| Abstract [eng] |
SUMMARY The work of child welfare specialists as a specific scope of social work in Lithuania is little discussed. In Lithuania, research on the reality of social workers job were mainly related to the competence of employees, challenges, peculiarities of activity organization and performance of work functions. The relevance of the master's work topic is conditioned by use of media discourse analysis data as a working basis, as until now in scientific publications this data has been used as additional tools to confirm the main hypothesis. Scientific literature is used for the preparation of this master's work, using textbooks and scientific articles about mass communication measures activities and its regulation. The material of scientific articles related to the image of child welfare professionals in media was also used. The purpose of the master's work is to clarify how the work carried out by child welfare professionals is described in articles published by news portals (delfi.lt, 15min.lt, lrytas.lt). Investigation period - 2014-2019. For quantitative research, articles are selected based on keywords (combinations of words), related to protection of the rights of child, violence against children, their neglect and take deprivation from family. In order to reveal the subject of work more deeply, in master's work, qualitative survey data was used: a survey done by experts based on representatives of different levels of institutions, whose work is related to the protection of the rights of child (half-structured interview method). The functions performed by experts in the field of protection child’s rights vary: the establishment of a system for the protection of rights of the child, the administration of activities of child rights protection specialists, the management of child welfare institution, and interinstitutional cooperation. After finishing quantitative research and taking the work hypothesis into consideration, it was revealed that child welfare specialists are most often eliminated from the process of deprivation of child out of the family in describing cases. For publications describing the actions of child welfare specialists, it is characteristic to have the signs of formation of negative opinion of public, about the work of child welfare specialists. The study helped to highlight some of the links between the publication of resonant articles and changes in legislation on the protection of the rights of child. Evaluating qualitative study, it showed a negative opinion of experts about media activities, describing the activities and behavior of child rights protection workers. Informants are unanimous in believing that information published by media forms a negative opinion about the work of child welfare specialists, and also prevents them from performing direct duties, reduces motivation and increases stress, as well as has a negative impact on the prestige of specialists. Experts also acknowledge the impact of published information on the deprivation of a child from the family (in resonant cases) on political decisions. The results of the quantitative and qualitative research generally confirmed the work hypothesis. |
