The aim of the thesis is to determine the common factors of effective support and assistance of social work centres from the perspective of social workers and clients. In the theoretical introduction, I outline the factors of success in the processes of support and assistance in light of previous research in the fields of social services and psychotherapy. I transfer the findings of psychotherapy into the context of social services because I believe that these findings can also be used to develop good practices in the field of social services. I write about the common factors in the processes of support and assistance, with a focus on the common factors of successful practices in social services. I describe in detail the social worker factors, client factors, relationship factors, social network factors, practice strategies and the field of work in social work centres. In the empirical part of the thesis, I outline the experiences of collaboration in the processes of support and assistance in the case study of twelve people – six pairs of social workers and clients – working together in the social work centres. I find that interpretations of success may differ between the social worker and the client within the same working relationship. I also find that another factor contributing to successful processes of support and assistance is the length of the collaboration and the way the clients understand, experience and accept the process of collaboration.
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