FORMATION OF FUTURE SOCIAL WORKERS’ READYNESS TO WORK WITH THE FAMILY: TRAINING ON THE USE OF ART TECHNIQUES

Abstract

The article raises one of today problems, which needs to be solved in the conditions of the modern changing development of the Ukrainian society. The basis of this topic is high-quality professional training of future social workers who will be able to effectively interact with the family or its
 individual members. The authors emphasize that the use of art techniques in social work with the family is a new direction in the social professionals activities, for example, to prevent, diagnose and correct the clients’ perception; their awareness of the importance of the functions of their family and the formation of a valued attitude to the achievements of their kind, etc. The article also notes that through the use of a variety of pictorial, plastic, musical, metaphorical and other means, social professionals have the opportunity to creatively obtain material for research and assistance in solving family problems.
 The main idea of the training developed by the authors is to reveal the essence of art techniques in the activities of a social worker while working with the family. The presented training material is aimed at solving such tasks as to characterize the type of art techniques for the activities of social workers and social educators; to promote the awareness of future social workers of the value of the family and family relationships; to study the influence of gender on the life of all family members. Among the developed exercises are such art techniques as collage, meditation, work with plastic and paper materials, etc.
 The presented article emphasizes that art activity in cases of work with families will help to clarify the peculiarities of clients' perception of their own "family portraits", will allow to see the features of "joint activities" of family members and reveal the "world of parent-child relations". The authors take into account that both children and their parents are not often ready to interact with social professionals, feeling ashamed, afraid or just uncomfortable though the process of immersion in the world of creativity and artistic expression is able to implement important for family life therapeutic action and finding ways to solve complex problems.