SPECIFICS OF TRAINING FUTURE SOCIAL WORKERS TO PROVIDE A COMPREHENSIVE SOCIAL RESILIENCE-BUILDING SERVICES

Abstract

Resilience building is a pilot project of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, implemented within the “How Are You?” All-Ukrainian Mental Health Program. Today, resilience building is a comprehensive social service that provides a multifunctional and interdisciplinary approach to its provision. The relevance of the study is due to the need to train social workers capable of professionally providing such a service, helping citizens adapt to new social and living conditions in times of crisis, and providing psychosocial support to the population at the community level. The purpose of the article is to determine and characterise the features of training future social workers to provide a comprehensive social resiliencebuilding service. The study defines the legal framework for both the provision of this service and the training of social workers, including the Law of Ukraine “On Social Services”, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution “On the Implementation of a Pilot Project to Introduce a Comprehensive Social Resilience-Building Service”, Cabinet of Ministers Resolution “On Certain Issues of Implementing an Pilot Project to Organize the Provision of a Comprehensive Social Resilience-Building Service in Territorial Communities”. The multicomponent nature of this service’s content is also highlighted. Accordingly, a social worker must function not only as an individual practitioner, but also as a coordinator of an interdisciplinary team that includes psychologists, doctors, other workers and community resources. This requires the development of several competencies in future social workers to provide resilience-building service, in particular: assessment competencies, psychosocial interventional competencies, interprofessional and teamwork competencies, communicative-ethical and organisational-administrative competencies, etc. The study indicates that Ukrainian higher education institutions are already implementing educational programs focused on resilience building. This indicates a gradual response of the higher education system to new social challenges, but such training is not yet holistic. An interdisciplinary approach in the preparation of future social workers for the provision of this service is becoming important.