| Abstract [eng] |
Relevance of the study. According to Eurostat in July 2020, life expectancy in Europe is declining and increasing every year, leading to a decline in the number of people of working age and in higher retirement age. In Lithuania, as in the whole of Europe, the number of elderly people over the age of 65 is growing rapidly. but according to І.В. Пономаренко (2013) The situation in Ukraine is much more complicated, as it is one of the leading countries where aging is growing very fast. Aging is an individual phenomenon that manifests itself in certain biological, psychological and social changes (Jankūnaitė, Naujanienė, 2012). Successful aging is understood as a complex phenomenon involving major physical, emotional, cognitive, and social domains (Fernandez-Ballesteros et al., 2009). It is very important for an elderly person to participate in community activities, to engage in activities that make sense to him or her, and to feel needed in the current time. However, not all older people have equal opportunities for successful aging, as it is influenced by social status, economic status, social activity, ethnicity, and maintaining good health (Phillips et al., 2006). As society ages, the need for long-term care and nursing for the elderly increases, which makes long-term social care institutions much needed when a person loses their existing social independence skills and relatives do not have the means and conditions to care for the cared for person. However, in Lithuania, inpatient care institutions are assessed in two ways. The prevailing opinion is that a person who comes to live in an institution loses contact with his family, has no personal space, and has to live according to a strict order (getting up, eating, employment, exercise agenda). But despite the prevailing public opinion, these institutions seek to compensate the elderly for the inability to carry out daily life activities without assistance (Orlova, 2014). When providing social care for the elderly, social care institutions provide a set of services that provide comprehensive, constant care to a completely independent person. Social work with the elderly requires not only a lot of theoretical and practical knowledge, but also patience, understanding and, of course, high professional qualifications. The activities of social workers working with this group of people are usually focused on complex assistance, which does not always give a visible result, but the specialist becomes responsible for everything in the person's life (Orlikienė, 2014). According to T. N. Liobikienė and E. Jackienė (2010), the essence of social work is the pursuit of positive and sustainable changes in human life, planning and precise operation of a social worker. And individual work with a person helps to achieve this, because it allows to achieve changes in life, through the person himself. Also suitable for this group and widely used is the problem-solving model, which allows the social worker to identify the main problem of an elderly person, which is often difficult for such persons to identify and name. However, once a problem is identified, the specialist can go through the planning, implementation of the plan, and evaluation of the assistance. According to the author J. R. Šinkūnienė (2011), individual work with the elderly is a complex work based on negative and positive relations between the service recipient and the specialist and quality assessment. This is why individual and group work methods are most often used in social work. |
