Bogdan Lešnik

The summer issue is indeed a bit thinner but by no means a vacation reading. In it, epistemological issues prevail, even if occasionally in a not too evident way. Say, in Zoran Kanduč 's paper that discusses the alleged crises of the family: the term itself points out that there is a problem of conceptualisation, which by ali means determines the »issue in question«. The terminological issues discussed by Srečo Dragoš is very much related to what Michel Foucault called episteme, the range of knowledge (determined not only scientifically but also politically, by the »mentality« etc.) belonging to a certain social group and epoch. Also part of that range in the conceptual catalogue treated explicitly from the epistemological standpoint by Lea Š. Bohinc. Also explicitly dealing with epistemological issues, the author of the last paper (and of these lines) Bogdan Lešnik discusses some »classical« anthropological concepts that turn out awfully short when applied not on (social, cultural) »systems«, but on everyday life, and much more so, if it is our very own evervday life...

Srečo Dragoš

The first part of the paper points out the most frequent terminological complications in which three levels have to be taken into account: the practical one, the hermeneutical one and the conceptual one. They are taken into account when distinguished and not when divided. The first level is important for four reasons: (a) because of the profession's development, (b) because of the current terminological debate, (c) because of the interactional nature of social work and (d) because the profession of social work confronts its »object« in a different way than natural sciences. The second level involves the problem of the so-called double hermeneutics that entails the mediatory function of terms between the expert's and everyday world, whereas on the third level, the relation bersveen a term with its meanings and the context of its use is in focus. A concretisation of this is attempted in the second part in which the adequacy of terms like user, client, patron etc. is questioned. The author argues in favour of the first one.

Zoran Kanduč

The paper treats several key dimensions of the assumption of the crisis of the (traditional) family. Etiological determinants of the assumption are suggested. The notion of the family as a voluntary form of sociality or cohabitation is scrutinised, as well as the relation between the public and the private that transverses the existing family formats; some important critical reflections of the conventional family and married life are summarised, and the social barriers that prevent the creation of alternative voluntary interpersonal (or merely personal) forms of family life are clarified. Amongst the latter is also the way the crisis of the conventional family is perceived by the concerned individuals and the ideological apparatuses of the state.

Lea Šugman Bohinc

The paper is a combination of lectures, students' reflections on the lectures, and the lecturer's reflections on the students' reflections. In this sense it expresses the endeavour of the author to reflect the learning process in interaction with her students. The paper clarifies basic concepts such as cognitive processes (cognition — observation, drawing distinctions, perception, interpretation, conceptualisation...), epistemology, cybernetics of the first and second order, and hermeneutics, using concepts such as circularity, recursivity, complementarity context, feedback information, change, conversation, understanding, autonomy, responsibiIity, ethics, and psychosocial help. A certain agreement upon the understanding of the concepts mentioned serves as a basis for an attempt to link the profession of social work with the science of cybernetics, as well as to point out the inevitable shift from the objectivist to the hermeneutical epistemoIogy of social work.

Bogdan Lešnik

The paper discusses several problems in (anthropological and sociological) conceptualisation of everyday life. First, mountaineering (Alpine climbing, very popular in Slovenia) is taken as an example of how to analyse acts, on the background of the practice of which they are part, as representations of social relations (thus having a »representational value«), even when they are judged as »foolish«. On this basis, Malinowski's concept of »need« is confronted — not to refute it but to demonstrate that this concept, if its author is critically read, contains the grain of another concept, Freudian »desire«, for Malinowski does not distinguish need from social or cultural demand and places them on the same level. In the next section, the concept of institution is discussed, which in Malinowski is the only legitimate »cultural isolate«. The concept is lacking because Malinowski does not take account of a heterogeneous element (he reduces it to the »institution's activities«), namely practice (in Althusser's conceptualisation), without which it is impossible to think everyday life. The final section analyses the notion of values, one of the basic and a »self-understood« sociological concepts, yet its interpretations, when analysed to any degree of exhaustion, very soon prove to be not only contradictory, but also tautological.

Bogdan Lešnik

This issue is introduced by a sequel to Srečo Dragoš' analysis of the political situation in Slovenia between the two world wars. But what is the most striking in his observations is how extraordinarily history repeats itself... Professional confidentiality, however, is quite new in this country. Not amongst doctors and lawyers, but certainly amongst social workers who - together with several other professionals, such as teachers -yet have to learn that they deal with a number of confidential data and that this status is not regulated only by ethical codes but by the criminal code as well. Still, the matter is not free of contradictions, as is pointed out in Damjan Korošec's paper. A particular kind of contradiction has been provided by psychiatry users who by organising themselves opened the seal of silence and secrecy. Having come out into the public space and becoming recognised, they made it obvious that the attitude of the people towards psyhiatric patients had been full of prejudices and fear, and quite unnecessarily so. However, this is merely one side of the battle they have started; the other concerns their relation to the institution, because at least in this country the very modus operandi of the latter still makes them its victim. For this issue, Tanja Lamovec contributed a research she had conducted on the goals and activities of users' organisations from a number of countries. Their goals and activities, of course, are always closely related to their positions in their respective countries. Slovenia is a curious country, as regards the attitudes towards illegal drugs. The most liberal approach seems to be advocated by the police, or at least by some officers who argue that it is not the police who should intervene in the first instance and refuse to follow the popular cry that ali situations call for immediate repressive measures, especially not in cases of young, opportunistic drug users (who thus get stigmatised and are actually driven to »delinquency«). In any case, social work is not in the position to act repressively, as its primary task is help, and Peter Stefanoski in his paper develops some good ideas on the premises of social work with drug users. Finally, Viktorije Bevc's contribution will give us an insight into her experiences with preparing spouses for substitute parenthood.

Srečo Dragoš

The main reasons for the emergence of great poverty of the working class in the period between the world wars in Slovenia cannot be sought in expIoitation as a necessary consequence of an »inherent logic« of the capitalist economy. In Slovenia, the worst poverty indeed coincides with the consolidation of capitalism, but this doesn't mean it was caused by the capitalist economical system. Therefore, poverty also could not have been abolished by the rejection of capitalism, as was demanded by both communist and catholic actors of the time. The author argues that its emergence was conditioned by the combination of four elements: (1) the split of political actors, which grew into an irreconcilable conf lict, (2) the blocking of the syndicate movements through the monopolisation of the political space, mainly by official Catholicism, (3) overattachment of syndicates to political parties and (4) dysfunctional interventions of the state into the relation between work and capital.

Damjan Korošec

The author approaches the problem of professional and official secrets from the standpoint of penal law. The reasons for incrimination of their disclosure and of the failure to report a criminal offence are cited, as viewed from the standpoint of the human rights doctrine in contemporary material criminal law. Particular attention is paid to the relation among the criminal offences of unauthorised disclosure of a professional secret, disclosure of official secret and failure to report a criminal offence or offender, according to the processual provisions of the Penal Code of the Republic of Slovenia concerning the privilege of silence of certain witnesses. In analysing the core of those criminal offences and unlawfulness, the paper discloses several paradoxes and points out the different criminal law positions of individual professions or work posts with regard to the obligation of the protection of secrets and the reporting of criminal offences.

Tanja Lamovec

A short survey of the development of European psychiatry users' movement is presented as an introduction to the results of a research whose purpose was to determine the goals, the activities and the circumstances in which the users' associations have been established. A content analysis is performed on the info sheets that the delegates of the 2nd European Conference of Users and Ex-users in Mental Health (Denmark, 1994) handed out. 23 European associations were analysed. In conclusion, some crucial dilemmas of users' associadons are pointed out and attempts were made at their resolution. The issues of power, equality, responsibility and the scope of changes they should aspire to achieve are mentioned. As for the last issue, the suggestion would be: Think big but proceed in small steps.

Peter Stefanoski

In his considerations of what are the premises of social work with drug users, the author does not seek its goals and methods in »specific characteristics« of drug users but in the discourse of social work and in the methods of professional conduct and principles of social work, and offers some practical directions for work with drug-users at centres of social work.

Viktorija Bevc

The Code on Marriage and Family Relations legally defines the conditions of child adoption but does not mention the contents. Here, the profession of social work steps in, seeking the appropriate forms of helping the couples who wish to adopt or foster a child. The author presents her work with substitute (adoptive or foster) parents in the project of preventive aid to children under the umbrella of the association of adoptive families »Deteljica«. The project consists of a programme of preparing childless spouses who wish to adopt a child to their future situation. The circumstances that gave rise to the need of the programme and the practice of group work are described. The results of her work are presented, including the realisation that the search of suitable parents cannot be effective if reduced to talking with the couple alone or to visiting them at their home.

Vito Flaker

Andreja Kavar Vidmar

Nataša Magister

Bogdan Lešnik

The papers in this issue discuss three topics: care for the users of psychiatric services, the troubles of transitional (post-socialist) period, and the problems o fhomes for the aged. In fact, »care for the users of psychiatric services« is not a very precise term, since it is rather, as shown by Darja Zaviršek's and Vesna Švab's papers, the effort to avoid a psychiatric service, at least in the form which is still (and with reason) worrying — that is, to avoid unnecessary hospitalisation in a psychiatric institution. It is worrying for two reasons: first, because psychiatric institutions still seem to operate on the basis of a nineteenth-century model, and second, because it is inferred that psychiatric hospitalisation may also be unnecessary — but of course only if there are suitable alternatives. The troubles with transition are dealt with by Srečo Dragoš and Magdalena Paleczny- Zapp. The former starts his treatment ofthepresent conditions by discussing the time between the world wars when political parties were constituted (this is the first part of his contribution), while the latter describes the difficult position of Polish women who seem to be, as in many Eastern and Central European countries after socialism, driven to a kind of social Middle Ages. Whoever discusses homes for the elderly inevitably concludes these institutions — not unlike psychiatric ones—are problematic, and that their conditions ought to change, in order for them to cease being mere dumping grounds for the useless and redundant oldpeople. This is also what Ivan Janko Cafuta finds, whereas Stanija Ivajnšič describes a case in which, by way of a certain action, a change has actually occurred, although not on the level of the system, so that such actions are more or less left to inventive and eager workers in the homes.

Darja Zaviršek

The paper discusses a social innovation in the field of mental health: the team of volunteers acting on behalf of the person who experiences mental distress. The crisis team, which in the case described in the article was composed of social workers and students, offer an opportunity that the person concerned survives his or her crisis at home or in another safe place instead of in a psychiatric institution, thus avoiding the asylum mentality and the procedures of degradation characteristic of large institutions. The members of a crisis team stand by a person and provide for peaceful and safe surroundings until the crisis is over The paper describes the founding and actions of a crisis team for a middle-aged woman who had long experiences with psychiatric hospitalisation. The problems of its five-week existence are recalled, as are the moments of safe relationships and mutual learning. Also, the meaning of time and of reciprocity enabled by the crisis team situation are discussed.

Vesna Švab

The author defines the most acute problems faced by the users of mental health services. The fundamental principles of therapy and rehabilitation and their links are presented in short. Community care and the organisation of care are described as they have been carried out in the recent years at ŠENT. The research evaluates the results achieved in that volunteer organisation and finds that the most important achievements have occurred in the fields of employment and socialising. The experiment has given evidence that significant changes may be accomplished in quality care for users, and indirectly in the quality of their lives, even with low financing, provided the leadership and organisation are good. At the same time, it is becoming quite clear that this form of help, with the present system of support and financing, cannot remain in the voluntary sector; thus, to delegate the organisation of care to civil organisations and associations is both senseless and irresponsible.

Srečo Dragoš

The trends show that by the introduction of capitalist economy and social stratification poverty may become a topical issue in Slovenia as well. But even though the gaining of wealth of some people and the impoverishment of others are indeed simultaneous phenomena, this does not necessarily mean that there is a causal relation between the two. The author bases his point on the case of the political history of poverty as it prevailed between the two world wars in Slovenia. That the most important reasons for its emergence were political can be seen from the combination of three factors discussed in this part: the emergence of main political actors at the end of the previous century (and their formation as political parties), the significance of political splits for the development of trade union movements, and the role of the state in the regulation of labour relations. The second part of the paper (to be published in the next issue) deals with the question of what poverty actually meant at the time, that is, what was its material dimension between the wars in Slovenia.

Magdalena Paleczny-Zapp

The paper discusses the impact of the transitional processes on the position of women in Poland. Although women were in the front rows of Solidarity and fought equally with men for political and economical changes in Poland, they themselves seem the first victims of transition. The abolition of social programmes, the reduction of kindergarten network, the capitalism of primary accumulation has put before women a drastic dilemma: family or job. The dilemma is strengthened by the revival of patriarchal morality (with ali the accompanying phenomena) and the strong influence of the Catholic Church.

Ivan Janko Cafuta

In his discussion of institutional care, the author presents a series of quantitative indicators of how the field is organised. For the most part, he debates the position of the people who spend the last years of their lives at homes for the aged, and compares life in hospitals with life in such homes. Both are organised similarly — as a kind of industry. The homes for the aged provide for the satisfaction of primary needs better than for more specific ones. The modern way of life probably demands such institutions, yet more attention should be paid to the co-operation between the aged persons' relatives and the institution, and there should be more opportunities for mobility between their homes and the »home«, so that they might return home more frequently, or alternatively, the »home« should become more like a proper home.

Stanija Ivajnšič

Introducing secondary school pupils' voluntary social work to homes for the aged is a further step towards the opening of the latter to the outside, the lessening of the generation gap and the mitigation of institutional effects on the aged. The presented model is the result of a long-term co-operation between Danica Vogrinec home for the aged and the 2nd grammar school in Maribor. The statistics show the positive interaction and mutual satisfaction of both sides, the pupils and the old people. In organising such voluntary work, co-operation between the pupifs tutor and the home social worker turned out to be of great importance. The roles of all participants must be clearly defined. Voluntary social work is a great challenge for a social worker, as it comprises all the methods of his or her professional work.

Vito Flaker

Vera Grebenc, Jelka Zorn

Andreja Kavar Vidmar

Bogdan Lešnik

Volume 36 of this journal (and the fourth volume in its new form) begins with Vito Flaker's contribution on team work as practised in treating mental distress. The author finds several reasons in its favour, not only in relation to the benefits for the users, but also for the professionals involved. In any case, work with users — be it in teams or individual — never seems to be without consequences (and implications) for which a special form of work with workers themselves has been invented, namely, supervision. There are already several forms of supervision practised in Slovenia, writes Sonja Žorga, yet the needs seem to exceed them, judging from constantly emerging new training programmes for supervisors. It might be interesting to conducta research about whether there are indeed any significant differences in supervision practises amongst different professions, that is, whether these differences are bigger, for instance, than the differences of supervision practice within each profession, or is it merely afiction justifying further projects. One thing is certain — for the workers who have to deal with sexual exploitation of children (and perhaps with sexuality in general, in view of the load it carries in our culture), it is difficult to survive without supervision. One form of such exploitation, the incestuous one, is discussed by Zorica Mrševič. It seems likely that, in order to understand the effect of such exploitative relationships (typically including violence), many more theoretical considerations will be needed on top of the already abundant literature — or precisely on its basis. The following is a wholly different topic, but it is also one of the acute problems in present-day social work: how to implement not only non-discriminatory but also antidiscriminatory practice. Cveto Uršič writes about sheltered workshops, comparing practices in Slovenia and the states of the European Union. He points out two facts: first,that the problem of employing disabled people in Slovenia is far from solved, and second, that the field is rather unsettled in the EU as well. Darja Zaviršek's contribution to the 40th anniversary of University of Ljubljana School of Social Work is somewhat late (that anniversary was last year) but substantial. The author is very critical of the past and the present trends in Slovenian social work, but not without giving cues for better concepts and thereby better practice. Noteworthy, particularly in view of the weight the subject attained in modern trends in social work, is her treatment of the guestion of power. The question of power, however, is also (and not only implicitly) the central question in Tanja Lamovec's report about the project of Advocacy which has been to a great extent set up and developed by herself. It concerns advocacy of the users of psychiatry, one of the many issues that somehow cannot — in spite of its obvious »legitimacy« — find their way into institutions in which they should have a place (though not only there).

Vito Flaker

The author considers the necessity of interdisciplinary team action in mental health to derive from mental distress being a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. The need for it has become more expressed in community mental health and especially where there has been a shift towards individualisation of the services. Teamwork on the one hand supports the holistic treatment of individuals, and on the other, the division of work and power among the professionals. There can be various forms of professional teamwork: informal networks, formal teams and client teams. Teamwork dynamics follow not only group dynamics but also the transformation of professionals' roles and power as well as the empowerment of users. Social work's contribution to teamwork may be significant due to its epistemological advantages: interdisciplinarity, contextuality and social reflexiveness in terms of »translating«, not only amongst professionals to one another but also to users and carers, of connecting professional work to ordinary life, and of transforming theory into action.

Sonja Žorga

The decision to organise professional supervision is usually met with a number of content-related and organisational problems amongst the management and other professionals themselves. They wonder whether supervision is to be obligatory, what is it to be focused upon, how to choose a suitable supervisor and what form is a supervisory group to assume. They may hesitate between voluntary and obligatory supervision and ponder on the size of the group, the frequency and length of supervisory sessions and the duration of a supervisory cycle. None of these questions can be answered univocally, as the solution depends on several circumstances, wishes and in particular the purposes supervision is to follow. The author presents some basic functions of supervision, and in throwing light on various possibilities, she offers a variety of answers to, and solutions of, the dilemmas that accompany these questions.

Zorica Mršević

Child mistreatment often contains traumatic dimensions, but it is held that the incestuous type of abuse leaves a child with life-long consequences. The paper first cites a few fragments of authentic stories of women who survived incest and then considers the consequences of incest in the time of its taking plače as well as its subsequent consequences which are felt practically the whole life. Next, homosexual orientation is discussed as not deriving from the incest trauma. The final discussion offers theses about socially unbalanced gender relations as the main factor not only in incestuous abuse of children but also in silence which accompanies these child traumas as a rule. The work of women groups, when lay, doesn't always represent the most adequate response to post-incest syndrome.

Cveto Uršič

The paper analyses the position of sheltered workshops in Slovenia and in European Union. The presented findings summarize the research the author undertook in 1996. Sheltered workshops seem to be organised very differently in individual states — meaning, among other things, that neither Slovenia nor European Union has formed a clear and reconciliated policy regarding the development of sheltered vv^orkshops and the employment of the disabled people under special conditions. In conclusion, the author presents recommendations based on the analysis of the current state of affairs and on the directions formulated in International documents.

Darja zaviršek

The paper deals with the conceptual shifts and blind spots which can be found in Slovenian social work. It attempts to explain the fact that in the past, social work was concerned mainly with the youth and families, neglecting work with the aged and the disabled people. This is put in relation with family-centred culture and the dominant medical model which left the decisions about those groups to large institutions. Attention is drawn to defence mechanisms in social work that can be found in the form of unintentional racism, and to certain taboo subjects such as the question of power and powerlessness of social workers. The author criticises the concept of »general good« that does not take into account the dominant discoursive practice and its impact upon the theory and practice of social work. Finally, she finds that social work in Slovenia, too, includes personal, interpersonal and political work. The conceptual shifts are the evidence of both its diversity and mutual impact among different conceptual stakes.

Tanja Lamovec

Blaž Mesec

Jože Ramovš

Srečo Dragoš

Darja Zaviršek

Jože Valenčič

The Law of social welfare has been passed four years ago, and the author takes the opportunity to present the main features of social welfare legislation in Slovenia, along with assessing and commenting the solutions he considers influential for the future development of the field. His basic findings show that the Slovenian model social welfare organisation is quite modern in taking into account the user and his or her distress and problems; further, that it is well adapted to the characteristics of a small state under the pressures of developmental problems, but that its implementation is rather slow. Some obstacles may result from the very fact that the concept is »new«, thus taking time, while others are clearly due to the gaps in the Law itself; therefore, the author takes a stand in favour of its analysis and supplementation.