Public perception of social workers

According to Úlehla (1999), the mission of social work is to lead a dialogue between what society wants to achieve within its norms, and what the client wishes. It is then the social worker's qualification to be able to be a mediator between the norms of the society and what the client is convinced of. Helping other people is considered to be a matter of course based above all on good upbringing and a man's feeling of being needed. However, if helping others becomes a mission in life, the person is viewed as a professional, and his or her work is aimed at improving these people's lives. Janebová and Musil (2007) claim that social workers adopt a large number of roles to achieve objectives of social justice and enhancing the quality of human life. Social work should reflect the task of mass media in the present society and should be able to employ them to achieve its objectives and to build the public image of this profession (Sveřepa, 2005). The main objective of the thesis was to find out how social workers are perceived by the public. The first chapter contains the definition of the basic terms of the subject matter. The chapter deals with a description of the social worker and the basic conditions of the social worker's performance, the ethical fundamentals and principles of the helping professions. Attention is also given to professional ethics, to the ethical code of social workers and expressing the basic attitudes of social workers to their clients. Further, it contains a definition of social services according to Act No. 108/2006 Coll. The formulation of desirable competences of social workers is described according to Zastrow and Havrdová (in Matoušek, 2003). The thesis endeavours to show the substance of differentiating between help and control in social work. The second chapter deals with explaining terms necessary in the subject of perception of social workers by the public. The chapter specifies the terms of the public, personality and perception. It includes factors that influence human perception. We describe the image of social work in selected Czech mass media. According to Sveřepa (2005), a significant role in the relationship of social work and mass media is played by the manner in which social work is presented in mass media. Social work and social workers themselves should reflect the role of mass media in the present society and should use them in achieving their objectives. The first two chapters deal with the theory of the subject. A significant support in this part is the relevant expert literature that I drew on. The thesis tries to present a more comprehensive view and a more integral idea of the subject matter in question. In the part dealing with research I set the objective of the research and formulated two hypotheses that were verified in the course of my research. The first hypothesis was: The perception of social workers is influenced by their image created by mass media. The second hypothesis: The perception of social workers is influenced by the degree of respondents' personal experience. Considering the subject chosen the research was realised by the quantitative method. The research was carried out in the town of Třeboň in the period of June and July 2014. Because of the size of the basic set it was not possible to carry out the research in the entire population of the basic set, and for that reason I chose the technique of the quota selection, which is very often employed in public opinion polls. The method used was that of questionnaire survey, with the questionnaire technique. The questionnaire contained 14 questions, and was distributed mainly personally. A total of 368 respondents participated in the survey. The outcome of the research provided answers to the two hypotheses. The first hypothesis: "The perception of social workers is influenced by their image created by mass media", was confirmed. The second hypothesis "The perception of social worke