Forming of Students’ Professional Legal Competency: Foreign Experience

The article deals with analysis of future social workers’ training in the context of forming students’ professional legal competency in higher education institutions of European Union (EU), the USA and Ukraine. Based on the study of scientific and reference sources the peculiarities of the educational process in the most popular higher education institutions, particularly, in EU, offering Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work have been defined: in France there is no distinct differentiation between social workers and social pedagogues; these professions successfully combine functions of education and assistance; future social workers are trained in centers and universities that follow instructions of French National Academy for Youth Protection and Juvenile Justice; at German universities social work curricula are based on threefold study load of future specialists: world societies and social development, social problems and human rights violation, international rights in social work; are interdisciplinary and can be realized in cooperation with other European universities; at British universities teachers have great practical experience in social work; student body is cosmopolitan, i.e. a mixture of mature and young students from different ethnic groups and nationalities; curricula also provide for a large volume of practical learning in working conditions corresponding to national requirements; in Spain future specialists are trained for three appropriate segments of labour market, namely, law, social work expert and Master in Social Work (such specializations as social mediation, leisure time activities, professional adaptation)