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In this article, authors analyze the legal regulation of the work of Child rights protection (CRP) specialists in the context of the transformation of the CRP system in Lithuania. Intensive changes in the legislation and practice organization field of CRP over the last three years have created preconditions for better operational functioning of the system. However, it can be concluded that the professional status of CRP specialists is not yet completely shaped. There are no requirements for the qualification, the procedure for its promotion and certification; the work of specialists is more defined by the functions they perform than by professional competence. Although workers work in risky, emotionally challenging conditions, health and safety measures are not definitely determined. The basic legislation shaping the protection and welfare of the rights of children pays little attention to them, they do not distinguish as a separate category of employees, and the specifics of their activities are not clearly identified. During last three years some activities, such as assessment of the child’s and family’s situation, and the procedure of removing a child from its family and others have become more regulated. On the one hand, such regulations provide methodological assistance for their professional decisions; on the other hand, it may also create certain restrictions for their freedom and for development of their competencies. It is important that the principle of individualization remains in professional practice. CRP professionals constantly face dilemmas where they need to balance between support and control. Discussions and reflections on these situations could become be a stimulus for the conceptualization of such practices in the Lithuanian CRP system.

The aim of the article is to present the perceptions of social work educators from Lithuania and Japan, on the role of technologies in the development of the profession. Qualitative research was based on 18 interviews. The place of technologies in the social work profession and the implications that these technologies may have on social work values, knowledge, skills and SW identity are discussed from the perspective of B. Latour, specifically, his two practices of knowledge generation—purification and translation. The article contributes to the discussion on the role and integration of technologies into social work education and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article aims to identify the different truths perceived and experienced by the four main parties involved in the process of removing children from families. Furthermore, the article examines the potential implications of these individuals' "versions of the truth" on the public discourse. Background: This article offers a unique lens for analyzing situations when children are removed from their homes by employing the principles of the sociology of knowledge and the concept of the Rashomon effect. This combination reveals the different truths, reasons, and motives of all parties involved in situations of removing children from their homes in Lithuania. Method: Seventy‐one semistructured interviews were undertaken with the parties who have direct experience of the process of child removal from families: children, parents, child protection workers (CPWs), and the police. Results: The interviews with parents reveal the unexpectedness and unfairness of the removal situation, and lack of institutional support in their efforts to recover the child. Similarly, for children the removal experience was traumatizing, resulting in losing trust in their parents and CPWs. However, in some cases they were glad to be taken away from the neglecting and violent environment. Child protection workers experience strong emotions and face ethical dilemmas during the removal. Nevertheless, they perceive themselves as life‐saving professionals who meet children's best interests. Conclusions: The research revealed that all four involved parties have their own diverse and competing truths. These truths do not have equal chances to be told, listened to, or to shape the general discourse. They are limited by privacy, professionalism requirements, and feelings of shame and guilt. Implications: The research results have implications for further research, practice, and policy. They offer a methodological approach, combining competing truths, which can guide the daily work of child protection workers. On the policy level, the results of this study might be helpful for professionals in other countries developing or reforming their child protection systems. The ability to openly express one's truth can be seen as a crucial factor, serve as a means of parents' attempts to publicly prove one's suitability to care for children, or CPWs' professionalism in making appropriate decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Paedagogica Vilnensia is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article offers a conceptual framework within a decision-making (DM) context in situations, when child protection workers have to decide to either remove a child from his or her parents care or leave him or her in a family. Based on the thematic analysis of data from the 33 interviews, we have developed the concept of DM context as a space of uncertainty which is multilayered and implies an inherent duality of each contextual element. The study contributed to the research on work in a private setting, by revealing the role of agency culture and public attitudes in child protection workers' decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Socialinė Teorija, Empirija, Politika ir Praktika (STEPP) is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Social Work. Experience & Methods / Socialinis Darbas: Patirtis ir Metodai is the property of Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Social Work. Experience & Methods / Socialinis Darbas: Patirtis ir Metodai is the property of Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Aims: The aim of the study was to evaluate the mental health care system from the perspective of experts, as well as a subjective review by patients in mental health centers of the treatment they are receiving. Methods: This article includes data from two studies performed in Lithuania: expert and patient research. Research participants were 20 experts (non-governmental organizations, academics, service workers, decision makers, central government) and 30 patients (heterogeneous according to their demographic characteristics, diagnoses, forms of treatment received). Results: According to the patients, psychotherapeutic treatment requires a much higher degree of patients' active involvement and input; medication-based treatment contributes to the patient's passive position regarding their healing process. Experts' opinions regarding the balance between psychotherapy and medication focused on the following topics: the availability of psychotherapy in bigger cities and its lack in rural settings; the supply of private providers and lack of public services; a progressive youth and a conservative older generation of psychiatrists; a paradoxical concentration of psychotherapy in inpatient facilities and its lack in the community. Conclusions: Though mental health care requires a clear and ethical balance of biomedical and psychotherapeutic interventions, a transparent and public dialogue about the efficacy and advantages of different treatments is needed, but this consensus is still not achieved in many countries, including Lithuania. Both psychotherapy and medication-based treatments are regarded as useful elements of treatment from both the expert and the patient perspective. However, there is lack of availability of psychotherapy services in the mental health system in Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article is focused on Forum theatre as a tool to develop youth's psychosocial resilience within the field of social work. The principle objectives of the study are to clarify the range of skills and abilities enhanced by the Forum theatre method, to specify the indicators by which these skills and abilities are measured and to explore the final impact on youth. The study demonstrates that the Forum theatre method helps to develop empathy and also has influence on the ability to accept others, selfesteem, self-efficacy, self-control and collaboration skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Work. Experience & Methods / Socialinis Darbas: Patirtis ir Metodai is the property of Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Self-realization as the aim of social work is mentioned in the ethical codes of social workers and various acts, regulating the activity of social work in Lithuania and other countries. Self-realization is discussed as the essential virtue, defining social work, and as the objective, towards which the final goal of the practice, involving all areas of social work, must be oriented. Thus, the aim of research which is presented in this paper was to find out what conditions design premises for the clients to aim for the self-realization during the process of the assistance. Searching for what kind of attitudes towards social problems and the means and principles of assistance are important when endeavouring to design conditions for the self-realization of a client during the process of assistance, qualitative research was carried out: biographic interview with a client, interviews of 6 social workers and the analysis of the documents of 3 organizations, which work in the social field and clearly name self-realization of the clients as the goal. The results of the research revealed, that the system of the assistance, when aiming for this goal of social work, is composed of these elements: professional specialized assistance; the creation of material basis and conditions, which do not humiliate human dignity and do not stimulate the rise of *supply* mentality; the design of conditions for work and learning thru work; providing the possibilities for education; the design of the space for the development of the personality during leisure time; warranting the relationship, based on the confidence and belief in person during all the process of assistance. This system of assistance is based on 3 principles of design of natural environment: the principle of unterminated time of assistance; the principle of design of family environment; the principle of individual approach to person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Transformations in Business & Economics is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scavengers are people who recover recyclables from waste and use it for self consumption and/or trade. Though this group of society exists in many societies, the research in this area is scarce. There few research made in western world, more in developing countries. In Lithuania this area is quite uninvestigated. The paper present this paper the results of ethnographic research conducted in year 2006-2008 in Lithuanian dumps. The nature of this paper is descriptive. We introduce general characteristics of scavengers' work and their earnings in various countries as well as in Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologija: Mintis ir Veiksmas is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Numerous studies have focused on the issue of client aggression against various help professionals. Much less attention has been paid to the opposite phenomenon—the aggression of help professionals towards clients, especially aggression of child rights protection specialists (CRPS). Comparative analysis of four perspectives (CRPS, parents, children, and police officers) was performed in order to reveal the manifestations and preconditions of CRPS aggression towards parents and children during the process of removing a child from a family. The manifestations of psychological and physical CRPS aggression were alluded to by all groups of research participants. The preconditions can be classified as being related to the behavior of the child and parents, the employee's personality traits, competencies and psychological states related to a specific work situation, and institutional, inter-institutional, social, and political contexts. Based on our research results, suggestions can be made on how the procedure of removing a child from an unsafe family environment can be improved, such as by making it less harmful for children, more constructive for the whole family, and making the CRP system operate in such a manner that it does not create preconditions for CRPS to transgress the boundaries of professional relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information systems in public child welfare agencies of different countries is challenging primarily for frontline practitioners. This paper unveils how material information system properties are involved in the interactions of child welfare practitioners with their clients and managers. We analyze the properties on their own (functional requirements) and according to the perception of IS users (non-functional requirements). On the basis of the results of systematic literature review and ethnographic study of the use of information system at Lithuanian Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service during the COVID-19 pandemic, we identify the relation between the absence of functionality or its potential failures and data duplication problem. According to our study, data duplication leads to additional time consumption, affects the ecology of the workplace, reduces reliability of information, challenges data protection and finally keeps away practitioners from direct work with clients and exposes them to overcontrol of managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A social service in pediatric oncology medical institutions of Lithuania is a relatively new field. Both in Lithuania and elsewhere around the world this field has not been researched well, even though the importance of research is growing together with the increasing number of children who suffer from cancer. Therefore the need for all kinds of specialists is also increasing. The goal of this work is to examine experiences of social services specialists working in the field of pediatric oncology in Lithuania. Working in institutions of pediatric oncology requires specific knowledge and skills, mostly due to the unusual and extreme working conditions of being constantly confronted with the never ending fight between death and life. Therefore the main emphasis of this work has been put on the analysis of the relationship between the specialists of the heath institutions and with their clients and the arising emotions that social services specialists experience in this constellation as well as their personal transformations. For the analysis of the social services specialists' experiences an existentialist approach in theory has been applied. The paper consists of two parts - a theoretical one based on previously made researches and an empirical one on the basis of five newly taken half-structured expert interviews. Pediatric oncology in Lithuania is taking place in three institutions - Vilnius University childrens' hospital, Kaunas Clinics and rehabilitation department "Saulutė" in Druskininkai childrens' hospital. During the research interviews have been taken from social workers of both hospitals and social educators of the sanatorium. After the analysis of the collected data the most relevant results turned about to be the importance of the personal qualities and the individual maturity of the social services specialists themselves as well as the com- munication between the professionals of the institutions' teams and other institutions or organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to analyze the challenges that arise from stigma and that relatives of people with Schizophrenia face in their relationships in primary social network. Schizophrenia does not only change everyday life and relationships of the ill but also of their relatives. This topic is not researched in Lithuania. Meanwhile in the international context, the biggest attention is paid to the subjective and objective burden that relatives of the people with Schizophrenia face, leaving aside the changes and dynamics in their relationships. Therefore, in this article the influence of the stigmatization on the relationships in the closest environment of patient is discussed. In order to achieve this goal, qualitative research has been completed and 15 half-structured interviews with the people who have relatives, who suffer from Schizophrenia, were carried out. The relation to the person with Schizophrenia varied according to the individual cases - some of them were spouses, some where children, parents, siblings or further relatives. The results of the research reveal that Schizophrenia causes complex emotional experiences of patient’s family members, and gives an effect on relationships within the family, as well as on relationships of the ill and his family members with further relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the challenges faced by child protection workers when they come to a family and have to decide whether to take a child out of an unsafe family environment. The identification of these challenges is im¬portant in order to reduce the risk of inadequate decision-making and the negative consequences of this decision for the well-being of both the child and the family, as well as the employee herself. On the other hand, because challenges are understood not only as situations that require a great deal of mental or physical effort on the part of the employee to solve them suc¬cessfully, but also as an opportunity to test one’s abilities and powers, they can be seen as a motivating factor. A survey of child protection workers implementing the function of child removal allowed identifying a number of key challenges facing these specialists. First, there are challenges associated with treating one’s activities as a professional mission and the complexity and contradictions of removal situations to accomplish that mission. Second are the challenges posed by the behaviour of parents and children, which sometimes threaten the safety of workers, and the stress and tension expe¬rienced when they have to lie to a child to avoid her resistance. Third, there are challenges relating to the uncertainty caused by the lack of information and the limited time allocated to make a decision, because the action must be taken “here and now”. Last, there are challenges arising from institu¬tional, organisational problems, such as insufficient organisational support, teamwork problems, and insufficient cooperation with other institutions. In order for child protection workers to be able to successfully overcome chal¬lenges and be motivated to work, it is important to ensure comprehensive organisational support, strengthen trust relations with managers, implement traditions of practice reflection, and pay sufficient attention to the composi¬tion of teams formed.