Romana Zidar

The paper is addressing the issue of emerging practices of social entrepreneurship in Slovenia and their capacity to become alternative to classic market-based economy. Grounded on typology of social enterprises, two self-defined social enterprises are analysed – the first was established by for-profit enterprise, the second by public sector organisation. The analysis of both practices suggests the need to create a code of ethics for social entrepreneurs, which would undermine the expansion of unfair business and managerial practices. The second suggestion is the development of a certificate for social enterprise products and services, which would provide a needed transparency to organisations as well as customers. Thirdly, in Slovenia we have to encourage public discussion about open model of social entrepreneurship, which we adopted and which is already showing its first cracks.

Mitja Krajnčan, Barbara Grum

An analysis, carried out on the preparations for young people’s independent living, is discussed; these preparations were undertaken in residential homes for delinquent secondary school students. The analysis is based on quantitative research and the emphasis is put on educators' perspective. Learning new skills which may be helpful to young people in the process of becoming independent is very important, not only for young people who have a home to go to apart from the residential home, but also for those who do not have this option at their disposal. A variety of views from the educators' perspective are outlined in the research, all of which are important in order to achieve independence: living conditions in residential homes; skills that young people learn; advantages and disadvantages of residential homes; implementation of inclusion and integration in the outside environment; education; evaluation of young people when they are discharged from a residential institution. The results reveal that educators are aware of the importance of young people's achieving independence, and of the importance of good living conditions. Nevertheless, the paradigm for monitoring a young person's striving for independence and integration into the environment is not sufficiently detailed. What is more, no system regulations are in place for monitoring young people upon their discharge from residential institutions.

Andreja Kornhauser, Jana Mali

In Slovenia, institutional care for older people is the most widespread form of care for older people, therefore being a unique challenge for social work. Despite a modest representation of social workers in the home for the elderly, their professional role is important and takes place in different times, in which an older person deals with the institution. The paper shows, how residents experience a period before the arrival in a home and what kind of support they need to integrate into a new living environment. Attention is drawn to preparation time for the arrival in the home in three stages: before the admission in the home, at the time of arrival and after getting into the home. Findings for specific, Prekmurje environment, largely indicate a need for individualized work of social workers with the older people. Residents do not prepare themselves for living in the institution. The support and assistance of their family members is often not sufficient, so the role and importance of social work in such an environment is increasing. It is important that social workers are part of the preparations for admission into the home for the elderly, so it is important to continue research, evaluation and developing of this specific area of social work.

Nina Jamar, Alenka Šauperl

The main purpose of this research was to find the most appropriate structure of abstracts in the area of social work, and develop guidelines for writing them. First, the components of abstracts published in journals were analyzed. Then the prototypes and improved abstracts were written and tested with a user study. The results show that it is possible to determine the optimum structure for abstracts from the area of social work. This structure should follow the known IMRD format (introduction, methods, results, discussion).

Srečo Dragoš

Živa Humer, Metka Kuhar

Achieving equality at home has been a relevant feminist issue for couple of decades and has became part of policy measures (family and employment policy, equality policy). Many studies and academic literature have been revealing still persisting inequality between men and women in the private sphere; this inequality is one of the main barriers for gender equality in broader society. The article, however, focuses on equality at home, which already exists and is already practised by some couples in Slovenia. The first part shows the characteristics of the social and political context relevant for family life, in particular for gender relationships in Slovenia. In the second, main part a case study of an equal sharing couple in Slovenia is presented with the analysis of main factors that lead towards equality. The main conclusion of the case study is that equality is a process, which is developing in the relationship and goes beyond gendered divison of domestic and care work and beyond an agreement of sharing domestic chores on the basis 50/50. Equality at home is a process of everyday interactions and negotiations between partners which intersect with social, economic and political factors and circumstances.

Jelena Perak, Ana Štambuk

Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, is one of the biggest health and social problem of this century. As the world’s population is getting older, escalation of that problem is inevitable. People in Croatia with Alzheimer's disease and their families are still an unrecognized issue in society. Focus of this work is on the caregivers and their experiences and problems that they run into. Lack of suitable facilities, high price of drugs, stress, lack of environment and professional support, are among the biggest problems. The most positive part for caregivers is their membership in Croatian Alzheimer’s Disease Society where they get most valuable help. The work is trying to emphasize the importance of education and awareness of public about this issue, but also focuses on the wider acceptance and support of caregivers from professionals and the rest of society.

Ksenija Domiter Protner

The article presents the social-ecological model of preventive activity as one of the possible models of preventive activity in the field of exposure of children and adolescents to domestic violence in Slovenia. The suggested model of the preventive activity has been founded on the basis of the research on exposure of Slovene adolescents to domestic violence, which was implemented on a representative sample of Slovene adolescents (secondary school students). The article also presents an overview of certain examples of good practice of preventive activity, found on a global scale, and the characteristics of existent preventive activity in Slovenia.

Klavdija Höfler, Štefan Bojnec

Homelessness is one of the worst forms of social poverty. At the moment Slovenia is in the first phase of solving the situation of homeless people. They can get their basic needs, such as shelter, food or clothes, met. The situation is worse in the case of preventing people from becoming homeless, and employing or educating the homeless people. Identification of reasons and consequences of homelessness can contribute to reducing the problem of homeless people, including their employment and education. The prospect of getting and implementing a strategy to prevent homelessness is not very encouraging. The economic and financial crisis, a lack of suitably trained and skilled staff to deal with the problems and low political interest in solving the problem are additional unfavourable factors regarding the reduction of the number of homeless people.

Andreja Mrežar

Katja Mlakar, Andreja Prapertnik

Dino Černivec, Gašper Ločičnik

Jelka Zorn, Vesna Leskošek

Vesna Leskošek

Since its beginnings social work is closely linked to social movements. They are one of the important origins of the profession, but not the only one. They are important for social work because they emphasise collective action for social change that aims at advocating for suppressed groups of people. Some significant features of social movements are presented. Because they include variety of diverse activities with few common features, it is difficult to define them. Movements differ in relation to organisational forms, leadership, operational forms, aims and goals, sustainability and end results. They establish specific relations to the government, to political parties and state institutions. Movements can be revolutionary or reformist, they can aim at changing people or social order, they can be conservative or progressive. Feminist movement is closely linked to social work from its beginnings. Some of the women that were active in social movements were the founders of social work education and practice. They founded social work because there was a need for a profession that would raise the issue of social inequalities and its consequences. They claimed the right to the just society and that had an impact on the sort of social work that they were campaigning for.

Michael Lavalette

The interconnections between social movements and social movement activity and 'popular' forms of social work are shown. The paper presents early stage research that looks at more popular forms of social work (from Britain and across Europe) that have, very often, been hidden from the official professional histories. Popular social work is a sphere of activity that sits alongside – or sometimes in opposition to – 'professional', 'state' or bourgeois social work. It refers to the activities of a range of individuals and groups who address aspects of trauma, inequality and oppression, in ways that are non-hierarchical, mutually supportive and based on notions of solidarity. The paper suggests that focusing on examples of popular social work can help us reconsider social work's past, present and alternative futures.

Petra Videmšek

How social movement that appeared in the 1980’s influenced the development of social work practice, is presented. The article is mainly focused on feminist movement, movement for socialization of homosexuality, antipsychiatric movement and movement for independent living of handicapped people. These movements triggered a wave of changes in social work. The changes can be seen on three different levels: the relation level (changed role of users in the process of support), the structural level (development of community services) and the theoretical level (development of new concepts, new methods of social work – from traditional methods towards innovative ones). The movements also expanded the boundaries of social work (from institutions to communities), stimulated pluralisation of service providers (more NGOs that offer new programmes), asked the question of power, and stimulated participation of experts by experience in the process of support. Social work is a science of doing based on the practical, field experiences. In this science theory is based on concrete experience, emerging from concrete social groups.

Srečo Dragoš

Contents of social processes generate forms, with which those processes are regulated to become consolidated, intensified or blocked. Because forms are not just the consequences of contents (because of the interdependence of both variables), we cannot understand contents without understanding forms. When social movements structure their contents from defensive to demanding and further to a strategy, the conditions of direct participation become more difficult. With growing number of participants and with the complexity of the content, the pluralism of the content challenges is strengthened. At the same time the participants create smaller groups to maintain direct communication causing a distance between passive and active members. The inner dynamics of social movements is consequently faced with a problem, how to combine different social forms: small group, large group and organisation. Because of these combinations, social movements have the form, which is not characteristic only for them, so they can’t be understood as specific social form. Social movements are fluid catalysts of collective social forms in case of erosion of legitimacy.

Marta Gregorčič

Contemporary theories dealing with wider social change claim that there is no alternative to neoliberalism, that no one today is able to think one and that social change will only begin to take place (if at all) once the humankind is driven to the brink of extinction, which is supposedly already happening on the periphery of capitalism. The paper, however, presents the opposite thesis, proving on the basis of valuable contributions from revolutionary struggles in Asia and Latin America that alternative, autonomous, self-sufficient and self-determining systems have been created for decades by potencia bottom-up movements, activities and intensities of grupos de base struggles, and the self-organized pueblo, a people fighting beyond the remains of the old and the new oligarchies. It does not discuss potencia in general – in terms of revolts, the creation of alternative policies or emancipation practices – but rather in terms of autogenous revolutionary struggles responding to real, immediate needs of a community and already producing new principles, processes and requirements from within, whereby they do not only meet the basic human needs, i. e. the material conditions for life, but mostly create the social, cultural, economic, environmental and political pre-conditions of sociality. Potencias as subjectivities of those who create, undermine what neoliberalism wanted to rule out at all costs and with every possible means – sociality.

Jelka Zorn

Both rights to movement are considered: a right to migrate and a right to participate in social movements. Against this backdrop, migrants face immigration controls with their multiple effects (criminalisation and selection of migrants, exploitation of migrant labour etc.). Those who lack state defined personal status of a citizen or a resident stay invisible and without state protection. However, the article considers the cases of collective mobilizations (No Borders, Erased, Invisible Workers of the World), empowerment and political subjectivization of non-citizens and how their activism challenge the notions of belonging, citizenship and access to social rights. When resisting, people create new communities, ways of belonging and networks of solidarity. This might be seen as “regularisation from below”: growing autonomy of the city (against state definitions of belonging) and de-illegalization at the micro level (at the city level, to access city social services, employers etc.)

Asja Hrvatin

Vito Flaker

Elena Pečarič, Klaudija Poropat

Ana M. Sobočan

Karolina Babič

Andrej Kurnik

Mojca Urek

Jana Mali, Valentina Hlebec

Valentina Hlebec

Social home care is an important programme for maintaining quality of life of older people living at home. Analysis of the development of this programme in Slovenia shows enormous diversity between municipalities in organization and accessibility of social care. However, typology of municipalities also shows some similarities between them. In Slovenia in 2008 there were five types of municipalities that differ in efficiency and quality of home care. Individual types differed on who mainly pays for the home care (either the government, the municipality or the user) and what is the extent of the offer and the quality of home care (duration of visits and number of users). The development of the programme and changes in the typology of municipalities are investigated. The key finding is that the heterogeneity of municipalities decreased, as smaller number of models of organizations of social home care were found in 2010 than in 2008. Our more detailed analysis showed that the majority of municipalities used the funding more efficiently.

Mateja Nagode, Valentina Hlebec

Home care is a fundamental social care service provided at home of individuals, but according to the planned scope its development is significantly slow. This is an area that requires more planned research and particular attention paid to all aspects of its functions – system, provider and user. The focus in the paper is on the providers, which was hitherto less studied. Systematic, critical meta-analysis has been used to evaluate the research addressing the work and social position of home care workers, ie. key personnel in the provision and organization of social care at home. Since the research on this topic in Slovenia is very poor and because it is believed that this area needs to be thoroughly investigated, the key substantive findings of existing research have been summarised. At the same time a critical approach was used to evaluate methodologies, summarize their important features and highlight key shortcomings. The findings form an important methodological and substantive basis for further exploration and evaluation of home care workers in the field. The fact that it is necessary to explore this area more thoroughly on a representative and national level is stressed.

Valentina Hlebec, Jana Mali

Institutional care for older people is the most developed and spread form of care for older people in Slovenia. The institutional care for older people is analysed from historical development and local residence access perspective, which has indirect effects on quality of care. In the first part of the paper, the historical outline of public institutional care and the impact of social policy on its' development is presented. In the second part of the paper, the access of institutional care is estimated from the users’ permanent residence or outside the municipality of users’ permanent residence. Though we have achieved the criterion of providing institutional care for 5% people older than 65 years on national level, on the level of municipalities there are significant differences. Differences refer to the presence of institutional care in particular municipality, the largeness, degree of urbanisation and economical development of municipality. With the typology of institutional care for older people in Slovenia from development perspective, it is demonstrated that people over 65 years do not have the same possibilities for institutional care. The principle of territorial building of institutions and the principle of plural social care stimulate the entrance of private sphere in institutional care for older people. Private homes are more expensive then public ones and therefore inaccessible for all older people in need for institutional care.

Majda Černič Istenič

  The focus is on intergenerational solidarity in terms of subjective perceptions/opinions observed from the level of individual municipalities. Three models, i.e. typologies of care arrangements for older people in Slovenian municipalities denote the contextual framework of the study. The author assumes that public opinion on intergenerational solidarity is associated with the organizational forms of care for the older people dominated by a certain group of municipalities. Results of the study, based on the data from the survey ‘Generations and gender relations on Slovenian farms 2007’, show that the majority of respondents expect commitment from both the family as well as society to take care for the older people. However, views on the balance of responsibility between the family and society differ in the following direction: the worse the organization of care for the older people in the municipalities, the greater the expectations of the respondents towards the family to take over the bulk of responsibilities in caring for the older people. This orientation is particularly pronounced in small rural municipalities.

Jana Mali

The increase in the share of older population has also increased social workers’ and general attention to the phenomena that accompany old age, aging and older people. In the 21st century, the older generation represents a major challenge for social work in terms of concepts, methods and skills required for work with older people. In this paper we seek to answer several questions. How well is social work prepared for dealing with older people’s crises and problems? Which conceptual basis and possibilities for professional work are available? What options do social workers have to acquire knowledge needed to deal with older population? We draw attention to the fact that despite greater awareness of the importance of specialization within social work, both the literature and research on this subject are insufficient, and education for work with older people is neglected. We further present conceptual bases that are good for the development of social work as a specialization, while emphasizing the dynamic nature of social work and fluidity between its theory and methodology, which in the area of work with older people has proved to be an advantage that enables the provision of effective assistance to older people.

Mateja Lah

Mojca Pušnik

Jana Mali, Vera Grebenc, Amra Šabić

Jana Mali

Duška Kneževič Hočevar