Practical training of social work

The aim of the training was to improve the skills and knowledge of social worker. This practical work should help to realize how I am ready to work as a professional and what I have to do more to become a better worker. In this practical training, I had to analyze the organization’s, in which I have had the training, institutional functions in its inside and outside with other organizations. In addition, I had to know more about social worker’s functions ant to analyze one case of a person who is in social need.

I have chosen to go in for practical training in public organization “Children – the part of community” (VO “Vaikai – visuomenes dalis”). It is a small day centre where pupils from local area gather after school and do some specially organized activities that fulfill their free-time and improve social skills. The best point is that there works a very qualified social worker who makes this centre cozy for children and she welcomed me very politely and with enthusiasm. Tatjana Lobanova, day centre’s head, always tried to help me to know everything what I wanted and she kept me on my course of training for achieving the goals, so, I think, I was lucky.

Here I have got lots of information about organization, for example, how it gets the sponsorship by writing the projects. The social worker gave me the great example how to work with children, what to do and say that the social worker would become a good leader and a friend in the same way. I get a lot of experience and I am happy about my practical training. All my fears disappeared in working in such institution. All a social worker needs is just to be active every day and to see the bright side of situation and do not be upset if sometimes something fails.

Social Services and Social Policy

Social work should guarantee the accessibility to social services to satisfy the vital needs of an individual and to create living conditions which would be reasonable to human level. The states establish the laws which should to create the legal systems of social services. Those legislations states who has a right to social services and when that services should be provided.

The law of Republic of Lithuania on Social services gives the concept of social services: "Social services denote the provision of assistance to individuals in various non-monetary forms as well as in care funds. (Article 2. 1.)". Lithuania started to create this concept of social services after the declaration of independence in 1991. Lithuania even had not the social policy while in Britain in 1948 were three departments responsible for personal social services: health department (responsible for public health and various aspects of this), welfare department (responsible for residential care and help to elderly and disabled people), and Children's departments, responsible for child care. Now Lithuania has such departments and they deals with community problems, but in Lithuania such work is done just by the officers of social policy, especially in laws is declared that it depends and on social workers. However, the Britain's social policy made progress in community, because there is strong idea of community care and this help is not an institution, it is done by voluntary people who are not indifferent to others problems. Unfortunately, Lithuanians think that the state should take care of people, but they don't realize that they are the state and can do much more than the government...

All in all, social services are needed all over the world, and they are guaranteed in many countries, but young countries such as Lithuania has mach work to do to make better tomorrow to its citizens.

Self-assessment of Online Listening to Podcasts

I had listened two podcasts:

• "Little girl with extra limbs" at ABC News: Good morning America (07 Nov 2007) - http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Podcasting/


• "Work - life balance or work - family balance?" (07 Nov 2007) at site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2007_45_wed.shtml

I had an aim to self-assess what skills do I have to listening tasks, especially how I can understand the authentic speech.

I have to admit that I still find difficulties in listening tasks. I needed to listen to podcast not once, but I had listened for three times and sometimes, where the vocabulary was hard to recognize, for more for the complete understanding. But I think that it is because of unknown specific words, and when later I recognize them, it becomes easy to understand the clear meaning. The rate of podcast presenter's speech wasn't too fast, it was suitable "to catch" the words, but when speaks a person, asked to give interview, he naturally talks a little faster. Of course, those interviewed people speak with their accent and use such expressions that sometimes it is complicated to catch the meaning, but this does not make the podcast difficult. The hardest situation is when there are many annoying voices on the background, so then I need to listen for more times of the podcast.

These podcasts helped me to realize how well I am ready to pass my English exam. Well... I am a little afraid of it, but I hope that I will be able to accept this challenge.

Why Do Teens Try to Kill Themselves?

It is hard to imagine what reasons lead the young people to commit a suicide. Many teens who wanted to end their lifes say that in this way they tried to escape from situation, which seemed impossible to deal with at that moment or they tried to get relief from really bad thoughts or feelings. There are much more reasons why teens want to end the life - it may be because of loss, hurt, rejection, anger, guilt, worry or disappointment of friends or family members. Furthermore, these teenagers feel that they are unloved, unwanted or victimized.

On the other point of view, lots of people sometimes feel like this but they just not even think about a possibility to commit a suicide; they can get through it and they have hope that everything can be just alright and see the positive sides of life. Unfortunately, the suicidal teens are not able to deal with life's setbacks and difficulties because they have depression. "Depression leads people to focus mostly on failures and disappointments, to emphasise the negative side of their situations, and to downplay their own capabilities or worth." So depression effects a person's thoughts and in this state the person does not see when the problem can be overcome. Unlikely, teens are "vulnerable to depression". The studies of biology had showed that this is because of activeness of hormones and the changes of sleep cycles, which both change dramatically during adolescence and effect mood.

The good new is that depression is treatable - most teens get better with the rightful help. To add to this, the most close people to teens should pay attention to their moods, they should talk to them and be interested in their problems to avoid the depression which can lead a teenager to commit a suicide.

Online listening: Choosing a Student Exchange Program to Come to the USA

Nowadays technologies let us to listen reports online. These podcast gives not a chance to hear the newest information, but even to improve English listening skills. It is difficult if there are many annoying noises on the background, but if the information is interesting for you, then your listening skills reveals. I have listened about the exchange programs and the one of the most popular is the program for foreign student "Work and Travel USA". It gives possibility to earn money by working up to four months but no longer than one year because students have to continue their studies. I think, it is a great chance to explore American life, to improve your English and maybe to have a wonderful time in your life, it is an experience which can change yours views and even life.

Gun control and Virginia shooting (essay)

Gun is needed for protection, but people use it to kill other people without no reason... So there are many debates about gun control and the governments pass the laws to regulate this phenomenon. In the USA there is a constitutional right in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, where is stated "the right of people to keep and bear arms". So it comes into question if all people are able to have a gun and are they responsible for keeping the gun safely and, ofcourse, the question is if they would use it properly or they would use it for not legal actions.

The need of stricker lesgislation of gun control shows the resent events in the USA on 16 th of April in 2007. In Virginia Tech university there was a mascare where were 32 people killed. It is the brutalest shooting in the USA history. The South Korean23 years old Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people and after this he commited a sucide, was a senior majoring at Virginia Tech. What was his reason, nobady can answer this question. But it is strange if nobody could stop him or reavel his intentions. "In 2005, he was declared mentally ill by Virginia special jusice."So where were the social workers or psychologists, why they didn't pay attention at him? He had to be invigilated all the time by the specialists at university, because he was a student between other students, who wants to feel safe. The other aspect of this is who the person like Seung-Hui Cho coul get a gun, form where or from who?

All the world was shocked and condoled over students's lifes. The governments realised that not everything is done for gun control, there shoul be taken more actions to avoid such a fatality.

Employment law (summary)

Employment law regulates relations between employer and employee. These laws recognize and limit the right of workers to strike, deal with health and safety in the workplace, "limits upon working hours and ages". The most common point of this law is that almost all countries "developed systems of insurance to protect workers during sickness, unemployment and retirement". Employment law states that at the workplace should be equal work conditions, "requires equal pay for work of equal value", "ensure equality of opportunity for employee and job applicants whatever their race or sex". Also, this legislation gives the right to employee to know in advance that he will be dismissed and gives the right to compensation if he is dismissed unfairly or because of redundancy. For women there is a right to "time off in order to have a baby and the right to return to work within a certain period after having the baby". To add to this, these laws state that it is allowed to open the businesses, employment law guarantees a standard minimum wage and a right to have holiday. In comparison Western employment law with Japanese, despite the labor shortage, the not payed overtime work, Japan ensures better security for employees and better salaries...

Internet Fraud

If you use the internet, you are at risk from internet fraud, because the internet is an easy and cheap way for fraudsters to cheat people. It means that if you want to buy something online or if you are asked to give some information about yourself, you may be at risk... So what is the phenomenon of "internet fraud", what types of fraud does it concern and how to avoid to become a victim of internet fraudsters?

The term "internet fraud" can mean any type of fraud scheme that uses not the only one online service - such as e-mail, chat room, message board or any Web site. "Internet fraud is a form of white-collar crime whose growth may be as rapid and diverse as the growth of the Internet itself", says J.J. Rush from the United States Department of Justice (USA). The main aim of such scam is just to obtain illegal money from individual or corporation or to steal confidential information. The Internet "scammers" don't know any national borders or boundaries, they don't respect any investigative jurisdictions, so you always must be discerning minded while surfing the Internet.

There are six main categories of Internet fraud, which includes other scams (by lookstogoodtobetrue.com):

• Pharmacy fraud;
• Identity fraud: hacking, identity theft, phishing/spoofing, spam, spyware;
• Financial fraud: cross-border fraud, romance scheme, advanced fee scams, charities fraud, debt elimination, investment frauds, job scams;
• Auction fraud: terminology, international auction fraud, escrow services scam;
• Sweepstakes/Lottery fraud: foreign lottery fraud, sweepstakes/prizes scam;
• Counterfeit payments fraud: counterfeit cashier's checks, counterfeit money orders.

So everybody should know how to avoid to become a victim of any internet scam. Here there are some offers, what to do if you want to take an action to buy online or just looking for some materials:

• Buy from the companies you know and trust.
• Use the Internet to research a company's history. You can find a lot of information on the corporate Web site.
• Guard your personal information. Give your credit card number only if you are making a purchase, never to verify your identity.
• Avoid judging reliability by how nice or polished a Web site seems. It is easy and inexpensive for anyone to create, register and promote a Web site.
• Avoid downloading programs just to see pictures, listen to music or get access to other features from Web sites with which you are unfamiliar. You could end up downloading a computer virus that wipes out your computer files. (http://www.ehow.com/)

All in all, if you don't respond to shady mails, it makes difficult for the "scammer", who uses all types of excuses, explanations and offers, to lead you away from common sense and to become "frauded". So, scepticism is the best defence, and if any offer looks too good to be true, it can be a fraud...

Civil and Public Law (summary)

Civil law concerns disputes among citizens within country, and public law concerns disputes between citizens and the state, or between one state and another. The main categories of English civil law are: contracts, torts, probate, family law; and the main categories of public law are: crimes, constitutional law and international law.

Civil and public law have some diferences: one of them is that the standarts of proof are higher in a criminal action than in a civil. As it is said in the text: „In English law the prosecution must prove the guilt of a criminal „beyond reasonable doubt“, but the plaintiff in a civil action is required to prove his case „ on the balance of probabilities“. To add to this, „evidence from a criminal trial is not necesserily admissable as evidence in a civil action about the same matter“.One more point is that civil actions are usually started by individuals, and criminal – almost in all cases – by the state. It is known that one party in a civil or criminal action is the defendant, but the party, which brings a criminal action is called prosecution, and which the civil – the plaintiff.

On the other hand, there are some points of cantact between civil and criminal law: „If the loser of a civil case refuses to comply with the order made against him, the procedures for forsing him to comply may rezult in a criminal prosecution“. Also, the guilty defendant in a criminal case will not automatically be found liable in a civil action about the same matter. One more fact forthe end that in English law it is possible to bring a civil action against the police, and there is a right to challenge goverment decisions in courts of law.

My Future Professions

Have you ever dreamt about how you can change the world?.. I always dream... So I have chosen a social work studies to seek this dream. Why to seek? I cann't change the world, nobody can, so I just can try to do something good for my friend, for my town's or country's citizens. My future is to make this future better than it will be...

MRU Simona Vosteryte