empowerment is caught between neo-liberal strategies of individual
au-tonomy and choice and an ethical socialism that emphasizes the need for
responsibility in being able to make choices. (Webb,.57)
The process of empowerment is involved in the regulation and management of risk.
Social work can only be effective in a situation where the resources of the client and the social service providers are being strengthened, which is the essence of empo-werment. In Russia, as well as in other countries, risk management increasingly be-comes a key technology. But this technology could not be effective without empowe-ring individuals, groups, communities and organizations. The empoweempowe-ring approach engages social workers in social change with the clients in their social environment, which becomes a way to reduce risk and minimize harm.
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mpowering practice in Russian social workIf we return to our discussion on social work in Russia, it might be pointed out that there is currently a lot of discussion about the need to implement empowering prac-tices in social work. However, in reality, the use of such methods is still extremely li-mited in Russia, and at present they have mainly been adopted by non-governmental organizations. As for government organizations, there are four types of social service organizations that provide mandatory social services in Russia. These are: (1) social services centers for elderly people, (2) social services centers for people with disa-bilities, (3) social services centers for families and children and (4) organizations of social support for homeless people.
Empowering methods can be applied to all groups of clients, but they can provi-de a particularly effective approach in social work helping disabled and vulnerab-le groups to realize their rights as full members of society. And, in recent years in Russia, empowering methods have been developing mainly in the social services for people with disabilities and people with HIV (Borodkina 2008). But this is not enough. It is necessary to develop empowering methods for families with children, as well. Governmental centers for social support to families and children are being created to assist families, children and individuals who find themselves in difficult situations. The purpose of these centers is to help such clients by protecting their legal rights and interests, and by assisting them to improve their social and econo-mic status and psychological well-being. The tasks of social centers include moni-toring the social and demographic situation and the level of socio-economic well-being of families and children. The centers identify families and children in difficult situations and in need of social support, and they provide either short term or long term socio-economic, socio-medical, socio-psychological and educational services, as well as other social services. The goal is to support families and individuals in solving their problems. Also, since social centers should help the families to realize their own capacity to overcome difficult situations, an empowering approach to wor-king with families is relevant to their work and should be applied. In Russian prac-tice, empowerment approach connected with families resources is in high demand.
All factors, both tangible and intangible, that have actual or potential positive impact on a family’s well-being in the present or in the future, should be considered as the family’s resources (Samoylova 2013, 30). A structured approach to the assessment of family resources, based on a system-ecological paradigm, is implemented in R.
Parker’s method, currently used in the practice of social work (Framework for the Assessment 2000).
The assessment framework covers three groups of factors that characterize: (1) the needs of the developing child, (2) the educational potential of parents and family, and (3) environmental factors. The principles of prioritizing the child’s needs and conside-ring the child’s best interest are used as a basis for the assessment. The estimated factors include the conditions and indicators of child well-being. Positive ratings on these factors lead to the conclusion that they are an actual resource, positively affec-ting the child’s well-being. There is currently active discussion on the effectiveness of social services and the social security system as a whole. On the one hand, this stems from increasing government focus on sensible use of budget funds and cost optimization, and on the other hand, from the need for more observable positive change in the lives of the people who have received various forms of public services and support. Direct economic support is insufficient and does not lead to a qualitative change in the families’ situations. Therefore, there is a great demand for empowering methods that can build up a family’s resources, improving the family’s capacity to adapt and strengthening the family members’ self-motivation.
In practice, this means measures such as, for example, promoting employment, trai-ning, organizing family affairs, legal education, and improving parental competence.
These types of support from the state help families to become more self-reliant and independent, and to live without assistance from social services organizations in the future.
The expansion of empowering social work practice requires specific professional competence of social workers. To illustrate this point we would like to present some of the results of a survey, designed to evaluate whether social service professionals were familiar with means to activate their clients. This was one of the research objec-tives in the 2011 project “Empowerment of Families with Children”, carried out in the St. Petersburg and Leningrad regions1. The survey involved 80 social work profes-sionals from governmental and municipal organizations that provide social services.
One of the questions was: “Are you aware of the appropriate methods of social work aimed at enhancing and strengthening the client so as to improve his/her ability to independently handle difficult situations?” Only 10% of respondents answered “Yes, I am aware”. 75% of respondents said ”I am aware, but I feel I need additional know-ledge and skills”, and 15% of respondents answered ”No, I am not aware”.
1 Project ”Empowerment of Families with Children” SE141,f South-East Finland –Russia ENPI CBC Pro-gramThe main areas of activity are as follows: counseling, including issues of child placement in foster families (adoption, guardianship, foster care); preparing families who wish to adopt a child; provi-ding legal and psychological support to families who are experiencing difficulties in raising children;
improving the relationship between children and their adoptive or foster parents; assisting with the preparation of documents required for adoption; assisting in finding employment; organizing leisure-time activities for families with children; assisting in obtaining financial aid.
The majority of respondents expressed a feeling of lack of knowledge and skills. On the question of whether they were aware of the concept of empowerment, only 36%
of respondents answered “yes”, and, of that, only 19% reported that they had learned of empowerment from their professional training. 64% of respondents did not know what empowerment meant. However, all the participants in this survey expressed the need for further specialist training.
As mentioned above, within the Russian social security system, centers of social support for families and children are one of the main types of social service orga-nizations. Currently, the social workers in these centers deal with families with low income, single-parent families, families with multiple children, orphans and children without parental care, and young adults who have come out of institutions for or-phans. As well as preventing child abandonment and placing children in orphanages, social support for families in difficult situations is aimed at the prevention of child neglect and physical or psychological abuse in the family.
However, despite the variety of services, in practice it is not common for social wor-kers to strengthen the parents’ ability to care for their children by using methods that enhance the resources of the family and its immediate environment. Empowerment theory should become a ubiquitous, underlying current for social work with families.
Using empowering methods means that the client has to be supported both at the personal and the structural level. Also, social workers should help strengthen the client’s own resources. At the personal level, the clients need to see themselves independent of the attitudes of the people around them, so that they may raise their sense of self-esteem. At the structural level, there is concern for the creation of vario-us self help groups and non-governmental organizations. Also, social service agen-cies should be involved with the process of supporting citizens and creating recursive (self supporting) networking systems.
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onclusionEmpowerment theory is changing the perspectives of contemporary social work in Russia, and, undoubtedly, it will increase the efficiency of Russian social work.Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize once again that modern, systematic social work has to help clients, as much as possible, to use their own resources to create solutions to their problems. The social worker should encourage the clients towards preventive behavior which is consistent with their increasing personal responsibility for risk as citizens. On the other hand, social work needs to promote the creation of new networks between clients and resource systems. Social work needs to increase efficiency between citizens and the resource systems, and, finally, it is necessary to develop new resource systems that promote the prevention of social risks. Practi-tioners face continual difficulty with both empowering their clients and empowering themselves as workers. It is necessary to increase the competence of social workers in using empowering methods, a competence imbued with critical understanding, knowledge, and skills within an appropriate context of values.
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Valentina Samoylova, Maritta Törrönen, Olga Borodkina