Social Work

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Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

The fifth volume of Doctoral Miscellanea was created as a conference proceedings, returning to the original idea of the entire project: to establish a publication space for contributions from emerging scientists.

The first two issues of Doctoral Miscellanea consisted of outputs from departmental seminars, which involved internal discussions. Compared to direct publication, it proved more beneficial for doctoral students to verify their initial research results in multiple stages and present them in diverse ways (reaching more listeners and readers). The length of the texts in the first two issues was adapted to the duration of the presentations, but this practice was slightly disrupted by the omission of seminars in previous issues. In the current issue, the scope of the studies is somewhat more uniform.

An added value of the fifth volume was the meeting of all contributors at a joint conference, the Autumn School for Doctoral Students of the Faculty of Arts at UPJŠ in Košice, which took place on October 17, 2018, and October 18, 2018, in Danišovce.

We believe that this unique experience—often the first for many—of actively presenting at a scientific event could contribute to a better final version of the submitted contributions. At the same time, it allowed doctoral students to broaden their horizons within the humanities and social sciences, at least within the scope of the currently addressed dissertation research.

Lukáš Šutor

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Lucia Tóthová - Katarína Šiňanská (eds.)

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on November 30, 2018, in Košice

Current social work addresses the serious development problems of society such as poverty, unemployment, chronic diseases, socially vulnerable groups and others. We must not forget that enough attention must be paid to the discovery of causes and a detailed analysis of these problems. The thing is that social problems have been around for a long time, they just changed their shape, old forms of social risks were replaced by the new ones that need to be explored and analyzed in order to be able to perform measures and remove the causes of social risks of the 21st century. Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation entitled Social Risks in the Society of the XXI. Century is therefore devoted to various perspectives related to social risks of modern society in the variety of contributions, indicating the broad-spectrum not only of the proceedings, but also the social work itself.

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Ján Kahan - Eva Žiaková

The monograph focuses on the issue of loneliness among substance-addicted people in the context of abstinence prospects and re/lapse prevention. In the monograph these phenomena, several theories were integrated and applied in the context of the ecosystem meta-framework of social work and practical contexts. The ecosystem meta-theory serves as a meta-construct with the ability to encompass the complexity of social phenomena as well as that of human beings within the structure of their living and social environment, formal and informal networks, and close intimate relationships.

In this monograph are presented research sample consisted of 235 respondents – hospitalised addicts undergoing urgent treatment, abstaining A-club members as well as members of psychotherapy and self-help groups. The research showed that abstainers were statistically less lonely than the hospitalised respondents. Quantitative data of research are complemented by qualitative data collected in four case studies; two of them focused on two long-term abstainers from alcohol and drugs, while the other two case studies dealt with two respondents in post-hoc treatment undergoing the resocialization process. The research also showed that respondents who broke abstinence felt lonelier than their successfully abstaining counterparts.

The results were supported also by the fact that a statistically significant inversely proportional relationship was identified between the duration of abstinence and loneliness rate. Gender differences were found between the hospitalised addicts in all loneliness dimensions. Naturally, the combined research was limited in certain aspects, mainly in terms of the size and proportional distribution of the research sample and its subgroups, test battery extent, and general nature of the population studied. Triangulation among quantitative and qualitative with the theoretical starting points confirmed the existence of a relationship among loneliness, addiction, and prospect of abstinence.

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Jana Bajusová - Dušan Šlosár

The integration of immigrants into society is currently of interest to many professionals and to the general public. Immigration is a consequence of a variety of factors, mainly due to political, social, economic or security conditions in the countries of origin. Immigration is subsequently linked to the process of integrating immigrants into the host country. The integration of immigrants into society or integration, as this process is called in the monograph, is a complex phenomenon that extends to many spheres of everyday life for the citizens of the receiving country, and at the same time is often difficult for immigrants. Many governmental and non-governmental organizations are involved in the process of social integration of immigrants, who develop different strategies and mechanisms to streamline the outcome of this process.

In relation to immigrants, the Slovak Republic is bound to provide social and legal protection and therefore it is necessary to deal with the issue of social services, which could potentially significantly contribute to their social integration into Slovak society. From the legislative point of view, however, these services are unified and do not take into account the differences of immigrants resulting from their culture, religion, social, ethical or other characteristics. That is why the monograph focuses on social integration of immigrants in Slovakia in the context of provided social services.

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Pavol Kačmár - Jozef Bavoľár - Ladislav Lovaš (eds.)

This publication introduces a body of papers presented at scientific conference Work And Organizational Psychology that took place on May 23 and 24 in Košice. The theme of the conference was Past, Present, and Challenges to the Future. All papers were peer-reviewed.

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Lucia Tóthová - Dušan Šlosár

The presented monographic processing of the issues of groups, as a basic phenomenon of our social life, draws a lot of current knowledge from realized researches, their empirical results and practical work with the group, which offers a comprehensive view of the social group. Social group looks both as a natural part of human life and it is analyzed and studied, so that knowledge of the social group can be rewarded.

This has been transferred to artificially created groups to help individuals through group work. At the same time, the monograph also considers the method of social work with a group as one of the methods used in various helping professions.

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Lucia Tóthová

Social work with a group, along with social work with individuals, social work with the community and social work with society, is one of the basic methods used in the field of social work, but also in other helping professions. The work of a social worker requires knowledge of these methods but also of the techniques through which these methods are implemented and fulfilled. Understanding and acquiring individual methods for the needs of social practice requires the theoretical mastery of those institutes that are the basis of the method and the interrelationships between these institutes. Therefore, the author proceeded to elaborate a university textbook in which she focuses on one of the basic methods of social work, namely social work with a group.

The university textbook is designed for university students who are focused on social work studies, but also psychology, ethics and other disciplines using the method of working with a group, as it aims to present some facts about social groups and behaviour in them.

The author offers an insight into social work with the group from its historical foundations to today's latest knowledge of this method in accordance with the latest research of work with the group.

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Ján Šimko - Dušan Šlosár

The monograph is dealing with the issue of homosexuality and homophobia in the context of social work and it is divided into five chapters, which are devoted to individual fields of the tackled issue. The first chapter is describing the phenomenon of homosexuality in the society; the focus is put on human sexuality and sexual orientation. The following chapter is clarifying the formation of homosexual identity in connection to coming out and it describes its frequently utilized models. The third chapter is devoted to the concepts of heteronormativity and heterosexism in the social context.

Furthermore, the chapter is dealing with the formation of attitudes towards this issue from the point of view of religion and masculinity. Another chapter is describing homophobia as the result of heteronormativity, stereotypes and prejudice.

In the last chapter, the authors are introducing selected social work theories dealing with the homosexual minority, the approaches to LGBT+ community and suggestions towards elimination of homophobia within the social work environment.

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Margita Mesárošová - Miroslava Köverová - Soňa Lovašová

Intervention Program for Supporting Self-Care in Helping Professions: "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" The intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" was developed as part of the research project APVV14-0921, "Self-Care as a Factor in Coping with the Negative Consequences of Engaging in Helping Professions." Its uniqueness lies in being created based on specific research outputs from the program's authors and project.

In the first chapter, the authors offer insights into the preparation of the intervention program, justifying its theoretical foundations, methods, and specifics of the program participants. They also provide an overview of research on the effectiveness of various intervention programs aimed at reducing the negative consequences of helping and enhancing self-care and other positive effects of engaging in helping professions. Subsequent chapters focus on a detailed analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" and its comparison with the effectiveness of other programs, which were differently focused, targeted at different populations of helping professionals, and had different theoretical and practical orientations and foundations. Most of these studies demonstrated positive changes only in isolated cases, due to various methodological shortcomings often related to practical application.

What differentiates the intervention program presented in this monograph is the participation of helping professionals actively practicing in the social field, unlike most intervention programs compiled and validated for students of these professions. The student population, being more accessible to researchers, allows for better methodology, including a larger number of participants, as well as experimental manipulation and group balancing. In the case of participants in the validation of the program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?", it involved practitioners who are engaged in the daily work process and completed training during their work breaks, which placed high demands on balancing their work and personal tasks. We believe that the effects we discovered during the validation of the effectiveness of the presented intervention program were not always clearly mathematically graspable but were evident from individual feedback.

We present the text of this monograph to the professional public with the aim of highlighting the benefits, limitations of the intervention program, as well as inspiring researchers and practitioners to further work in this area.

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Renáta Orosová - Lucia Diheneščíková - Katarína Petríková - Lívia Nemcová

Proceedings of Abstracts from the International Scientific Conference: Education and Training 2018: The 21st Century Educator and Their Perspectives in Educational Practice

The international scientific conference focuses on issues related to education and training in primary, secondary, and higher education institutions from the perspective of educators.

It emphasizes the current state and future perspectives of 21st-century educators in educational practice, addressing pedagogical and sociological aspects of education within foundational educational institutions. Additionally, it explores contemporary aspects of pre-service teacher preparation.

The conference is aimed at researchers, young university lecturers, doctoral students, as well as professional and educational practitioners. Its goal is to present the educator—whether a teacher, social pedagogue, or special educator—in a modern perspective, highlighting their essential collaboration in the context of education. Furthermore, it seeks to stimulate discussions on pressing issues within the fields of education and training in light of the current situation in the education sector.

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Lucia Tóthová - Dušan Šlosár

The publication "Manifestations of Radicalism and Extremism in Social Relations" is an input analysis of the individual areas that the authors want to focus on in their research activities in the study of radicalism and extremism. The context of the study is in the possibility of social work in influencing radical and extremist tendencies in those areas that we can designate as working fields of social work.

The authors of the individual papers focus on the theoretical definition of extremism and radicalism, types and forms of extremism, factors affecting the formation of the radical and extremist thoughts, focusing on specific target groups (especially youth) and the role of social work in the issue of radicalism and extremism, and they also represent the results of research in the field.

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Veronika Vasiľová - Soňa Lovašová

The formation of social work as a scientific discipline is not a completed process because of with changes in society also change social problems that need to be identified and analyzed with the intention to develop methodological solutions aimed at preventing and interventing these social problems.For this reason, the field of social work as such is constantly expanding, as its dynamic nature makes it possible to respond to emerging social problems and react to the needs of society.

Social work in the school environment is a functioning science field abroad.In the conditions of the Slovak Republic, this area of social work is still missing.Therefore, the monograph deals with the possibilities of social work in the school environment in Slovakia. 

The monograph is primarily intended for the professionals working in the field of social work and in the third sector with children and youth.

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Lenka Lukáčová - Eva Žiaková

The burnout syndrome in the simplest sense is a state of total physical and psychological exhaustion. Its cyclical course may be misleading, often underestimated and neglected on the part of a burned-out individual, as well as by its surroundings. The neglection of warning signals strengthens the field of its occurrence and impact.

Monography is one of the methods with which we strive to draw attention to the problem of burnout syndrome in the performance of a helping profession. Based on this, we have focused on determining the frequency of occurrence of burnout syndrome in assisting professions based on predetermined risk factors (specific profesion, length of practice, motivators) in order to verify, confirm or refute  predefined factors. The subject of this research was also to examine the correlation between the aforementioned factors, the quality of professional life and the strategies for managing stress and stress situations.

The monography is intended for helping profesions e.g. social workers, nurses, doctors etc. We also believe that, this monography will be also benefit for a wider range of helping professions, as well for all those involved in the his problematics.

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár

Issues of punishment are directly linked to a state’s criminal policy, which is an inseparable part of its social policy. Historically, the state has held a unique dominant position in the realm of punishment. Once the conditions for imposing a penalty are met, the state fulfills its obligation by sentencing through independent courts. However, it does not address questions of satisfaction, which belong to the victim. The victim may be a specific physical person or legal entity that suffered harm due to the criminal act. This harm simultaneously affects civil society as a whole. The state prioritizes its duty to punish and decide on the matter over compensating the harmed individual or civil society.

By mediation in criminal cases, we mean extrajudicial facilitation of resolving disputes between the offender and the harmed party, with the assistance and personal participation of a mediator. The mediator, as an independent and impartial person, helps parties identify their interests and supports them in finding shared, practical, and realistic solutions to the points causing their conflict. Probation refers to monitoring, supervising the accused, defendant, or convicted individual, as well as providing individual assistance to the offender and encouraging them to lead a lawful life. This reduces the risk of recidivism, or repeated criminal behavior.

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Gabriel Eštok - Gabriela Szabariová - Matúš Béreš (eds.)

Presented publication is an outcome from the scientific conference for students and young scientists that took place on 12th and 13th May 2016 at the Department of Political science, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. The main aim of the presented is to bring up outcomes of research of young scientists and students from Slovakia, as well as from abroad. Many of the presented papers have become integral part of qualification theses of their authors.

This conference proceedings contains 22 papers in Slovak, Czech and English language thematically creating four different parts.

Papers regarding international relations or issues exceeding a level of state power are dealing with issues of globalization, counterculture, international terrorism, extremism and a role of the EU in the Arctic. Papers dealing with the situation in the Slovak republic and abroad cover reform of security in Slovakia and in Romania, issue of dealing with totalitarian history of the states of the Visegrad group as well as development of funding of education system in Slovakia since 1919. In case of authors focusing on the socio-political situation in Slovakia we can find papers analyzing role of a reeve in city of Košice, first great political conflict during a rule of Vladimír Mečiar in Slovakia, role of Roma population in political environment in Slovakia, but also those concerning local activist or action groups and examining attitude of nursing care students towards euthanasia. The conference proceedings contents also four papers regarding theoretical or philosophical issues.

Their authors focused on topic of social state, social equality, democratic theories and transformation of human nature in “post-human” era.

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár et al.

It is very difficult to refer to any act of extremism or action having extremist characteristics, or to exclude it unambiguously. The boundary between extremism and accepted, conformal behavior is very broad and vaguely worded. Each company tends to set certain criteria to determine what can be considered as unwanted, violent, radical or extreme, or what signs of such a manifestation do not have. Therefore, when comparing the individual countries of the European Union in this area, we come across a different definition of what is or is not considered to be radical or extremist. In essence, the level of tolerance to some of the manifestations and the setting of indicators for the evaluation of the proceedings as extremist.

The presented monograph aims to present the basic social contexts of extremism and radicalization in the form of their philosophical and theoretical backgrounds, influencing the factors, the basic directions. In the author's work, the authors focus on the target group of adolescents, which they consider to be one of the most endangered groups in society in terms of development of the radicalization process. At the conclusion of the monograph is also offered the criminal level of these phenomena, which is not unavoidable in terms of complex analysis.

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Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

The proposed anthology represents for many doctoral students their first entry into the publishing environment of scientific genres. The studies in such cases contain the essence of future dissertation works, which represent the creative pinnacle of doctoral studies. In addition to providing doctoral students with the opportunity to publish scientific outputs, we also consider the anthology a space for interdisciplinary encounters and mutual enrichment. However, interdisciplinarity is not merely a characteristic of the anthology as a whole but also of some studies.

Most notable interdisciplinary approaches are observed in literary studies. The traditional subject of research into artistic texts is enriched in individual studies by examining theatrical and film works (Peter Getlík), linguistic aspects of phrasemes (Ivana Hudiková), musical elements (Terézia Kulíková), visual art (Dominika Petáková), and digital spaces of new media (Alexandra Popovičová). From other disciplines, we highlight Miroslava Süčová Vernarská’s study, which extends psychological research into sociological and linguistically communicative contexts (the concept of metaphor), or conversely, Zuzana Šoltésová and Dušan Šlosár’s contribution, analyzing eating disorders from their disciplinary background in social work.

Both mentioned disciplines also include contributions with traditional research subjects. Nikola Fabiny from psychology analyzes consequence expectations in the context of goal selection and achievement. Jana Plavnická and Dušan Šlosár’s co-authored study from the Department of Social Work presents a multi-perspective analysis of integration barriers for immigrants in Slovakia. Within their own disciplines, both philosophy contributions operate: Juraj Brenišin interprets the ethical aspects of Avicbron’s Fons vitæ, while Michal Kručko examines Edmund Husserl’s unfinished work through a comparative lens of his students Jan Patočka and Roman Ingarden. The anthology concludes with Lukáš Lukačín’s study (written in English), which explores the semantic-grammatical category of modality in the verbs MAY and CAN within legal-administrative documents of the European Union.

The representation of academic disciplines and doctoral students’ individual creative outputs in Doktorandské miscelaneá 4 is thus appropriately diverse. We present this publication to the broader academic community as a representative overview of trends in young scholars’ thinking across the spectrum of humanities and social sciences doctoral programs at the Faculty of Arts, UPJŠ in Košice.

Lukáš Šutor

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Dušan Šlosár - Vladimír Lichner

This university textbook aims to provide readers with knowledge of the philosophical foundations, meaning, and purpose of mediation, based on research and analysis of mediators' activities. In countries where mediation services operate, their staff often include graduates of social work departments.

An individual approach to both the perpetrator and victim of a criminal offense requires knowledge and skills from social work, psychology, sociology, communication, and related fields tied to social work. The principles of social work apply not only in social policy and social care but also in justice. A mediator’s mission is to facilitate alternative resolutions to unlawful acts while preserving the purpose of legal proceedings as defined by valid legal norms. They fulfill this mission through specific methods of individual social work applied in the justice sector. The mediator’s focus extends beyond the current conflict to uncover related issues, activate parties to resolve disputes, and prevent new conflicts.

Special attention is devoted to the philosophical foundations of mediation in Slovakia. We provide an overview of mediators’ core activities and mediation types used to uphold justice in Slovakia. We analyze mediation goals, the roles of parties involved, and procedural steps. In applying mediation, we explore its potential and implementation in both legal and social work contexts.

As indicated, mediation cannot be understood solely as a specialized activity in criminal justice, as it has broader applications in non-judicial dispute resolution, such as family or community work, which are often overlooked by the public. The mediator’s approach to diverse target groups is grounded in theoretical frameworks. From this foundation, we derive activities expected of mediators in the future. Expanded activities arise from concrete situations encountered during mediation.

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Tatiana Žiaková - Dušan Šlosár

The last decade marks not only the average life expectancy increase in healthy population, but also life expectancy increase in group of people with intellectual disorders/disabilities. Due to their diagnosis that defines and classifies them into specific categories, people with intellectual disability are finding themselves in a constant confrontation with obstacles negatively affecting the saturation of their existential needs. It creates mostly educational, social, cultural, psycho-social and economical disadvantage in the context of their lives. Consequently, their active potential is weakened, making it unable for them to influence public affairs in society from a position of an adult or elderly citizen. Building up on this condition, the focus of this monograph is on understanding and explanation of prevailing concept of social inclusion and related concepts of social exclusion. These concepts influence the way we tend to define and think about the character of society, as such.

Simultaneously, we are examining that the quality of coexistence between dominant population and people with intellectual disabilities is dependent on the development of attitudes and opinions of major population towards this specific minority. These attitudes reflect the extent of social tolerance and at the same time serve as a quantification of moral values and equity in the society, whether it concerns any type of small everyday help or professional and institutionalised long-term support.

This monograph focuses on presenting professional care for people with mental disability in form of social services as a dominant type of support in our local environment. We show that the quality of social services inevitably depends on degree of professional competences social workers possess. The significance of professional competences social workers are capable of using is reflected in the degree of the competence and adequacy of their performance. The primary aim, in relation to which professional competences should be accustomed, is to enhance meaningfulness and dignity in life of mentally disabled receivers of the social services.

Competences of social workers are a dynamic phenomenon that modifies along the development of society and also with the frequently altering needs of people with intellectual disability as receivers of the social service. For this reason we designed the presented research to reflect our goal to reappraise the scope of professional competences and define the required professional functions of social workers working with people with intellectual disability.

This monograph is dedicated not only to professionals working with this group of people but also aims at answering basic questions to practical issues that families with a intellectualy disabled member are coming into contact with.

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Eliška Župová

The scientific monograph examines the issue of competencies among mayors in municipalities of the Slovak Republic. At its core is interpersonal (social) competence, characterized by a set of competencies (interpersonal skills and abilities) formed by comfort in social (interpersonal) situations that mayors encounter daily in performing their duties.

Social (interpersonal) competence is an essential skill for any manager. A mayor should also act as a manager, operating within a social environment, where the level of mastering interpersonal competencies predicts successful behavior in interpersonal situations. Through their actions in these situations, they influence the internal environment of the municipality, including municipal office employees, members of the municipal council, local residents, and external environments—such as collaborations with other municipalities, higher territorial units, contractual agreements with private organizations, or representatives of the third sector.

The central focus of the scientific monograph is the exploration of interpersonal competencies. A pivotal research question addressed was: What is the level of mastery of interpersonal competencies among mayors in municipalities of the Slovak Republic?

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Miroslava Köverová - Margita Mesárošová (eds.)

The publication „Helping professions and self-care from the perspective of psychology and social work“ includes research studies focused on self-care, and the positive and negative effects of helping among specific groups of helping professionals – psychologists and social workers.

A number of Slovak as well as foreign authors contributed to the book of proceedings. The contributions are theoretical studies, research studies and case studies. The theoretical and research studies are focused on important issues of professional helping: self-care, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress, secondary traumatic stress, mindfulness, empathy, job satisfaction and turnover among psychologists and social workers.

Research interest in the phenomena is especially important in the context of the mental health of helping professionals and in reducing the negative consequences of helping. 

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Eva Žiaková - Lucia Tóthová (eds.)

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on December 8, 2017, in Košice

6th Annual Košice Days of Social Work

Social work addresses a wide range of social issues, some of which have been tackled since time immemorial, while others can be considered modern.

The proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation, titled Transformations in Social Work Over Time, are therefore dedicated to diverse perspectives on social work questions that remain relevant across time.

The contributions in this volume highlight not only the broad scope of the proceedings but also the multifaceted nature of social work itself.

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Vladimíra Žofčinová (ed.)

Reviewed Proceedings of the 3rd Annual International Doctoral Student Conference, February 15, 2018

On February 15, 2018, the Faculty of Public Administration at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice hosted the second annual doctoral student conference on the theme of "Theory and Practice of Public Administration." For the first time, this academic event took on an international dimension, with participants from partner universities (faculties) in the Czech Republic and Poland, alongside representatives from six Slovak faculties.

The conference, following a brief opening session addressed by the Dean of the Faculty, Assoc. Prof. JUDr. Mária Hencovská, CSc., PhD, was organized into three sections: political science, legal, and socio-economic. Each presenter shared the results of their research, aligning with the title and content of their contribution. The event maintained a scientific-discussion format, with moderated discussions following each presentation or group of thematically related presentations.

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Magdaléna Halachová - Denisa Rovenská

The monograph theoretically analyzes the virtual environment and its aspects, offers insight into the identity of the child in the virtual environment, the necessity of social support and the diversity of social relationships in the real world and virtual reality.

Furthermore, it contains the fundamental training program designed to minimize the risks of the virtual reality, because adolescents are often exposed to risks uncontrollably. For that reason it focuses on adolescent and empowering optimal self-image, as well as creating and maintaining real social networks.

The set of experiential-educational activities is conceptually divided into two main areas. The first one is content-focused on the adolescent, his/her psychological capability including opinions, attitudes, emotions, competences, and self-reflection.

The second one focuses on interpersonal real and virtual relationships, the recognition of the advantages and disadvantages of internet communication and face-to-face interaction, and last but not least for more optimal use of the Internet and preference for real social interaction.

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár

The scientific monograph focuses on the issue of adolescent risk behaviors on the internet in the form of its problematic use in the context of valid theories and practices of a social work. Text of the monograph is divided into four parts.

The first part focuses on the multidisciplinary definition of a risk behavior on the internet. It offers an up-to-date literary overview of the issue through the latest, especially foreign, theoretical knowledge.

The second part focuses on the problematic use of the internet in contexts of valid origins of the social work. The third part focuses on the presentation of the most important psychosocial factors correlating with the problematic internet use in the adolescent´s group. The theoretical knowledge is supplemented by the authors research into the present factors.

The final part is application-oriented and focuses on the possibilities that the social work offers at the praxis level to prevent and solve the presented problems.

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Lucia Tóthová - Eva Žiaková

The current time is fast, hasty, with strongly asserted women's emancipation, absorbed by information and communication technologies that overcome distances but create them at the same time. The lifestyle of humans is changing, many diseases are on the rise, and cancer is becoming a "trend of the present". Claims on man, and especially on women, are now too great. Women perform multiple roles and perform many tasks. They become caregiving mothers, understanding and surrendered wives, workers with professionalism and flexibility, and idols the myth of beauty too. Due to the overlapping of the traditional gender division of labor, the life of women takes place on several levels. Their work day does not end when they leave the job, but they continue to care for their household and their own family. Besides all, they strive to fulfill not only personal expectations, but also the expectations of the family, social environment and society, reject failure and strive for perfectionism.

In our lives, situations that affect and burden us more or less appear. Even though we can not in control everything and everyone, we are able to control situations that are of direct concern to us. In life, we encounter problems in employment, financial problems, illness or death of near. As well as negative, also positive situations affect us. Each responds to each situation different ways.

Monograph is one of the ways in which we aim to draw attention to the so "C-coping style" as a maladaptive way of managing the burden that is typical of oncological ill patients. It is one of the possible concepts that affect the manifestation of breast cancer. Based on this, we have focused on the used coping strategies and we consider the life events to be a significant burden in the lives of cancer patients. The research is aimed at synthesizing the life events and the coping strategies used to coping them, conceived as a risk behavior of patients with breast cancer. As the coping of the burden can be different between men and women, the monograph is intended predominantly for women, to which we have also focused in realized research. They can be patients with oncological diagnosis, but also women who want to prevent this disease by use effective coping life events. We also believe that the monograph will enrich everyone who is interested in the same target group.

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Eva Žiaková - Lucia Tóthová et al.

The scientific monograph was developed within the framework of the grant project Vega 1/0230/15 entitled "Social and Personality Characteristics of Oncological Ill Men and Women as one of the most important factors of sociotherapy with this group of men and women clients", with the aim of finding some common personal characteristics oncological men and women patients, to focus on choosing their coping strategies that can be significant in terms of oncological disease as well as suggesting ways and means of using the basic methods of sociotherapy as one of the most important methods of social work in working with this group of men and women clients, from the knowledge of their personal and social characteristics.

It is also a starting point for other necessary steps, namely to link the results of research to prax the themselves oncologists to hospitals, their outpatient clinics and patients as well as to support the merit of developing the sociooncology, a specific science discipline.

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Eva Žiaková (ed.) 

The 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on November 25, 2016, in Košice

The issue of re-education and resocialization is not new, but it is an increasingly urgent problem as various types of dependencies grow in both scope and content. It can be said that this issue represents one of the central themes of social work in its theoretical foundations as well as practical contexts.

This was the main reason for selecting this topic as the central theme of the 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work, which was the sixth continuation of the professional community’s gatherings to address social problems currently troubling our society. The presented proceedings include nearly three dozen contributions from more than twenty authors from Slovakia, as well as Poland and the Czech Republic. The content of the contributions deals not only with theoretical foundations and perspectives on the issue of resocialization and re-education but also with the consequences of these processes in various client social risk groups—whether it involves the addicted, aggressive, chronically ill, convicted, divorced, bullied, cyberbullied, etc.

I believe that such a wide range of contributions will enrich all those who work and study in the theoretical, research, and practical fields of social work.

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Gabriela Kravčáková - Jana Lukáčová - Taťjana Búgelová

The first study, which concentrates on the characteristics of teachers' work, describes broader theoretical foundations and defines basic concepts related to work.

It also provides an analysis of the work of university teachers, identifying several shortcomings. The research findings revealed significant differences in the time demands of tasks performed by teachers and in the perceived importance of these tasks. Teachers utilize their working time fund beyond 100%, and it can be expected that the teacher population considers their tasks as rather important to definitely important. There is a relationship between the estimated time demands of certain tasks and the perceived importance of these tasks. Based on the findings, conclusions and proposals for intervention measures are formulated, and a construct of key competencies of university teachers is presented, which includes basic, social, pedagogical, research, and managerial competencies.

The second study analyzes the level of satisfaction, self-fulfillment, competencies in teachers' work, and the prestige of the teaching profession in relation to gender, academic rank, seniority, and the specific field of expertise.

The third study, which deals with the topic of teacher career, provides an overview of theoretical foundations of career.

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Magdaléna Halachová - Vladimír Lichner - Katarína Šiňanská (eds.)

Proceedings of Contributions from the Scientific Conference Held on April 25, 2013, in Košice

The proceedings of contributions from the scientific conference were created as part of the national round of the Student Scientific and Professional Activities event in the field of study 3.1.14 Social Work, which took place on April 25, 2013, in Košice.

The central theme of the proceedings focuses on addressing various problem areas within social work as both an academic discipline and a practical activity. These contributions were prepared by students and young researchers under the guidance of experienced professionals. The topics covered in the proceedings include issues such as social services, field social work, school social work, and similar areas. Additionally, they highlight the dangers of socio-pathological phenomena such as truancy, drug addiction, poverty, bullying, and more.

The presented results clearly demonstrate the importance of social work and other helping professions in working with specific client groups.

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Soňa Lovašová - Katarína Šiňanská - Magdaléna Halachová  - Vladimír Lichner (eds.)

The central theme of the conference is violence in social work. Violence in social work appears in various forms, whether it involves working with clients who are victims of different types of violence or dealing with aggressive clients where the social worker themselves becomes the victim. Violence in society is rapidly increasing, and social work is a science that must necessarily adapt to society; this is its essence. Therefore, managing aggressive situations in any form is an important part of a social worker's personal skill set.

Unfortunately, protecting social workers from violence will gradually become a necessity, and in the future, we may not avoid training in self-defense and reducing aggression as part of professional preparation or lifelong education.

The aim of this collection is to present the issue of violence in social work from various perspectives to both the professional and lay public. We hope that this serious problem will receive increasing attention and that the individual contributions will help readers understand the extent of the problem of violence in social work.

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Iveta Jeleňová - Gabriela Kravčáková (eds.)

Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference, October 16, 2014, Košice

In mid-October 2014, the second annual conference "Human Capital and Society" was held, organized by the Department of Social Studies of the Faculty of Public Administration at P. J. Šafárik University in Košice, in collaboration with another department of the faculty, the Department of Economics and Management of Public Administration. Today, you have before you the proceedings encompassing contributions presented by participants of this conference. In preparing it, the editors had to deal with the diversity of the participants' profiles, which was reflected in the authors' approaches to the issues they addressed, and subsequently had the contributions reviewed by experts from various fields. The individual contributions address traditional topics, as well as newer and emerging themes, reflecting current problems and questions related to human capital, organizational behavior, and primarily, public administration.

At the conference, researchers specializing in management, psychology, political science, social work, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, as well as individuals who do not belong to just one scientific discipline, came together. It was interesting to see how people from different disciplines view the same phenomenon. The conference demonstrated that an interdisciplinary approach can highlight the shortcomings in identifying and understanding problems from the perspective of just one discipline.

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