Legal regulation of social work in multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams

The legal regulation of the activities in multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams (hereinafter referred to as MDRT) plays a significant role in reforming Ukraine’s healthcare and social protection sectors. The authors focus on the introduction of the position of a social worker into such teams. It is noted that the prolonged time lag in this process and its inertia narrow the opportunities for comprehensive recovery of individuals, considering the resource of social rehabilitation. Based on the biopsychosocial approach, the authors justify the necessity of the unified use of the term «social rehabilitation» to avoid contradictions in the current legislative formula «rehabilitation specialists + social worker» and to prevent a medicalized approach to social problems of individuals receiving rehabilitation services. The study identifies conflicts between regulatory legal acts governing the work of social workers with individual rehabilitation plans and the accounting of rehabilitation services in the Electronic Healthcare System (EHS). The compliance of the tasks of social workers in MDRTs with the labor functions approved in professional standards for professionals in the field of social protection has been analyzed. A positive correlation has been shown between the tasks and the functions of a social work specialist rather than a social worker, which should be taken into account when amending the relevant regulatory documents. The need to align the regulatory legal acts of the Ministry of Economy (professional standards) and the Ministry of Education (education standards) governing the training and certification of social work professionals is justified by the classification of social work as a field of knowledge in «Health and Social Care» due to the restructuring of the system of fields of knowledge and specialties according to the International standard classification of education, as well as by the strategic goals of adapting educational and rehabilitation services to wartime and post-war challenges, as defined in the Ukraine Facility Plan 2024–2027. It is concluded that the legal regulation of social work in MDRTs is still in the process of formation, requiring improvement and interdisciplinary scientific research.