SUMMARY

Public health management

SOCIAL WORKER EMPLOYMENT POSSIBILITIES IN LITHUANIA

Milda Venclovienė

Scientific advisor Dr. Ramunė Jurkuvienė.

Kaunas medical university, Nursing faculty, Social Care department. – Kaunas, 2005. - 55 p.

Introduction. This work is about Lithuania’s social worker job market and about employment possibilities of graduates, who received Master’s degree in the years 2000 –2004 and acquired social worker qualification. What are the possibilities of social workers, which have university education to get the work in Lithuania in this context is a relevant and not researched subject. It is obvious that the number of specialists who graduate from social work studies is growing, but there is no research done on where they get their work

The purpose of this work is to research employment possibilities corresponding to the specialty of graduates – Masters who acquired social worker qualification in the years 2000 – 2004

Work goals:

4. To review and to present the official statistics and current social worker resources;

5. To evaluate social and demographic characteristics of 2000-2004 year graduates with Master degree who acquired social worker qualification;

6. To evaluate the possibilities of social worker employment depending on employment area, sector, on the work experience of the employed and social relations.

Work target are the year 2000 – 2004 university graduates with Master’s degree, who acquired social worker qualification.

Main research methods:

3. Theoretical: pedagogic, social, philosophic, juridical, economical literature analysis according to the chosen research.

4. Empirical: respondent employment possibility detection by analyzing the questionnaires.

Research type is quantitative.

Research instrument is a questionnaire. The statistical data analysis was done with SPSS for Windows 11.0 software application.

Results and conclusions. Most of the Masters with social worker qualification had the possibility to do social work. Most of those, working according to their specialty, were in the cities. Persons age more than 41 answered 100 percent, that they are doing social work. 48,4 percent of graduates had work proposals. The better job opportunities had those respondents, who indicated that they started working during their Master’s studies or after graduation from Master studies. Social relations and university qualification were very important for the employment. More than 50.0 percent of graduates experienced difficulties in their job search and employment process. The main reason was the lack of experience.

Practical recommendations. Recommendations are given for the further research and practical activities.

Raktažodžiai: social work, job market, darbo rinka, Darbo ištekliai, socialiniai darbuotojai. social workers, socialinis darbas, worker resources