Adolescents - target group?

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Soňa Lovašová a kol.

Violence in the workplace has been a problem that has received attention for fifty years. Client violence is one of its forms. These are cases where the aggressor is a person coming to an institution to use its services. Client violence affects all helping professions. This monograph deals with the specifics of client violence in social work.

In addition to theoretical outputs, it also offers research results conducted on a sample of 1170 respondents, frontline workers in selected entities providing services in the social field in Slovakia. The monograph represents a summary of three years of work by eight experts. Each author contributed within their area of expertise and brought a different perspective to the issue. The main aim was to bring a variety of views on the issue and attempt to combine them into a cohesive whole. Thus, a monograph was created that contains interesting theoretical foundations included in six theoretical chapters, starting with the introductory chapter on the position of client violence in the area of workplace violence.

The following chapters address the risk and riskiness of social work, ethical aspects, the personality of the social worker, and risk areas of social work. The research chapter presents the research project to the reader and three subchapters of findings processed in tables and described in detail.

The final part of the monograph deals with prevention and group work. An important part is also the appendices, which include a questionnaire battery, a program implemented for social work students, and a proposed program for workers in the social field.

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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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Soňa Lovašová (ed.)

Proceedings of the Scientific Conference with International Participation held on November 28, 2014, in Košice

Social work is among the helping professions that can be considered highly risky from various perspectives. The clientele utilizing social services is very diverse, often consisting of individuals in extreme life situations. It is typical for help to be sought only when the client is at rock bottom. Along with other factors, this can lead to the emergence of various risky situations. The proceedings were created within the framework of the VEGA task No. 1/0332/12 titled Analysis of Selected Risk Factors of Client Violence in Social Work with an Emphasis on Prevention of Client Violence and Preparation of Social Workers - National Mapping of the Occurrence of Client Violence Against Social Workers in Slovakia. The thematic focus of the proceedings is broader, as client violence is only one of many risks in social work. In the proceedings, the reader will find 52 articles that address the riskiness of social work from many perspectives. They offer an interesting overview of theoretical foundations as well as research findings. The numerous thematic contributions indicate that the issue of risk in social work is highly relevant and that attention is paid to it in both theory and practice.

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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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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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Soňa Lovašová

In front of you is a textbook whose main aim is to introduce readers to the issues of methods, methodology, techniques, and research methodology in social work. The book is divided into four main sections, each arranged with a specific purpose. This arrangement is primarily based on the logical progression of the textbook’s content. The first part consists of chapters dealing with professional terminology, the development of social work methodology, and the classification of methods.

The second part focuses on research methods in social work, where the author devotes space to the methodology of social work research. The goal of these chapters is not to provide the reader with a comprehensive methodological minimum, but rather to orient them in the basic types of research and to demonstrate, step by step, how to create a research project. The third part presents an overview of the various forms of social work: social work with individuals, families, groups, communities, and society. Each of these chapters begins with a brief historical introduction to the topic. The final section of the textbook consists of chapters on working with aggression in social work practice and its various forms.

We believe that this textbook will be helpful to students in their studies and that its structure will appeal to readers.

Soňa Lovašová

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Vladimír Lichner

The scientific monograph focuses on the analysis of radical and extremist groups, movements, sects and cults and their activities in the Slovak Republic.

It provides a theoretical insight into the issues of specific organizations and movements that have been characterized in the past, or are currently characterized by belonging to ideologies that we might call anti-social.

It does not focus unilaterally on one type of violent extremism, but focuses on the issue of both right-wing and left-wing religious groups. In the final part it offers a brief suggestion of prevention procedures, which could significantly influence the increase of extremist manifestations especially in young people.

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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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Lenka Pčolinská

The university textbook "Social Economics and Social Entrepreneurship" presents the issue of the social economy from a complex point of view and it is the first university textbook focused on the topic of social economy in Slovakia. Its aim is to contribute to the understanding of the concept of social economy, its development, basic conceptual apparatus, legislative anchoring and practical realities of social economics and social enterprises in Slovakia. The textbook discusses the basic legislative principles that need to be known when establishing a social enterprise.

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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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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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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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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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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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Lukáš Šutor

Currently, the eighth issue of the Doctoral Miscellanea consists of thirteen contributions from four study programs. The publication of these contributions is traditionally associated with the Autumn School for Doctoral Students at the Faculty of Arts of UPJŠ in Košice, where third-cycle students have the opportunity to first try out the conference format of presenting their research results and subsequently expand them into full studies.

Unlike last year, when the proceedings were non-conference due to the pandemic situation, we consider the return to plenary dialogue beneficial. A distinctive feature of our proceedings is its multidisciplinary nature, encompassing humanities and social science fields. Despite this diversity, interesting connections often emerge among the topics, relating to generational reassessments of regularly recurring issues as well as research on highly current phenomena.

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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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