PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY OF SOCIAL WORKERS IN REPUBLIC OF SERBIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/Keywords:
social work, professional identity, personal and contextual influencesAbstract
Professional identity is a way in which social workers understand their role in their working enviroments. It is a complex psychological construct that affects job satisfaction, motivation and consequently the quality of services provided to users, and it emerges in the interaction of a large number of individual and environmental influences. Individual factors are knowledge, skills and values of the profession, as well as personal and professional attitudes and beliefs, while environmental influences include expectations, which arise from the professional role and characteristics of the organizational context, and the values that shape social protection and the image of social work in society. Social protection in Serbia has been facing numerous challenges in recent years, which has led to a crisis in the professional identity of social workers. This is indicated by the results of qualitative research presented in this paper. In addition to the key features of professional identity (competencies, autonomy), the paper presents and critically analyzes possible individual and environmental factors that affect it, as well as opportunities for stren gthening the profession in the future.
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