Abstract
The article deals with the reconstruction of the context of coping with occupational stress experienced by social welfare specialists in different socio-cultural environments. It is aimed to reveal the contexts of the possibilities to cope with stress and of consequences of stress experienced by specialists of social welfare professions of Lithuania and Great Britain (N=10). The professionals’ experience was analysed using a qualitative data collection method (semi-structured interview), employing open-ended questions by the assessment areas foreseen by the researchers and formulated upon the analysis of scientific literature and the authors’ research, disclosing the peculiarities of experienced occupational stress and possibilities of coping with it. The research data were analysed employing the content analysis method, using the open coding procedure; validation of the research data was performed using an expert method. Reconstruction of the multilayered context of socio-cultural diversity of social welfare specialists of Lithuanian and Great Britain highlighted ambiguous semantics of stress coping possibilities: the success of coping with occupational stress possibly depends on the interaction between the variables of a personality (intrapersonal) and social environment (interpersonal). Stressful situations affect both personally and professionally, causing changes in specialists’ emotions, cognitive activity, behaviour, aggravating relationships with colleagues and reducing work efficiency.
Highlights
Current political, economic, demographic and social conditions in the development of European countries make it hardly possible to avoid stressful situations
Scientific research shows that the social sphere specialists experience stress relatively strongly, the social environment transforms from the low-level stress environment into the medium-level stress or even high-level stress environment and that the relative balance of correspondence between the personality and the environment is increasingly violated
The problem of this research presupposes problem questions opening up a relatively new space of research on coping with stress: What contexts of occupational stress, its consequences and possibilities of coping with stress experienced by specialists of social welfare professions in our country and Great Britain come to prominence? What ways used by the professionals of these countries help to cope with stressful situations encountered in their professional activity? What social meanings does the attitude of these professionals’ construct, according to which social reality is possibly constructed?
Summary
Economic, demographic and social conditions in the development of European countries make it hardly possible to avoid stressful situations. In the RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CONTEXT OF COPING WITH OCCUPATIONAL STRESS EXPERIENCED BY SPECIALISTS OF SOCIAL WELFARE PROFESSIONS IN SOCIALLY AND CULTURALLY DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT Daiva Alifanovienė, Odeta Šapelytė, Darius Gerulaitis recent period, professional activities of social welfare sphere specialists (social workers, their assistants, education support specialists, etc.) are undergoing significant changes: new information technologies, fast pace and scope of the professional activity, constant legal, methodological-methodical change and reforms of the social sphere, fluctuations in the scope of activity and instability of a reward These changes undoubtedly promote improvement of the social sphere, better quality of services, their accessibility, timeliness and coverage. The Analysis of Research Results During the research, the possibilities of coping with occupational stress experienced by the specialists of social welfare professions of Lithuania and Great Britain in the contexts of their subjective experiences were analysed. The first and second tables present the opinion of the professionals of Lithuania and the United Kingdom about stress coping strategies in the professional activity
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