Quality in Social Services as a Challenge As mature democratic states gradually become more humane and their citizens raise their demands for the protection of human rights, individual and collective freedom, the topic of quality and its assurance by management ceases to be the privilege of highly sophisticated organizations and companies. It increasingly permeates social spheres as well, where it finds very sound argumentative foundations rooted in ethics, humanism, and, where applicable, theology.
The gradual convergence of "dry" management-oriented approaches, procedures, systems, and models with humanistically oriented services — primarily in the healthcare and social sectors — has created and continues to create remarkable turbulence and stimulating discussions about the reasons for quality in these services and about ensuring quality through ever more complex systems and models. It is as if two opposing theses stand face to face: sophisticated, even technocratic procedures that suppress the client's subjectivity, and the antithesis — the human and eminently individual, emotional, as well as spiritual dimension of one person helping another. We are firmly convinced that only a synthesis of these two fundamentally and at first glance contradictory paradigms can move the real quality of social services forward. Through mutual enrichment, high-quality, measurable, and safe services can be ensured, which at the same time will also fulfill their essential human dimension — one that is not stripped of individuality, empathy, compassion, and spirituality. With a certain degree of insight, we can thus formulate our basic working definition: quality in social services is the harmony between the subjective demands, needs, and feelings of the client and the objectified quality requirements set by the governing documentation, the client's objective health and social situation, and the chosen professional procedures. Wherever we can demonstrate meticulous compliance with all objectified, "external" quality requirements, yet the person is unhappy or even miserable because the human, empathetic dimension is missing, we cannot speak of quality in social services. Analogously, however, it is equally problematic to speak of quality when the client is subjectively satisfied, yet the requirements of the governing documentation, professional procedures, and other conditions for providing social services are not being met.
We may also notice that the adoption of systematic quality assurance in social services in the Slovak Republic was not driven by competitive pressures, but rather by a small circle of social service professionals. Gradually, this topic spread from a narrow circle of very specifically focused debates to the broader professional community. Even these debates and projects bore the mark of the clash of two paradigms and gave rise to two streams of approaches to achieving quality in social services in Slovakia.
When implementing quality management systems or adopting quality conditions under the Social Services Act, we frequently encounter a substantial lack of awareness of this second characteristic of services. This manifests itself in the fact that some social service facility workers do not sufficiently realize that their work is not primarily aimed at satisfying their own needs (to work somewhere and earn an income) and also that it cannot be aimed at promoting and satisfying the needs of the social service provider (the institution). It should be aimed at satisfying the needs of its recipient, the client — the beneficiary of the social service. The first indication is the finding that social service facilities have not identified the needs of their clients and are primarily focused on applying their own internal regulations, procedures, and daily routines. The perspective of such a service provider is oriented primarily "inward," toward the interior of the organization. However, an institution-centered orientation can hardly ensure services focused on meeting the needs of clients. Given that every client-oriented approach requires the identification of client needs as an unconditional prerequisite, it is essential to take this step even within the culture of an inwardly oriented social service provider — yet this encounters difficulties. We have observed a lack of knowledge of procedures for identifying the needs of their own clients not only among frontline staff but also among professional workers who hold higher education degrees, for example social workers. Without proper identification of client needs, however, it is impossible to achieve an individualized approach to the client and to fulfill the procedural quality conditions set out in Annex No. 2 of Act No. 448/2008 Coll. on Social Services.
Very closely related to the identification of needs is the identification of client requirements or the requirements of interested parties. During the implementation of any quality management system, it was found that social service workers are generally not focused on the goal of meeting the client's needs and requirements, but to a large extent on their own work performance, organizational instructions, and directives. The worker does not see the client as a cooperating subject but rather as an object or a finished output. Probably for this reason, workers accept the above-mentioned quality condition requirements with great difficulty and reluctance.
The evaluation of quality conditions has been extended from 2009 all the way to 2016. Today, it is openly discussed again that social service facilities will not be prepared even by 2016, and therefore they are requesting a further extension of the quality evaluation period. By postponing quality evaluation, quality will not be introduced into social services, nor into the professional or operational activities of social work. So what awaits social services, and how will senior management or the founders of social services themselves deal with quality? Long-standing experts in the field of quality in social services therefore decided, within the framework of the Quality Section in Social Services, to set the goals outlined below. These goals are a challenge not only for the section's own members but for all professionals and representatives of social policy in Slovakia.
The activities of the Quality Section in Social Services are based on the objectives of the National Quality Program Strategy of the Slovak Republic for the period 2013–2016 for social welfare.
Drafted by: Ondrej Buzala and Mária Kovaľová, 22.11.2013. Article authors: PhDr. Mária Kovaľová, PhD., MHA Ing. Mgr. Ondrej Buzala, MHA Tabita s.r.o. and the Institute of Quality in Social Services http://www.tabitasro.sk