality of the services when the centre is under control of the other centre and municipality.
• Discussions with the clients: every morning at ten o’clock the clients of the centre are gathtering together around the table, drinking some tea and talking about their daily life in the centre. At the beginning they are reflecting about the last day- what happened, what new, positive or negative they experienced, what jobs accomplished and what problems had solved, what are their feelings and reflections about particular therapies, for example, some elements of the therapie of conflict management, that were integrated to a real situations of the clients’ lives. These discussions, of course, requires big trust and openness among workers and clients, but it is very useful in evaluating particular services. Clients are not afraid to say some critics and comments about the weaknesses and good aspects about the professionals work and they are courageously giving suggestions about how to organize one or another thing, so it is rather appropriate way to evaluate services inside of the centre.
ReplyDelete• Collaboration with the professional social worker from the foreign country: relations between the coordinator of the centre and Lies Gualtherie van Weezel, social work expert from Netherlands, established at the very beginning of creating this centre many years ago and are continued nowadays. Lies is coming to the centre from time to time and working here for a few weeks as a volunteer, not getting any reward for that. When the social worker was telling us about the activities of this expert at the centre, she mentioned, that the process of evaluation is included too. There were two roles of the evaluator distinguished- evaluator as a person who empowers and evaluator as a teacher.
Evaluator as a person who empowers: Lies as an expert comes to the centre for a few weeks and observes the services that are provided, psychological climate inside the centre, communication among professionals and clients and other indicators that she notices, and discusses about that with the coordinator. She helps to find out whether the services that are provided works as expected and which are functioning better and which are not. To say shortly, she empowers the professionals of the centre to understand and interpret their own experience in working with the clients.
ReplyDeleteEvaluator as a teacher: the expert of social work, observing this day centre, makes some conclusions about the services that are provided using her own knowledge and skills and she makes some suggestions, what can be done in another way, what changes will be useful to the clients and all the centre functioning as a system, and, of course, she shares her experience from her country, that can be integrated in Lithuania. So, evaluator as a teacher gives some specific knowledge, which was created at the process of the evaluating social services.
4. Researches that are carried about the services:
ReplyDeleteCurrently in Social services department for disabled people with psychical disability no researches about quality of services, influence and impact for clients had been made. Centre’s social worker notices that people in day centre quality of life is improving. Clients considerably less time gets to mental institutions, some of them even becomes volunteers in assisting to the other people that have mental disabilities. This alteration likely related with attendance to day centre. However exhaustive researches would help to take a deeper look and reveal impact of services. Hopefully it will be done it the future.
5. Sponsorship
ReplyDeleteKaunas disabled Youth day centre Social services department for people with psychical disabilites, was created with a help of Caritas in 2006. Caritas was the main financial sponsor and that let to open this center. At this moment Kaunas city municipality endows this day centre. It is the only source of revenue, no other financial sources were found.
But this centre has other promoters and partners, which provides non-financial backing. It is individual companies, charity-maintenance funds, functioning in Kaunas. Support of following sponsors mostly consists of material goods, their own productions. Although number of sponsors is not inconsiderable, support is mostly one-off time, provided during the time of holidays.
Also it is should not be forgotten, that this centre is affiliates with various museums located in Kaunas city, for example, Kaunas city musical theater, Kaunas Zilinskas art gallery. These institutions enable to visit museums or attend to spectacles for free of for a minimal price. Social services department for people with psychical disabilities collaborates with club “Bičiuliai” which is attended of people with various disabilities. Close relationships with this club is developed – day centre oftentimes invites member of centre to attend their events and celebrations. Sponsors are usually found by coordinator, active visitors of centre also involves in a search. Though all these sponsors provide non-financial maintenance, this support is very important for this centre and its activity’s development.