Self-Assessment of Social Work Students’ Competence Development for Working with Marginal Groups

According to the definition of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), social work is a practice-based profession and academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Underpinned by the theory of social work, social and humanistic sciences, and indigenous knowledge, the profession of social work engages people and structures to solve life’s challenges and increase well-being. However, the continuous negative changes that have characterized modern societies pose a challenge to social workers in particular in finding solutions for increasingly complex social situations that are especially faced by marginal members of society. Such a context imposes the necessity of continuously developing the competencies of those who are being educated for the profession of social work. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to gain insight into students’ views on the level of competence development during studies for working with marginalized groups, and on who they consider the most marginalized members of the community. In this connection, a survey was carried out, which included 50 students of the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. The key findings are that students, or future social workers, believe that the most marginalized are the Roma, people with disabilities and children with developmental disabilities, but that young people are the group they would most like to work with as social workers. It was also learned that the reasons for such a determination are: insufficient resources for providing assistance; the impossibility to approach every individual due to the lack and insufficient involvement of actors important for improving the position of the most marginalized groups. Also, slightly less than half of the participants in the research (23 or 46%) emphasize the importance of organizing additional education as a form of continuous development of competences, which is especially important in a time of ubiquitous negative changes.