Due to the wide application of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, the foundations of the education system have been shaken; education has entered a new era of teaching and learning on digitalized platforms. How do pedagogues evaluate their experiences when information technologies have become the main axis of carrying out their work? What impact did telework have on pedagogues as employees of an education institution or as individuals? What could be expected from older pedagogues in the shift to using digital means of teaching? These were the main questions raised in this research, the results of which are presented in this article. This research is original because the differences in experiences of telework were studied not only in terms of age and nature of work (professional/leader) but also the type of education institution. This delineation is of key importance in understanding the virtual work challenges faced by pedagogues in schools, professional education institutions, colleges, and universities.
The article examines the availability of institutional support for families raising children with disabilities. The aim of the study is to identify opportunities for social inclusion of children with disabilities in the children’s day center. Families raising children with disabilities are unable to function fully in public life due to the lack of access to services. Access to services and assistance, for the most vulnerable groups, depends on the attitude of state social policy makers, financial resources, cooperation, public involvement and, ultimately, the family’s own readiness to participate in public life. The methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization and comparative analysis of scientific literature were used in the research. The research revealed that the mechanism of children’s day care centers operating in Lithuania does not correspond to the model of creating an inclusive environment. Therefore, political decisions are needed on the development of services and the development of social inclusion at both the state and municipal levels, taking into account the needs of families raising children with disabilities. The practical significance of the study is that the study is useful for improving the accessibility of social services for families with children with disabilities and developing the concept of social inclusion.
The phenomenon of the welfare state is characterized by complexity of indicators. To determine in which areas the country is closer to the welfare state, various areas of social policy are analysed. In this article, we set out to investigate one of them, i.e., the accessibility of social services for children with disabilities. The European Union ensures the basic preconditions for the well-being of children with disabilities and emphasizes the compatibility of health, social and educational services (European Commission, 2021). In addition, Member States are free to introduce specific measures for social inclusion (COM, 2021). The well-being of children with disabilities is inseparable from that of adults, usually the family in which the children live. Depending on the child’s disability, the family has to devote time to the child’s special needs, so opportunities to function in society, such as working and earning an income, become dependent on the social assistance received for the disabled child. Research shows that participation in labour market processes reduces the social exclusion of families with children with disabilities and improves quality of life indicators in general (Stefanidis & Strogilos 2020). However, analysis of good practice is more common, while information about the lack of services that parents face difficulties remains overboard. Thus, our research contributes to a better understanding of how families raising children with disabilities use state-provided social services and what solutions and measures are needed to improve the quality of life of children with disabilities and their relatives. The practical implications of our article are revealed through the possibility of more confidently shaping the decisions and measures of the welfare state.The article presents results of a survey of 68 families with disabled children. Our research was conducted in Druskininkai municipality which has typical infrastructure of social services for the disabled and their families in Lithuania.Our study has shown that social services in Lithuania poorly meet needs of families with disabled children. Though social inclusion is one of the most important features of the welfare state, the provision of social services to disabled and their families goes beyond the concept in Druskininkai municipality at least. Families have little information about social guarantees and support provided by the state and municipality. The families are limited to services reported by health care and education institutions. Moreover, the most significant problem hindering social integration of disabled and their families is a small portion of disabled children using services of day care centre. As a result, children suffer at risk of social exclusion while disabled children’s parents lack of opportunities to fully participate in the labour market.Based on the results of the study we state that increasing the availability of social services that meet the needs of families with disabled children is a necessary social policy solution, without which the development of a welfare state in Lithuania is hardly possible.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought great difficulties for the deaf, the blind and people with disabilities in general, in addition to the difficulties of everyday life. This study aims to examine the public interest in the social integration of the deaf and hard of hearing community during the pandemic and the pre-pandemic period in the context of an inclusive society. The empirical study is based on the analysis of statistical data provided by Google Trends, which is a big data analysis, relative measurement and information visualisation tool that allowed to get insight on gaps and inconstancy of information seekers’ interest within categories of science, people and society, law and government, and health. The study encourages researchers and social policy makers to pay extra attention to the social inclusion of the deaf, which, according to the research data, worsened during the pandemic more than other groups of the disabled.
The involvement of citizens in the co-creation of public services increases the satisfaction of service users with the quality of services. Therefore, it is relevant to accumulate and update knowledge about what premises and preconditions encourage the participation of members of society in co-creative processes. A systematic review of the scientific literature showed that factors such as trust, volunteering, innovation, and user satisfaction with services are the most important in the context of co-creation. Based on the research, it is concluded that co-creation processes would be more successful if citizens and other interested parties participate in decision-making process. This would help ensure the transparency, flexibility, reliability, and openness of decisions, improve the perceived quality of public services by users and achieve a more active interest of citizens in co-creation in general.
meeting their needs is the social services. Individuals with psycho-social disabilities still experience social exclusion and a lack of services. The prevailing system of social services in Lithuania is more general, and less focused on the individual needs of a person with a disability. In order to ensure the functioning of a person with a psycho-social disability in public life, changes in the provision of social services are necessary. An important aspect is inter-institutional cooperation at all levels. In Lithuania, local government is responsible for the provision of social services. In this article, we analyse the accessibility of social services for people with psycho-social disabilities based on a case study. The results of the research reveal the availability and functioning of help for people with psycho-social disabilities in community life. The practical significance of the study is useful for improving the accessibility of services for people with psycho-social disabilities in the context of social inclusion in the community.
Parents with children having special needs go through extremely difficult emotional, psychological experiences and physical fatigue due to unavailability of help and lack of access to social services. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the situation since the need for cohesion and the importance of social responsibility were not addressed well by the public authorities. The unavailability of help is believed to have plunged parents even further into exclusion. If before the pandemic, parents felt stigmatized, the situation after the COVID-19 pandemic became significantly worse. Thus, with the help of the phenomenological research, we aimed to reveal the challenges faced by families raising children with disabilities in combining aspects of work and childcare, by analyzing the attitudes and experiences of the respondents. The study is relevant for both public authorities and parents raising children with special needs in the context of developing social inclusion and family support network respectively.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
334 Leonard St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.