Socialinis darbas

According to the data of 2008 provided by the Ministry of Social Security and Labour there were 12306 children in Lithuania deprived of parental care. 4802 of them grew up in children care homes (Socialinis pranešimas 2007-2008). Most of those children have behaviour and learning problems. They have difficulties in managing anger, they ignore rules, manipulate and often are depressive.
Social workers working in children care homes face difficulties not only in communicating with children but also communicating with local community. They experience stress, fatigue, exhaustion. Supervision is one way of support and help for them.
When reflecting the process of supervision in X children care home, which took place in 2009-2010, three parts of the process have been identified: 1) preliminary preparation for supervision; 2) discussing supervision contract with the head of the institution; 3) identifying themes for supervision, preparation of cases for analysis, discussing theoretical perspectives and application of practical tasks and interventions.
After assessment the understanding of supervision, its aim and ethical issues, it became clear that supervision participants have heard the concept "supervision" but the meaning of it was not clear for them. So it took some time to clarify the essence of supervision. Three themes were suggested for supervision by the participants: 1) peculiarities of children behaviour in children care home; 2) attitude of the local community towards the children from children care home; 3) separation and mourning when a child leaves institution.
While supervising the group of social workers, special attention was paid to the group dynamics, activity of the participants. Active methods of teaching/learning were applied. After all the sessions of supervision, participants pointed out the importance and usefulness of the supervision.