Management skills in social work across the Baltic States

The aim of the project is to promote the quality and the development of Social Work study programmes across the Baltic States and to add value to not only to the social work programmes, but also to the skills of social workers. Recent researches and discussions between Social work departments of Kolping University of Applied Sciences and Katolische Univertität Eichstät – Inglostadt revealed that today many social workers are not adapted to the rapidly changing environment in social work area. It can be seen that social work has been developing and, therefore, social workers are demanded to have more skills than they had before, especially in the sphere of management. Good management skills have become a crucial factor helping to overcome barriers to successful functioning of services of social work. Therefore, seeking to improve the preparation of young social work professionals in higher education institutions, Kolping University of Applied Sciences set a task to do a research considering the topic to find out the situation and needs for managerial skills of social workers across the Baltic States (Latvia-Estonia-Lithuania) and with the help and high expertise from the German partners (Katolische Univertität Eichstätt – Inglostadt) develop e-guidelines, which will be the main tool for the development of renewed Social Work study programmes. The guidelines will be suggested to other HEI to improve the quality of knowledge and skills provided for the students of social work.

• The development of an online survey to find out the need for the main management skills of social workers in Baltic States and Germany;
• The development of e-guidelines considering the topic, which will be shared across Baltic States and German HEI (including possible materials for the future course);
• Dissemination of the project outcomes.

During the on-line survey the number of 1217 respondents were reache. The number consisted of: 343 social work students, 565 social workers and 309 persons working in management.