Abstract
The success of introducing so-called European values, which also constitute basic social work values, in Czech social service contexts depended greatly on pre-existing values and on those habits and institutions that developed newly after 1989. Each ideal based on specific values requires its ‘embodiment’ under actual conditions, which promote the realisation of some while blocking others. This chapter focuses on two examples where opportunities for introducing social work values in newly developing fields were nurtured through networking and successfully defended against blocking forces. The selected example projects are palliative care in homes for elderly persons and professional supervision in social work. In these examples we picture the multilateral forces, cultural, institutional, legal and human, which were in action while the European values were being advanced and draw conclusions for current transformation processes in European societies.
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Notes
- 1.
Statistics of the number of NGOs in 1990–2012 according to Czech Statistical Office data.
- 2.
One for all: Czech-British project ‘Support of Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in the reform of social services’ 2000–2003. ‘White book of social services’ as a significant output of the project has influenced the further development of a participative culture in Czech social services.
- 3.
The PHARE programme was a pre-accession instrument of the European Union assisting the Czech Republic and other accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their preparations for joining the European Union.
- 4.
Two key documents are the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Social Charter.
- 5.
A specific example from the Sue Ryder Nursing Home in Prague.
- 6.
For example, nurses employed as ‘providers of complex care for elderly persons’ could not include this period into the total period of their professional life.
- 7.
For instance, Markéta Bowe, earlier Nováková, M.A., played an essential role in this respect in the Sue Ryder Home. Having been head of social services, general nurse and social worker with experience from a British hospice, she applied this approach in her everyday work already in 1998, including in the selection and management of a team of co-workers. But there had not been capacity to network and develop a stronger initiative.
- 8.
Social work was only mentioned in 6 paragraphs of the total 121.
- 9.
The Act on Social Services 108/2006 provides an exhaustive list of 34 types of social services and basic activities. Service providers reflecting a client’s complex needs are expected to provide a mix of several services covered by contracts.
- 10.
The Act on Social Services has introduced a new specialisation ‘nurse in social services’ and eligibility of residential social services for public health insurance schemes.
- 11.
https://www.who.int/cancer/palliative/definition/en/. Accessed 28 Nov 2019.
- 12.
- 13.
Avast Foundation was established in 2010 as a vehicle for philanthropic activities. In 2013 a long-term plan for supporting system changes of palliative care in the Czech Republic was announced. The Foundation has distributed more than 6 M EUR over the following 5 years and achieved a significant shift in the selected area. Since that time it expanded to several other topics (early care for families at the risk of social exclusion, elementary education).
- 14.
Sue Ryder Home is a mid-size Czech charity (NGO) offering long-term care for elderly people. Since 1998 it also advocates quality of life and human dignity on behalf of elderly persons and their relatives through innovative approaches and techniques and sharing professional knowledge and expertise with other professionals and students. The name Sue Ryder refers to its founder Lady Sue Ryder of Warsaw.
- 15.
International projects consulted included The Golden Standards and the Liverpool Pathway from the United Kingdom, Hospiz Austria and palliative care in Amersfoort (Netherlands).
- 16.
The old culture of top-down teaching without participation in the educational system was one of the reasons why the social work profession in the Czech Republic rather blocked relations with social pedagogy emerging in parallel.
- 17.
In 2017 an up-to-date system of minimal supervision standards was established at ASVSP which requires that during practice the student be guided by an expert with practical experience who had undergone supervision training.
- 18.
The term ‘misappropriation’ is meant here as ‘stealing’ the benefits of a participative process that resulted from people having invested their time, energy, creativity and social capital to promote change, e.g. in the form of new guidelines, principles or standards of practice. When these results are being appropriated by others with the intention to exploit their credibility and abuse the original meanings for the opposite political or personal purposes, the originators lose power to influence the use of their original meanings.
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Lejsal, M., Havrdová, Z. (2021). Nurturing Opportunities to Advance the European Values in Specific Contexts—Examples from the Czech Republic. In: Lorenz, W., Havrdová, Z., Matoušek, O. (eds) European Social Work After 1989. European Social Work Education and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45811-9_3
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