More than 20.000 people in Slovenia is currently closed in psychiatric hospitals, special institutions and other institutions. In this article the history of deinstitutionalisation in Slovenia is described and analysed. Author claims that deinstitutionalisation needs to be broader than just resettlement of the people to the community. The process in Slovenia began in sixties with experiment in Logatec, summer camps in Rakitna and with some other community projects in Ljubljana. These projects featured anti-authoritarianism, inclusion of the stigmatised, democratization of the community by the community and group work. The goals of deinstitutionalisation – closure of the institution and provision in the community - was clearly articulated in the eighties in youth work camps in long stay institution Hrastovec. First community services have been introduced in nineties. The process of deinstitutionalisation came to a halt, mostly because of the lack of political will and other reasons, explored in the article.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 3935077The thematic issue of Journal of Social Work is a final result of our research on the field of social work in the health care. Results showed that the field of social work in the health care is one of the most neglected area in social work science. The consequence of such situation along with long lasting domination of powerful professions in this field is a dominance of medical discourse in the language of social workers. The new movements and practices have been approached, such as patient participation and peer support in health care. Alongside the movement of patients’ participation within the health system, the knowledge drawn from the experience of illness has changed the patients’ roles in many aspects. The importance of chronic illness has stimulated the development of patients’ education about their illness in order to support them in their symptoms management and to improve their life quality. Several ideal typical roles of patients are nowadays in relation with health professionals: those who consider that their illness brought them experiential knowledge that could be useful to the health system and the society. They are acting with their peers (peer-support), in educational settings (user-trainers, user-researchers), in hospitals (peer-educators).
C.03 Guest-associated editor
The leading discourse laying in the base of mental health lay advocacy actions and philosophy in the nineties ‘was the so called human rights discourse in mental health. The impression is that with new developments in the mental health field (introduction of the professional statutory advocacy) this tends to change towards greater inclusion of other discourses (mainly discourse of medical model) in understanding the role of professional advocates. This is mainly caused by recruitment of advocates with nursing or social work professional background who are employed in the psychiatric hospitals. On other side their view on their original profession extremely changed toward inclusion of human rights discourse. The paper aims to explore this thesis through statutory advocates' narratives about their advocacy cases in the first year of their work.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 3855973This is the first monographic publication in Slovenian language that deals with the national and intercountry adoptions in Slovenia. The interdisciplinary analysis of adoption sees it as a complex life-long process. The book encompasses the following perspectives: historical, socio-political, cultural, psychos social and the perspective of the family politics. It encompasses the views of different stakeholders, from the child’s perspective, the one of the woman who gives the child for adoption, the social family, and the views of professionals. The aim of the book is to develop professional competencies and to support parents as well as people who were adopted. The book was co-funded by the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs. The Social Chamber of the RS has organised a professional training on the basis of this publication.
D.04 Initiative to set up a new research area in Slovenia
COBISS.SI-ID: 262967808The leader of the research program group was the organiser and chair of a two-day scientific symposium Against Social Suffering: Social Work in Alliance with People with Disabilities in the Times of Crises in June 2013; researchers from 15 countries (Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Austria, Srilanka, South Africa, Hong Kong, Georgia, Russia, Greece, Great Britain, India, Kosovo, Germany) presented cutting edge research results in disability studies and national and comparative analyses of the situation of people with disabilities from the perspective of human rights. The research program group leader raised funding for it also outside ARRS, from the European Association of the Schools of Social Work, EASSW and the nternational Association of Schools of Social Work, IASSW. Also other members of the program group participated at the symposium, including two young researchers.The outcome of the symposium is an audio book – a collection of all lectures, abstracts and photographic material from the conference. The audio book is an open resource, available to all audiences.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting