In my graduation thesis, I research the challenges faced by professional workers on a Centre of Social Work in a large town in Slovenia during the time of coronavirus epidemic. I was interested in the manners of solving those challenges, examples of good practices in the responses of professional workers to users distress and the provision of good working conditions at the selected Centre of Social Work during the epidemic. In the theoretical part of the thesis, I present the service of the Centres of Social Work, disease covid-19 and measures to curb the expansion of the infection, which affected the service of the social protection system. Then I describe social work in emergencies and the findings of a research on the social work challenges during the covid-19 epidemic in different parts of the world. In the empirical part, I present the results of the interviews I had with six professional workers who work in different work fields of the selected Centre of Social Work. During their work in the time of epidemic, they used protective equipment, maintained a physical distance from each other, regularly ventilated their offices and disinfected work surfaces. Professional workers primarily communicated with users and co-workers by telephone or e-mail, especially during the first wave of epidemic. The results of the research revealed the challenges of providing safe spaces and protection for working, increased workload, the lack of personal communication and coordination of work and private life. Subscribing users to personal conversations and communication with representatives of various institutions via video calls has been shown to be a good practice. While some professional workers of the selected Centre of Social Work were satisfied with the responsiveness and support of the management, others encountered unresponsiveness and a lack of support. Study participants reported a deterioration in their mental health, feeling more irritability, stress, and burden when working during an epidemic. In a state of emergency the management of the Centre of Social Work must strive for ensuring uninterrupted access to services for people and greater representation of their work in the general public. When working in emergency situations, professional workers need to be provided with more support from the management in the form of regular meetings of the entire collection, psychosocial assistance and supervision for all work fields of the Centre of Social Work.
|
