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“A wonderful woman took care of me, many other strangers helped me, and I saw how that help could help and even change a person’s life,” he recalls.
There was no social work as such at the time, but when it began to be found, it became much easier for Rasa: after all, choosing such a profession is the most direct path to the goal that he had set for himself as a child. “I’ve always dreamed of how and what I would help people with, somehow naturally, without much thought, I chose this profession,” he says.
Today we speak with Rasa Baniuliene as a social worker at the Jonava District Disability Activity Center. Here, her main goal is to help people with intellectual and mental disabilities feel as comfortable as possible in the community and promote their independence. Thus, the childhood plan came true.
Like a big family
Rasa has been working at the Disabled Activities Center for four years. And although the period seems short, it feels like working here for a very short time. The reason for all this is that people have been visiting this center for many years, even almost twenty, probably as long as the institution itself. And here’s the last rookie to walk through the door two years ago. Therefore, both employees and customers know each other through and through here; after all, they take the time to do it, and joint activities encourage them to open up.
“We are all here as one big family,” says the social worker, saying that there are many who want to get to the center, but there is no more space at the moment.
Photo from personal archive / Rasa Baniulienė
The main functions of a social worker at the Disability Action Center are to take care of clients’ employment, as well as organize various events, celebrations and trips. The latter, it is true, have been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the same reason, flows are limited: 11 people live in the center’s “Living House” unit, another 13 people come from their homes. An important task now, preventing the two groups from crossing the center, protects against the spread of the coronavirus. who is waiting a lot for life to return in its footsteps and visitors and again to be able to freely communicate with each other and walk through the entire territory of the center without restrictions.
Success is change
When asked what people with disabilities do at the center, the social worker wonders where to start naming. And it starts with what she considers most valuable: financial literacy, sex education, social skills development, employment, computer skills, psychology classes. Visitors to the center also participate in a variety of crafts, make music and play games, and recently meetings with quadrupeds have enlightened their daily lives.
Sometimes you think, why try so hard here? But morning comes, you meet the visitors and think differently again, you see the meaning of your work again.
“Currently, a project is being carried out to bring puppies for dog therapy twice a week. Young people, in particular, are happy with it, it provokes a lot of good emotions,” says R. Baniulienė.
Although the activities behind serious-sounding names such as employment or financial education are often very simple (for example, in employment sessions, clients pluck sponges that are passed on to a local company and used in production), they contribute to the development of people with disabilities, emphasizes Rasa.
Photo from personal archive / Rasa Baniulienė
“Here they learn to communicate, after doing something they immediately have more confidence, more self-control appears. For example, when you are overwhelmed by strong emotions, you don’t miss them, but deal with them. By being in joint activities, people learn from each other and even those who did not agree at all at first can find a common language in some way, ”he shares his observations.
The benefits of the classes are especially evident during field trips or outings: if newer visitors to the center catch up with the people they know, after a while they will talk to themselves and eventually meet or, who pays , they register online.
This is the specificity of social work: there are no sudden success stories here; success comes here in small, slow steps. The fact that a person who has not previously joined a common game is playing together today is a great achievement, Rasa emphasizes. Even people who seem to create social work sometimes just get tired of waiting for the result or starting over and over again, so patience is a very important characteristic of the way a social worker does things.
“Success in this job is a change – emphasizes the social worker – who communicate, learn something, are not afraid to go out in public, feel good with guests or just learn to type a word on the computer.”
Sincerity without touching
A common social work representative mentions that one of the most difficult tasks is showing a person that they need help. In this sense, it is a bit simpler in the Jonava district handicap activity center: customers want to come here and when they come they stay a long time.
Of course, when a new person comes, you need to get used to it, work a little more with him, join the team, join in joint activities. “It just came to our attention then. As with any team, it’s more difficult at first, so an adaptation is needed. I wouldn’t call it a big challenge,” says Rasa.
However, as an open social worker, as in any job, more difficult moments also occur here, especially when that change, at least minimal, is already desirable, but since it does not exist, it does not exist. But all the most difficult moments are quickly forgotten: “Sometimes you think, why try so hard here? But morning is coming, you meet the visitors and you think differently again, you see the meaning of your work again ”.
She is happy to be able to work specifically with people with intellectual and mental disabilities, as they are always sincere and the smiles, hugs, and short conversations about dreams or breakfast take on a completely different meaning. “And you know that those emotions are not really lies, everything is 100 percent sincere. They accept you as you are, and no matter what your mood is and what you thought yesterday,” R. Baniulienė smiles.
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