The central theme of my Master's thesis is accepting service users' gifts in social work. The research is based on a qualitative approach, as I wanted to collect word descriptions of the mentioned issue, which would in turn result in more detailed answers. In the first part of the theoretical introduction, I present dual roles, because understanding these issues is vital for the confrontation with service users' gifts and their complexity. Firstly, I am focusing on the definition of the concept called 'dual role'. After that, follows a chapter about boundaries within a relationship between a social worker and service user, with an emphasis on the importance of creating and maintaining boundaries, as well as distinguishing between crossing and breaking these boundaries. I also present different kinds of dual role relationships and their characteristics. On top of that, I am adding some examples on the basis of which we are able to recognize and understand dual roles. In the second part of the theoretical introduction, I am focusing on accepting service users' gifts in social work. I present challenges social workers face when accepting service users' gifts and the importance of researching the background of said gift. I continue with ethical aspects of accepting service users' gifts and guidelines for handling ethical dilemmas. In the last part of the theoretical introduction, I present Slovenian documents which should help social workers in Slovenia who face these mentioned issues. I present Kodeks etike socialnih delavk in delavcev Slovenije (Code of ethics of social workers in Slovenia) and compare it to the National association of social workers (NASW) Code of ethics. I also present Uredba o omejitvah in dolžnostih javnih uslužbencev v zvezi s sprejemanjem daril (Decree on restrictions and duties of public employees as regards acceptance of gifts).
In the empirical part, I present results of my research, in which social workers working in centers for social work in Zasavje, were the main participants. The non-random and convenience sample consists of nine people. With the help of a semi-structured interview, I asked my interviewees about the following themes: accepting service users' gifts, ethics of accepting service users' gifts, knowledge and understanding about dual roles, and the importance of additional guidelines and education in the field of dual roles. Results illustrate, that social workers are often faced with accepting service users' gifts and put emphasis on researching their meaning, as well as recognize potential consequences of either accepting or declining gifts. Social workers are aware of many different predetermined guidelines which help in ethical dilemmas, and they also developed some of them on their own with the help of experience. Most of the time, they do not link accepting service users' gifts to dual roles. They are aware of the term dual roles and link it more to personal relationships. They recognize many consequences such relationship can have for social workers, users and their social work relationship. They believe this subject is important for professional reflection, and they also wish to have, as well as need, more educational courses and predetermined guidelines.
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