Individual report for Professional Study Programme
accreditation
10.12.2000
Henn Mikkin, Ph.D., invited expert (Tartu, Estonia)
Program
The Program has undergone sufficient changes during 14 months from previous visit
of the expert team. Now it is clearly a Social Work program. Instead of chaotic bundle
of sociological disciplines we can see now a clear structure of properly Social Work
disciplines. Unfortunately, the time of 14 months between two accreditations is too
short to see the new Program in action. The teaching staff has remained almost the
same, so the question remains – can the changes on the paper be also implemented
into reality?
Field practice with its up to 34 credits is an important component of Professional
Study Program only, if its intensity is equal to intensity of teaching in classroom
disciplines. With returning Mrs. Linda Zivere back to Latvia first steps towards more
intensive learning during internship are visible, there is still lack of real network of
trained supervisors. The number of social workers with higher education in Latvia is
probably sufficient already to find tens of supervisors for internship, this resource is
not yet used adequately. As a result, the students can have credits in internship with
less amount of learning than in classroom, just for being in field placement.
Goals and tasks of the study program are elaborated, but sometimes formulated on
formal way, e.g. pp. 3: “To establish skills and abilities which are neede to identify,
analyse, solve and prevent social problems at the level of individual, the group and
society at large”. This and other nice formulations does not allow to see a simple
choice – is Latvian University training social workers more for social policy or work
with clients, or both.
Self evaluation report
The self-evaluation report this time well elaborated and gives a good overview of the
planned future of teaching Social Work. The time of 14 months to implement all good
plans was too short for real changes. It is difficult to understand the timing of current
accreditation, such a short time given for radical changes works against the interests
of the staff of Social Work Program.
Teaching Environment
Classrooms and rooms for groupwork are after moving to new renovated building
sufficient for high quality teaching. To compare with other higher schools in Latvia,
the rooms are excellent. Access of students to computer hardware seems good. From
negative side, I was surprised, that SPSS programs for statistics are not widely used
by students in their research work. Library resources are slightly better, than a year
before, nevertheless radical changes in library are needed for reaching contemporary
teaching standards. The main resource of the library, which allows to hope better
times in near future, is a new well-trained and motivated librarian.
Students
are active and motivated to learn. Their professional identity with Social Work seems
to be varying from high to below average. Identification with the University and
Department of sociology seems higher than with the profession. Their answers to our
questions were informative and competent.
Management
The newly formed faculty of Social Sciences and its location separately from the other
University seems a good background for high quality teaching. The Dean and the
head of Department of Sociology were more informed and more involved in matters
of Social Work program than a year before. Financial resources and their principles of
division are more transparent than a year before. It seems, that the financial resources
are now used more in the interests of Social Work Program than before.
Conclusions
1. The staff and students are motivated to change and rapid changes have been started
already, which allows to predict optimistic future for Social Work Program.
2. Because of short time – 14 months between two accreditations – the changes cannot
be seen at the level of teaching activities of the students, the majority of new
disciplines in the new Program is not yet taught at all. Hurrying with the second
accreditation works against the interests of the Social Work Program.
3. Two weakest sides which need most attention in the future are library resources and
professional supervision of internship. I appreciate the plans to improve these two
areas.
4. My recommendation is to accredit the Program of Professional Studies in Social
Work for two more years. These two years are needed to see the planned changes also
in reality of students.
Henn Mikkin
Tartu
+372-7-406-370
+372-51-17-141
/the signed written copy is sent by post to Mr. Juris Dzelme/
Individual Report on the Professional Programme of Social
Work at the University of Latvia
Gunvor Brettschneider
15.11.2000
General Remarks
Since last time in September 1999 when the Expert Team visited
the University many changes in the right direction have taken place.
In developing the Programme the recommendations of the Team from last
year have been taken into consideration and several om them have been
carried out. My impression is that the attitude towards this kind of
professional education as a part of University studies has changed,
which is promising for the status of the Programme for Social Work in
the future, that is for the Programme to be accepted on the same conditions as the more traditional educational programmes. This will make
it easier for those who are responsible for devedloping the programme
to be met with understanding for the needs of resources. The students
are active and motivated to have an influence on their studies and the
future of the Programme.
Goals and aims of the study programme
The goals and aims of the Programme seem to be clear on the paper. As
there is not much experience of social work in praxis among the staff
members and as the social work professions i still quite new in Latvia
the preparation of the students for their coming tasks is not very firmly
established in "real life".
Positive changes since last year
The facilities are now, since the Faculty moved to Lomonosova, appropriate.
There are enough rooms of different size to make it possible to use a variety of teaching methods like groupwork, roleplaying, seminars etc. There
seemed to be enough computers and also the teaching equipment is now
adequate.
The plans for the library are promising although there still is a lack of
Latvian literature especially in social work, social policy etc.
The curriculum has been renewed abd restructered as to the theoretical part
in line with the recommendations of the Expert Team from last year. The
overdimensioned credits in sociological subjects have been transmitted into subjects more adequate for a Programme of Social Work like Social Policy,
Social Legislation etc.
The teacher, who is responsible for the field work placements, is back in
the
Faculty again and is now working on improving the practical part of the
studies.
The use of economical resources for the Programme is now more transperent
and
the tuition fees of the students in the Programme are - as we understod it more used for the benefit of the Programme.
Weak points
As to the changes in the curriculum the new programme has not yet come into
praxis as the present students still are studying according to the former
structure of the Programme. The present teachers´ ability and motivation
to rework their courses has thus not yet been tested. The staffmembers
background as teachers mainly of sociological subjects and the lack of practical experience of the social welfare field among the staff members may
be an obstacle to the applying of the new curriculum. It requires a lot of
rethinking when tranforming the courses into social work subjects not to
make the changes just a "cosmetical" change. Both in our common report and
in my individual report from 1999 recommendations were made to involve persons with practical knowledge of the social work field in the classroom
teaching. This could be one way of compensating the lack of practical experience and studie sin i e social policy among the staffmembers, who are
going to teach the new courses applied to social work.
The greatest lack is, however, still the absence of supervised field work
and integration between theory and praxis. The length of the practical
work in the curriculum has been prolonged, but this cannot compensate the
lack of supervision by a field instructor. Supervisor is not the same as
"supporter" and supervision is not the same as giving instructions or introducing the students to the routines and tasks of the office in question and
so supervision as it is undrstod in other countries is till missing. The
number of professionally trained social workers in Latvia is increasing
yearly, but there was no signs of conscious efforts to engage those social
workers in supervision of students from the University.It is, however, not
enough to have professionally trained social workers as supervisors, also
they need some postgraduate training in supervision as a method in social
work. As far as we were told there are still no plans to involve the
instructors of the field work into any form of teaching of supervision or integration of theory and praxis, that is to build up an continiuos interaction
between the University and the supervisors.
The students informed us that they are starting to cooperate with social
work students from other training programmes. This was also one of the
recommendations of the Expert Team last year. In other countries it is
quite natural to follow the development of other Porgrammes and to make
use of the experiences and accessible resources in a more or less structured form on a national as well as on an international level. We did
not see or hear any signs of this kind of cooperation on a national
level during our stay at the University.
With reference to the above mentioned weak points I recommend accreditation for two years to make it possible to apply the renewed curriculum,
to work on the integration of theory and praxis and to develope a system
of supervised field placement involving professionally trained social workers as supervisors and building up an interaction between the University,
the supervisors and the field.
Gunvor Brettschneider
/the signed written copy is mailed to Dr. Juris Dzelme/