In my master's thesis I wanted to investigate how social workers at the social work centre feel about their own sense of security when doing social work practice. I was particularly interested in the views of the social workers on the factors that influence this feeling of safety, on the safety measures at work, both personal and organisational, and on the state of their own competence and knowledge to deal with potentially dangerous situations at work. In addition, I wanted to obtain their own testimonies on their personal experiences of safety incidents in their workplace and on the ways of dealing with and experiencing these situations, where I was also interested in their opinion on reporting safety incidents in the workplace. Finally, I also wanted to get their views on workplace safety issues and suggestions, especially related to increasing the safety of the employees at the social work centre. The research carried out is qualitative. I obtained the experiential material by conducting four focus groups, each of which represented one of the four units of the regional social work centre named Severna Primorska. The units are Nova Gorica, Tolmin, Idrija and Ajdovščina. Within each focus group there were four social workers (with the exception of one group of three) working in different areas of the centre, such as cash benefits and subsidies, child and family care, adult care and social services at the centre. The results of the survey provide us a better insight into the perception and experience of own security among the female social workers working at the social work centre Severna Primorska, as well as into the circumstances and factors that contribute to it. By analysing the material obtained, I have thus found that the sense of self-security of the persons concerned is influenced by organisational factors, by supportive factors within the collective, where the difference between support among employees and support from management is mentioned, and by other factors that influence the judgement of the sense of security, such as the unpredictability of the circumstances, which is mentioned several times. According to the participants, their own behaviour in the event of a security situation depends on the situation and the circumstances, as well as on the responsiveness of their colleagues. The importance of de-escalation techniques in security situations and the development of a security plan in the event of a threat are mentioned, both of which can be classified as preventive measures for employees. Employees take a variety of precautionary measures in the course of their own work, including when they are alone, when they are in the field, when they need to pay special attention to the circumstances of other colleagues, and when situations arise that require advance organisation of work. The behaviour of persons in security situations is also largely based on self-developed guidelines for behaviour, where prior organisation is seen as important in certain cases. The need to act on one's own inner feeling, sense is also mentioned, as this enables one to judge the situation within given circumstances. People also talked about preventive measures, which are part of the social work centre's way of working and relate to the knowledge of how to deal with security situations, equipment, working in pairs, and the ability to be accompanied. On the importance and usefulness of handling protocols in these situations, people said that they are not really able to provide protection and predict the exact course of action in the interaction with the user, nor can they help in unpredictable situations. Among the ways of dealing with security situations the participants gave examples where they described their own ways of dealing with past security situations and its aftermath. Some staff members had an experience of acting in a way where they decided to report user violence after an incident. Some said that they had reported the incident and several had been in a situation where they had wanted to report but then decided not to do it. Employees also shared with me the forms of violence they had encountered at work, experiencing verbal, psychological and physical violence. They also described what they experienced during security situations in which they found themselves and gave some observations in such situations. The experience of fear was mentioned several times. Some spoke about the role of the security services, where the role of the police in given situations was also mentioned. Some also mentioned the importance and use of their own intuition, which some of them had used in past situations to help them assess circumstances and judge the reality of threats. Employees cited both positive and negative experiences of management reactions in security situations of which they had been part. In the context of raising the issue of security, the employees' distrust of the systemic regulation of social care was evident, as were own feelings about their work, highlighting the negative attitudes of the users towards themselves, their normalisation of experiencing violence from users, and the vulnerability of the employees to being threatened. They spoke about the pressures on staff, the feelings of threat and the problematic nature of taking these for granted. They also pointed out the negative perception of a social work centre, of female employees, and the increased threats to a field of such work. A topic frequently mentioned by the employees is related to the reporting of violence by the social work centre's employees, where they pointed out many problems they themselves observed with the regulation of the area or the reporting procedure started by the employee. They highlighted their own experiences together with their own opinions on aspects that they found problematic and made suggestions for changes to the existing arrangements. The most frequent suggestions made by the employees regarding safety measures in the workplace related to equipment in the workplace, the need for recruitment of additional staff, design of the working space, training and education. People shared with me their view that there is not enough raising awareness of the safety issues in the mentioned workplace. They pointed out that there is a lack of macro-level awareness of the risks faced by female and male social workers. Finally, when referring to workplace safety and situations that put them at risk, people also referred to the link between their own safety and the public image of social work. According to the employees, this is largely a matter of criticising the decisions of the employees without knowing the field of work.
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