January 24, the members of the employers' expert council for the educational program "Social Work" have met.

The first issue concerned amendments to the state standard of higher education in the specialty 231 "Social Work" (bachelor's level) - the introduction of the concept of "early intervention" in the formulation of professional competencies and program learning outcomes. Employer experts Nina Cherniavska and Tetiana Husieva emphasized the relevance of such changes and shared their own experience of applying the early intervention approach. They also discussed the issue of reflecting the changes in the standards in the educational components - the introduction of a separate educational component or a cross-cutting study of the concept of "early intervention" in different educational components. Employer experts preferred the second option.

The second issue under discussion was the results of a survey provided among the employers from different regions of Ukraine, conducted under the auspices of the Center for Social Research at Sumy State University. The members of the expert council of employers of the Social Work program at Sumy State University supported the importance of graduates' knowledge of regulatory documents. Roman Guchenko emphasized the need for students to learn how to apply regulatory documents to solve professional problems. At the same time, the members of the expert council discussed the specifics of the requirements for graduates of the specialty "Social Work" in the workplace in the public sector compared to the state and municipal.

Karina Nechak highlighted the experience of Netcracker LLC in creating a training center on the basis of the organization and involving practitioners in the educational process in the university classroom. The issues of strengthening practice-oriented training in the specialty "Social Work" were discussed.

The support group of the specialty 231 "Social Work" expresses its sincere gratitude to the members of the expert council of employers for the productive meeting.