Abstract:

Socio-educational services, which are provided at day centres, are one of empowerment tools, which encourage active engagement in community-based activities. The purpose of this article is to reveal the role of socio-educational services, which are provided at day centres, when empowering young people with intellectual disability. The problematic questions of the study: What socio-educational activities do social workers organise when empowering young people with intellectual disability at day centres and how do they do that? What benefit do social workers working with young people with intellectual disability see in socio-educational activities?.

The study revealed that social workers, when empowering the young people with intellectual disability at day centres, organise the following socio-educational activities: domestic skills training (cooking, domestic work, shopping at a store), self-care skills training (personal hygiene, style), labour skills training (occupational guidance, handicrafts, ceramics, environment tidying, cultural events, music, art, theatre lessons, festival organising, various games, tourism familiarisation hiking, excursions, theatre, museums and other cultural objects visiting), social skills training (communication and cooperation skills training at day centres, communication and cooperation skills training outside day centre and activity organising skills training).

Social workers, when empowering young people with intellectual disability, organise various socio-educational activities based on the principles of individual access, systematicity, continuity and transferability and by applying the following methods: individual and group counselling, a practical activity, the formation of a proper behaviour by setting a personal example, the solution to practical real life situations by analysing and addressing situations, which have emerged, or creating educational situations, the methods of encouragement and motivation.

Social workers working with young people with intellectual disability see the following threefold benefit of socio-educational activities: benefit to young people (their social, labour skills improve, they acquire new skills and apply the acquired skills at home, the number of their emotional and behavioural problems decreases, their sense of security increases, their self-worth increases, their self-confidence rises, positive adolescent socialisation occurs), utility to parents/guardians/carers (anxiety over their child decreases, their approach towards him changes in a positive direction, they have free time to realize their needs), utility to a community (approach towards a person with a disability and his family changes in a positive direction, tolerance increases, the inclusion of young people and their families into their community increases).

Keywords:

Social worker, young people, intellectual disability, empowerment, day centre, socio-educational services.