Social Work

The Bachelor's Degree in Social Work is focused on recognizing and mastering contemporary methods of helping people (individuals, families, communities), who cannot on their own solve difficulties in relationships with other people or organizations, e.g. with governmental offices or service providers, etc.

The graduate will be able to use social work methods in assisting people for whom it is difficult to maintain contact with their environment (e.g. people with addiction on computers), people for who is difficult to participate fully in society (e.g. people with disabilities), people who are considered a threat by society at large (e.g. inhabitants of marginalized localities), people who are threatened by others (e.g. seniors neglected by their relatives), people who are not insufficiently supported in society (e.g. those who are unable to cope with caring for their relatives) and the like.

The study program has the following aims: familiarization and mastery of the methods of assistance in of social work as well as its traditions and its philosophical backgrounds, as well as the organizational and legal framework, in which social workers perform their duties. It is important to give the students the knowledge and the skills to enable them to recognize and discuss the ethical questions related to assisting people with difficulties in relationships with other people or organizations.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• Assess the living situation of clients (individuals, groups, communities) from the perspective of their difficulties in interacting with their social environment;
• Design professional interventions into clients' life situations and propose solutions to social problems.
• Provide professional interventions into clients' life situations and participate into social problems solutions .
• Coordinate comprehensive assistance to clients, consider and evaluate ethical issues and dilemmas.
• Mediate interaction (understanding, contact, communication, negotiation) between the client and the social environment.
• Understand key social science terms needed for the performance of a social worker's duties (especially social policy, ethics, sociology, psychology, law) and to be able to apply them in an assessment of the living situation of particular client;
• Get involved in the preparation and implementation of social service programs focused on the specific difficulties of particular target groups;
• Design and implement social interventions and develop identity of social work;
• Conduct research autonomously and to use the basic principles of research in the assessment of the living situation of a client.

Graduates may apply as independent social workers in organizations providing social work assistance, social security or social services, including employment services. They might apply to be developers and practitioners for social service programs, especially on the regional or local level. Graduates may also apply for roles as social workers, creator or participant of programs of assistance or social services in the governmental or non-governmental sector, possibly even in an international context. The study program qualifies graduates for carrying out the regulated profession of social work.

The study of social work at the SPSP MU department can be combined with the studying of other MU programs.

• Social worker

Part of the bachelor study is the completion of a compulsory professional social work internship. The aims of the student internship include: (a) enabling students to try out the methods they became acquainted with during their theoretical studies; (b) enabling students to confront their theoretical ideas about social work with its practical manifestation in the course of their study; (c) providing students with experiences regarding the social relationships and ways of working typical of aid organizations, and encouraging students to reflect on such experiences. (d) stimulating the process of identification of students with social work as a profession. The student must complete 416 hours of the internship and 78 hours of supervisory seminars. The actual performance of the internship begins in the third semester of study and is organized into three consecutive required subjects; students earn at least 13 ECTS for them. The Department of Social Policy and Social Work recommends internships at well-established workplaces. The department will provide supervision that focuses on the professional aspects of social work.

The focus of the bachelor's thesis is very varied and builds on the topics offered by teachers. Here are some examples:

- Expectations of clients and staff of homes for the elderly

- Social worker and client in the contracting process

- The image of the curator's work in the eyes of his teenage clients

- Discussing clients about the meaning of resocialization

- Dilemmas of social workers with clients with psychiatric illnesses

- The attitude of social workers to their power in the total organisation

- Features of social work in supporting self-fulfilment of sheltered housing clients

- The life situation of people with material needs

- etc.

The bachelor's thesis is evaluated on the basis of theoretical-methodological and formal criteria. These criteria are published for students on the websites of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work and the internet portal of Masaryk University (http://www.is.muni.cz). Theoretical-methodological criteria for the bachelor's thesis are following:

1. a focus on research of aid interventions and their participants;

2. an orientation to an unanswered research question;

3. attention to what is not obvious at first sight;

4. rigorous fidelity to following the research question and methodological continuity of the research process;

5. a theoretical orientation;

6. conclusiveness of arguments;

7. applicability of knowledge gained to practice or the solution to a real-world question.

Formal criteria:

Bachelor's thesis includes:

- brief annotation

- indexes (subject and name)

- bibliography

Quotations are governed by common rules and ethics of scientific work (quotes and paraphrases of the text must be declared). The standard extent of the basic text (without footnotes, explanatory notes and annexes) must range from 10,000 to 12,000 words (72,000 to 81,000 characters including spaces).

Graduates of the bachelor program in social work may continue in a subsequent master's study of the same discipline at FSS MU or at another university. There are some schools, especially abroad, where the disciplines of social work and social pedagogy are understood to be closely related or even identical. Graduates can continue in the study of social pedagogy in this case. Graduates may also possibly, depending on conditions of acceptance of other related disciplines, continue in follow-up master's study of such related disciplines, e.g. social policy, public policy, management of social services, and the like.