In my diploma thesis, I research the experience of social workers during the process of dying and the moment of death of their users. In the theoretical introduction, I present death as a taboo, the fear of death, death and dying in today’s world, social work and dying, mourning with the stages of mourning, and forms of help. In the research I included social workers working as social workers in Slovenia. I wanted to find out how social workers experience the death of users, how they help themselves when they are in distress due to the death of users, what forms of help are available to them, how their grief is affected by time and experience, how the death of users affects their personal lives. I conducted a qualitative survey involving 10 social workers, and the results showed that social workers experience distress due to the dying and deaths of users, which are more common in workers with less experience. To alleviate distress, they use various forms of help available to them (supervision, intervision) and self-initiated forms of help. They also perceive a lack of knowledge, especially at the early stage of their careers. I found that it would be reasonable to include more topics related to death and dying in the social work study curriculum. I suggest that social workers receive an appropriate and sufficient form of help from the employer.
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