IMPLEMENTATION OF A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO TRAINING PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF FUTURE SOCIAL WORK SPECIALISTS

Abstract

Modern trends in the development of society place new demands not only on the professional skills of graduates acquired during their studies at higher education institutions but also on the structure and content of the educational process itself. The study focuses on the importance of developing the professional competence of graduates, namely their readiness for professional activity. Therefore, both the educational process of training specialists and the process of mastering educational components should become practice-oriented and be based on the contextual learning approach.It is noted that the context is understood not so much as the environment of the future professional activity of social workers but as the internally motivated activity of students in studying the discipline. It is this internal context that enables students to comprehend and fill their own activities with meaning and, accordingly, to develop personal and professional competence.The purpose of the article is to provide theoretical justification and methodological development for implementing the contextual approach in teaching the academic discipline “Practical Psychology in Social Work with Individuals/Families” in order to increase the level of practice-oriented psychological competencies among future social work specialists. The study proposes a methodological approach to conducting classes in the discipline “Practical Psychology in Social Work with Individuals/Families in Difficult Life Circumstances” for students majoring in I10 “Social Work and Counselling” It also presents the results of testing the proposed methodology during the 2024/25 academic year.