DIRECTIONS IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR SOCIAL WORKERS WORKING WITH IMMIGRANTS IN A LIFELONG LEARNING CONTEXT

Knowledge, skills and abilities possessed by social workers are essential to innovative, productive professional activities and competitiveness in the labor market. An increasing immigration, internationalization and rapid changes in society require social workers continually to improve their professional competence. Social workers have to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities according to a lifelong learning paradigm, what means not only seek to realize themselves fully and actively participate in professional and public life, but also seek to act successfully in constantly changing the world of employment. The improvement of professional activity could enable them to adapt to the changes in society, increase their motivation and professional satisfaction and improve the quality of work. Problematic question, what are professional development trends of social workers, who work with immigrants, in the context of lifelong learning? The aim of research – to reveal professional work experiences of social workers who work with immigrants. In order to investigate the areas of professional activities of social workers, who work with immigrants, and to find what is need to be improved in the context of lifelong learning a qualitative research strategy was used. A semi-structured interview method was applied. The obtained data were analyzed using the method of content analysis. The results revealed that professional development trends of social workers, who work with immigrants, are related with development of multi-cultural competence (especially development of multi-linguistic and intercultural communication skills), development of reflective and learning to learn competences (the need of supervisions, development and spread of practical experience gained in work with immigrants). According to the results of research, it is recommended to improve social work education programs in high schools and in continuing education process, with a special emphasis on development of multicultural and reflective competences of students.