Factors influencing the development of future social workers’ soft skills

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the impact on the development of future social workers’ social skills (soft skills). It is emphasized that today in the Ukrainian society, as a result of geopolitical, economic, demographic changes, as well as the state of war in the country, the level of expectations regarding creative solutions to various social problems by social workers and fast, clear and high-quality provision of social services has significantly increased. Citizens need prompt social support and trustful communicative interaction in social groups. The study used these research methods: analysis and generalisation of normative, psychological, pedagogical and sociological sources alongside educational and scientific programmes of Ukrainian higher education institutions on the investigated problem, including questionnaires intended for future social workers. The article identifies groups of soft skills that are considered by Ukrainian and foreign scholars, as well as by students themselves, as the most relevant for successful social work. We understand soft skills as the skills, abilities and characteristics that allow you to be competitive and successful in your professional activity. The essence of the factors influencing the development of social skills in students in higher education institutions is determined. The factors influencing the development of social skills of a future social worker are understood as the factors of objective and subjective nature belonging to the external and internal environment within which a student exists during curricular and extracurricular activities in a higher education institution; the ones which give impetus to the acquisition or improvement of certain soft skills in order to achieve a productive result in social activities. The external (global challenges and crises in the political, economic, technological, social, value-related, and educational spheres of society's functioning) and internal (ethical and moral life values, mental and motivational orientations, internal readiness for future social activities, social orientation to work with people, individual and personal development, intellectuality, level of professional competence, available experience of social work) factors of soft skills development in future social workers are substantiated and characterised. In the course of summarising the results of the analysis of the studied issues, it was concluded that it is necessary to take into account a set of factors of influence during the educational process in a higher education institution, since different factors actualise the development of different soft skills in students.