Social Work Spotlight - International Episode 13: Jelena (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

In this episode I speak with Jelena, a Social Welfare and Criminalistics Expert from Bosnia and Herzegovina with over 13 years of experience in the public sector, international organisations, and civil society. Her work focuses on research, advancing social policy, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, evaluating programs, and supporting the European integration process. Jelena has collaborated with UNICEF, the EU, and various government institutions and is the author and co-author of more than 39 scientific and professional publications in social work, criminalistics, and human rights. Currently, she works as an independent freelance consultant dedicated to leading transformative social change by connecting diverse sectors and driving innovative, evidence-based solutions for a fairer and more equitable society.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Jelena’s LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jelena-kupresanin/Jelena’s scientific contributions on Research Gate - https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Jelena-Kupresanin-2089961619Jelena’s article titled “Social Work in Educational System of the Balkans - Is Social Worker Needed in Schools?“ - https://econpapers.repec.org/article/apaijhass/2018_3ap_3a245-252.htmUNICEF’s work in Bosnia and Herzegovina - https://www.unicef.org/bih/enThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17tBnGNmgsGqWq8Szjfm3A3ETk9XkUUzrWCDFBU4aXhg/edit?usp=sharing

Before beginning, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the countries of guests featured in this podcast and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and community. I pay my respects to the First Nations people, the cultures and the elders, past, present and emerging. Hi, and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode, with a 12-month focus on social workers around the world as of August 2025. I'm your host Yasmin Lupus and today's guest is Yelina, a social welfare and criminalistics expert from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with over 13 years of experience in the public sector, international organizations and civil society. Her work focuses on research, advancing social policy, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, evaluating programs and supporting the European integration process. As both a master of social work and a criminalistic,

specialist, she applies a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving, combining strong policy insight with extensive field experience. She has collaborated with UNICEF, the EU, and various government institutions to develop strategic documents, legal analyses, manuals, feasibility studies and evaluations, particularly in the areas of child protection within the justice system, prevention of social exclusion and strengthening local communities and professionals. She is the author and co-author of almost 40 scientific and professional publications in social work, criminalistics and human rights. Currently, she works as an independent freelance consultant dedicated to leading transformative social change

by connecting diverse sectors and driving innovative, evidence-based solutions for a fairer and more equitable society. Hi, Elena. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Looking forward to chatting with you about social work in the part of the world where you're from. Hello, Jasmine, and thank you very much for inviting me. I'm so happy to be here with you. Thank you. I want to know firstly when you got started in social work, what brought you to the profession? Well, I'm from Bosnia and here's the Gowena, and during the 90s, we had a civil war here. I was a child then, but at that moment, especially the period after the war, it was very hard for us for people living here. And at that moment, I knew that my profession will be

something regarding helping people. So I knew it immediately. I was lucky because a lot of my friends and colleagues in the high school when you ask them, what are you going to study? They didn't know. And I understand that. So for me, it was very clear from the early age. Yeah. And what do you know of social work as a profession in Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of, or even the Balkans in general? I know that there's a significant history. There are lots of wars. Is social work something that is well understood in your part of the world? I think that social work is very important, but I'm not sure, to be honest, it's my personal perspective.

Is it well understood? Because here in Balkans, I don't know how much do you know about the system of social welfare in my country. There are ministries for social welfare, but also at the local level we have centers for social work. a lot of my colleagues, they work in the local Centers for Social Work, some of them in the local NGOs, but everything that you can exercise some rights in your city is going through the Center for Social Work. So, perception of Centers for Social Work is not so good, mostly because, you know, as social workers, we deal with a lot of problems, with traumas, with inability to help

all the time. I'm talking about, you know, people who are poor. and when you don't have a lot of resources to help, you know that that person needs help, but by the law or the resources of your local government, you cannot give it to them more. And then, you know, the perception of the people is that you, social worker,

are the reason that I'm not getting all the help that I deserve. Also, when we're talking about conflict divorces, the children, are they going to stay with the father or the mother, the perception of social workers are like we are the ones who are taking the children. So I really must say that social work is very, very important. My colleagues in the center are not only social workers, of course, it's a team of other helping professions also. They're doing a lot of work, a lot of stressful work,

but they are not appreciated enough in a society. And I think that we, as a society and the Balkan region, we need to work more rising awareness about our profession because it's really, really important. I really admire my colleagues in the centres for social work for a very hard work they do every day. Can you help me understand the structure of social work teaching? I guess I'm interested because you've done an undergraduate degree in social work plus a master's. Is the master's essential? Is it something you did in addition to how to?

that work? Regarding education overall in the Balkans, we have nine years of elementary school, then four years of high school, and then we go on the faculty. In Boston and Sresnegovina, social work is department within the Faculty of Political Sciences, and it is three plus one. But all of my colleagues, we all went for four years because if you finalize only three years, you are limited about what you can do. You're just social worker. But If you finalize all four years, you are a graduated social worker. So it's three plus one. Then plus one is a master degree.

And then three years more, it's PhD degree. Okay. And is that something that you are interested in pursuing one day? I finalized my master's. And also because during my career, I was working a lot in the area of juvenile justice. And criminalistics was always my passion. You know, I used to say that social work is my love and criminalistic is my passion. And when people ask me, why do you have another diploma from criminalistics?

I say because I want to see one situation from two perspectives, perspective of social worker and perspective of criminalistics. It's very, very important. So I pursued that postgraduate degree also in Serbia. It was very, very important for me, for my everything. everyday work, also for my research, because I do a lot of research. I have almost 40 scientific articles published. I write a lot. I like to think about everything that is happening.

I'm focused here on Balkan region, but of course, through your podcast, I'm now available to hear experiences from my colleagues all around the world. So that is really something that is important. Regarding PhD, I did go to my PhD studies. I went in Serbia because in Bosnia we didn't have it in my city at that time. But I had to stop it because it was impossible for me because of the work that I was doing at that moment. So maybe one day I will finalize it. So I'm very well acquainted with PhD studies also.

So maybe one day. Wow. That's all so impressive and especially that amount of research that's published. In your degrees that you've completed, is research taught much? I'm just thinking back to my undergrad. And so our undergraduate degree is all you need, basically, to work as a social worker in Australia. I've also done a research master's purely because I was interested in research similar

to yourself, but that's not essential to do what I was doing. Is that something that is taught at university in general? Because I feel like most of my peers, my fellow students, perhaps would think of research and think, oh, that's too, scary. I don't know how to do that. I believe that it's the same situation in Bosnia and Hesigovina because for working in the Centre for Social Work, you don't need master degree. A master degree is something more if you want. So it's enough. And on master studies, we do a lot of research, but other studies know. And I also say, always my colleague, how can you write? Oh, you must need

a lot of time for doing that. When I enrolled social work, I immediately at the first year of the faculty, I knew that I want to be part of a system, not to work directly with clients, with beneficiaries in Center for Social Work or some NGO, but I immediately knew that I want to be a part of the system, decision-making, changes. So I was really lucky immediately after I graduated, I had the opportunity to start working for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, which was very important. My first work was as a UNICEF consultant in the Republic of Serbska, which is the entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

So can you imagine immediately after the faculty and sitting like a student, you are now working for the UNICEF, working for the ministry, for the government, taking decisions. It was very hard, but also it was. was very important for my experience. I wouldn't change my experience for anything. I was working more than 10 years in the government. What I liked most about my work was that I was able to participate in making laws, new laws, changing existing laws. I was focused very much on improving the position of professionals working in the social welfare. I always say, I don't know what's a

situation in other parts of the world, but here in Balkans, they really need a lot of support. Burnout syndrome is very present here. We do not have a lot of specialized social work. For example, if you are employed in the Center for Social Work, for example, for one year, you will work with, I don't know, people with disabilities, divorces. Then immediately they transfer you to do something totally different, children without parental care. I don't know if you understand me. You have to cover many areas, and it's very, very stressful for my colleagues. We do not have a lot of opportunities for trainings, and I always say trainings are very important for them,

not training to go one in a year, but to have continuous trainings. Also, what I notice that we lack in the Balkans is networking. I think that we really need to share this is what are we doing right now. It's a great way on networking, of hearing other colleagues' experiences, sharing knowledge, but also participating in some projects jointly because I was working a lot with international organizations and there are funds for these kinds of things, but we can need together, you know, to talk about it, to write some projects and, you know, to be more active. I believe that as a profession, maybe we are too passive.

We do very important work, but we never say it, you know? For example, people are very shy when they need to talk on television, on radio, or to say something. They don't want to talk because they're shy, but you need to talk because people need to listen. And also what I consider that it's very important to speak about good practices, about good. examples because every day you can hear, I don't know, to read the newspapers, something bad is happening, census journalism is very present here. But also it is hard. It is hard for social workers in Bosnia-Frizegovina, but there's a lot of great things that they are doing every day and nobody is talking about it. So I would, I always say to my colleagues, please, when they tell me what

they do because one of my best friends are working in the center of social work. I always say, talk about it. Say it. People need to hear. I'm also sure that not only that society doesn't know about social work, our friends, our relatives, they don't know. We need to talk more about what we are doing. Not to say, oh, you know what I did. I saved somebody. No, no, but you need to talk about important things. And when you talk, then people realize that there is a lot of people that need help and there is a way to help them. So I'm always, you know, trying to look positively on our profession and I believe that we all are social workers because we love it, not because we didn't have anything else to study. And we need to save our mental health because it's not

easy to constantly work, you know, in the area where only problems are. So our job is really, really exhausting and we must be aware of it and to ask for help. What I must mention also that here in the Balkans, people don't usually ask for help. And that is the great problem for a social welfare system because in some rural community, you have some person that needs help but doesn't want to ask for help. It's really specific for the Balkans. And also another thing is maybe there is a lack of information. You know, by the laws, you have a right to that, to that,

but people don't know a lot about the rights they can exercise. So it is very, very important to promote not just the profession, but also everything that people can get from the system. In the Balkans, it's not much, it's not enough, definitely, but there are resources and people need to know about it. Can you tell me about the UNICEF project, the collaboration that you're part of, That sounds fascinating, and I think it's good for social workers to hear about slightly unorthodox or maybe left-of-centre things that social workers are good at.

I must say that generally speaking, international organizations, especially UN organizations, such as UNICEF, play a very important role in the development of social welfare systems in the Balkans. I'm not talking now only about Bosnia and Herzegovina. I'm talking about all the region, because you know, government, they do not have enough resources for many programs. And then there we have the help of the UNICEF. And that help is not just the one-time help. It's like continuous help every year. UNICEF supports many, many programs. When I was in the ministry, I was in charge for those

programs and they were many programs at the same time. Let's say development of foster care, which is very important for our region, process of transformation of care institution, the institutionalization, which is something that is going on here in Bosnia right now. Then they helped us a lot in development of legal standards, laws. They help a lot at the local level also. They provide direct help to centers for social welfare, for the equipment, for everything they need. You know, they buy cars for the Center for Social Work, so they can go to the field. It is very, very different range of helping material, non-material trainings.

So many trainings were organized with the help of the UNICEF, and that was very important for our colleagues, social workers. Also, UNICEF is still helping a lot. There are the programs. It's not just one project. You know, they start with a project for three years. And then it's a program, you know, the second phase, third phase, so the help is continuous. Also, they help a lot with the development now.

We have the Institute for Social Welfare, and that is the institution that helps to our colleagues, you know, licensing, accreditation and so on. Help of the UNICEF was important there too. Also, the area of children who are in the contact with the law as witnesses of the crime, you know, that is victims, witnesses, that is a very important area that we are working right now. Why I say we, I'm not in the ministry or in the UNICEF anymore, but as a freelance consultant, I work a lot. I also work a lot with Ministry of Justice in the area of protection of children, victims and witnesses in criminal proceedings. So because social workers and people who work with those children need to have specialized knowledge.

You know, when you have social work degree, you're not expert in everything. If you work with witnesses, victims, you need some specialized training, certification, knowledge. And you need to have something that is part of your personality. You need to have empathy. You need to have approach because we all can pass exam, but not everybody can. work with children, especially in traumas, families, individuals, groups or communities. So it is a huge help that we receive from international organizations. And without them, I'm not sure we would exist.

I don't say we wouldn't. But, you know, that development of social welfare would be much slower than it is at the moment. And I think I was reading something about social work in schools that you were championing in terms of the political impacts of what's been going on in your country, there's a flow-on effect for kids and just growing up in an environment with so much uncertainty and unrest and, yeah, it must be really hard for them. It is hard regarding social work in school. I must mention, first of all, when you finish your studies, you do not have much options

where you're going to work as a social worker, mainly that is the centre for social work or some local NGO. maybe in some hospital or something, so we don't have a lot of choices. What we were trying to do 10 years ago is to start introducing social work in schools. So now we have not at all schools in, let's say, 10% of schools. We have a social worker because it is very important to have it in school. Social worker in school, it's very different because that is a different system. It's not social welfare, it's the system of education.

So we had a lot of issues trying to explain people from the education system. Why is it important? Because, you know, there are psychologists, pedagogists, why do we need social workers? But we did manage, and that's why a multidisciplinary approach is very important. Not only when we talk about education, justice system, also, Ministry of Interior, health system, social system, we were lucky that, in Republic of Serbska, within one ministry, have health and social welfare.

So it was easy, you know, to introduce social work in health institutions. That's great. But in the education system, it was totally different. But right now we can say that we did manage, but we're just at the starting point, I would say, because not all schools have social worker, but it is very, very important.

And I hope in the future my colleagues will continue, to fight about it because you need to talk about it, you need to ask, you need to see, you know, to talk with directors in the schools. You need to show them why the social worker is important. We have a police officer in each school. Lately in the region, we have a lot of some risky behavior in schools, you know, and as a society, we saw that it's very important to have a policeman in each school, primary and in high school also. and I hope that also we will have a social worker like that, that people will understand why is it important? Because if something happens in the school, school is obliged to talk with the Centre for Social Work.

And as I mentioned, my colleagues from the Centers for Social Work, they already have a lot of job, everyday work. They will work on some issue that is happening in the school. But if you have a social worker who is doing only that, observing students, you know, working with them, working with families, it's totally different. For our country, I believe that it's one of the parties in the future. We are not so developed. I believe that there are many good examples in another countries, and that's why I say networking. Imagine me sitting with you and our colleagues from all around the

world, and you will say, oh, but we have a good example of how you can manage this, how you can manage that. That's networking and sharing experiences. It is very important. And then I can go into my government and say, hey, I have a solution. UNICEF can support us or some other international organizations. Let's focus on that. We can achieve it. Social work is not a one-man job.

As a society, we need to work together, you know, because I really had the opportunity from the ministry to see what's happening in the field. And every day I talk with my colleagues in the field who are working in stressful situations. And a lot of them, they're going in another country, such as Germany, to work there because they get more paid, more evaluated. And we do not want that. We want social workers to have the opportunities to work, what they know best, and what they love to do in our country.

That's right. Yeah. I was very fortunate to meet very early on, actually, in the podcast's history. with a lovely gentleman who is in Australia, but his team was pivotal in developing social work in schools in Australia. So this was maybe five years ago. So it's definitely not in, you know, you think Australia is quite a developed country.

We've got a long history of social work. But we've only really introduced social work in schools relatively recently. I was also speaking with a lovely social worker who grew up in Hong Kong. He's now in Thailand. but he said that every school in Hong Kong, primary school and high school, has a social worker, and that's just normal. So it's interesting to see the differences where I had no idea what a social worker was until I was researching what am I going to do with my life.

It's university time. So it's interesting to know that some countries have a really strong history of it and others don't. And as you say, it's even more important than to be able to identify that there's a need and be able to respond to that. And I think that comes back to what you were saying about the UNICEF work and about social workers are too modest maybe or we're too quiet about what we can do and what we achieve. Because unless you identify that there's a need, the people that can do something about it aren't going to know. So yeah, it's really, really important that we're talking about,

firstly, what the problems are. Secondly, what we can do about it. But thirdly, who are we going to do that with? Who is our team that we're going to do? with, yeah. Definitely, you mentioned themes. I also must say that as a social workers, we need to raise our voice in a positive way, not only in a society, in our community, but also within the theme. Because you know that, for example, in centers for social work, you have a social worker, you have a psychologist, sociologist working together. And I believe that somehow from all those professions, social workers are the quiet ones, you know. But we are very important if we don't believe in ourselves, how our colleagues are going to believe in us, how beneficiaries are going

believe in us, because we work with people in the field. It is very, very important. And I also must mention after working in the ministry, because I had to leave government, I moved into another country, it's a bit complicated, but I also had a lot of working experience with NGO sector, which is totally different from the government sector that I was in. And then I had the opportunity to see how local NGOs face with a lot of problems, a lot of my colleagues work in local NGOs. For example, if you live in some city that is well developed, you have resources for your NGO you can achieve a lot. But if you are living in some rural community, you know, which is not very well developed and you are a local NGO, you do not have enough resources. And it is really sad

because we need as a government sector also we need a non-governmental sector. And I must say that I really had the opportunity to see on the field what are people facing with, you know, different NGOs working with mostly children with different. Children with different disabilities, they really, usually members of those NGOs are parents of those children. And it's, it's really hard for you as a person and as a social worker when you see all the help they need and you, they cannot get it. It is sad. And that's why also, I again must mention international community when they help not only governments and centers for social work, they help a lot local NGOs, you know, to write projects, to receive funding and grants. But also there is another

problem, which is that people from social welfare area, social workers and other professions, they do not have enough knowledge, not most of them, to write a project, to implement a project, to follow the procedure of the donors. And I think that is also very important, because Bosnia and Herzegovina is not part of the European Union yet, but we do get a lot of funds for projects for pre-assession period. And we do not use those funds because people don't have time to write projects. For example, if you work, I don't know, every day with children with disabilities, or if you work in a center for social work, you have so many tasks during one day

and you do not have time to write projects, to implement project, to follow project, to write reports. And for donors, that is very important. If you don't implement your project very well, if you don't have reports, you will never get funds anymore. So that's why I'm saying we need more people. We need support. We need support not only from other places where we as social workers can work, but we need understanding from the management of the organization.

like Center for Social Work to understand what people, your colleagues are doing, how important that is. And also I must mention currently what we are doing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's a supervision. We did introduce supervision finally. As I mentioned, burnout, it was very visible. And now we have our colleagues who finalized, who are certified supervisors and they go in different cities. they talk with social workers and other colleagues in centers for social work. And the feedback from those centers was fantastic.

They all said, finally, we really need it because people need. Professionals are, I mean, there is a lot of social problems. There is a lot of people in need, but we mostly talk about them. Nobody talks about the providers that help. Those are people too who need help. So for me, that was very strengthening capacities, right? now and when I was working in the ministries, that was something that I really advocate for, really important for me. And I use every opportunity, you know, when some conference,

there's important meetings to praise my colleagues because we hear critics nonstop, but they are working very hard, a very good job. They're working, and they need to be a knowledge for that. Yeah. How did you come to the decision to leave the ministry. How did you get to this point you are now where you're working for yourself? Well, it was not a decision. It was a necessity because at that time I got married and my husband, he's from Croatia, from a beautiful town in Dalmatian coast called Split and we moved in Split. So I couldn't work online for the ministry, of course. So I had to quit and then I said maybe this is the perfect time for me to start doing my.

freelance work because I know system very well, I know non-governmental system. I was working with international organizations all my life. So now it's a time for me to work something for myself. And it's really challenging. I enjoy doing this. It's really nice because I can be part of different project. Now I have enough time to write my scientific papers. I can visit different conferences. you know, I don't need to ask for permission. And also projects that I'm part of are very interesting. I meet so many people. In the recent years, I work a lot on evaluations of the projects,

very huge projects. And for me, as a social worker, that is something really important. And I enjoy because when you do evaluation, you can see what was made, you know? You can see a change. You can feel it. And especially for me, working evaluation, it's not enough just that you're a social worker. You need to know about, you know, research, about the methods, how to do it. For me, it was, I needed some time to learn about it.

But now, for me, it's a great plus because, for example, when I evaluate some projects from the area of justice or social welfare, I know that system very well. So I can understand what wasn't done. I know very well how to talk with stakeholders, if they are from the government, if they are from the NGO sector, if they are beneficiaries, because there's a lot of interviews, focus groups. And for me, it's really, really interesting. The bad thing is that you never know when you are going to have a project. So that uncertainty is a bit frightening, but it's something that I really enjoy. And now, from this perspective, I really feel like I did develop as a person, as a social worker, as a professional, because when you are at the same place all the time, I also say I have a lot of colleagues all their life.

They are at the same position, doing the same job, and they love it. But I'm a kind of person who likes research, who likes to be with people, to work different, to be part of different things, to work a lot with foreigners. And for me, this is really something that I think I'm good at. I don't want to be modest. I really need to say that I enjoy. But also that's something that I needed because I always knew that there is something more that you can do as a social worker. There are many, many things that we can do. Yeah.

Within the scope of evaluating those projects, do you get the opportunity to say, make recommendations of where the person might be able to go to next? What can be developed from that work that's done? Of course, that is one of the most important things when you do evaluation and what you write in your evaluation reports, not only findings, but also recommendations. And that's why it is important that you, do understand the area that you are evaluating because you cannot give a good recommendation. You can be a good evaluator, but if you do not understand the area, it is very hard to give

recommendation. I had the opportunity, of course, in each evaluation report or feasibility study that I did. I had the opportunity to give recommendations, and I must say, for example, there was one very big regional project regarding unemployment of youth, and after the evaluation and recommendation that my team and me we gave, that project got funding for second phase, because donors really look for the evaluation reports and for the recommendations. Also, when you do feasibility studies, I do that also.

It is important for the donor to see if they're going to give money for that project. Is it really realistic what people are writing in the project? Because, you know, it is hard to write a project, but also it's not. you follow the structure, you know what to say, and sometimes people do write things that they cannot accomplish, you know. And then you are the person who needs to go in the field, who needs to know system very well, to see, is it really realistic what these people want to do

with this project? And if you give positive feedback in your feasibility study, then most likely that project will be approved. So it is really important job and it's beautiful, you know, when you see people full of ideas and the projects and I really see myself doing this long term. Especially when you work as a part of an evaluation team, when you go with your colleagues, when you evaluate programs, for example, some project for the Balkan countries, when you can see differences between each countries. It's really, really good. And I think that those findings can be used not only for other projects, but for system also, to see where are the gaps, what we can improve, how we can improve it. So it's really good. And I must say monitoring and evaluation

are not so present in, I'm not going to say another Balkan countries, but in Bosnia and Kyrsegovina, we need to work more on monitoring and evaluation, not only of the, project but of the programs that we do also in the governments you need to follow it you know because when you follow it it's not monitoring like control it's monitoring like you are aware of what's happening also people who are monitored not people but some program or something they want to know that you are invested in that that is important for you also not only for the person who is implementing it in the field so do you get to monitor as as the project is developing or is it purely at the end?

I'm thinking if you have the opportunity to stand alongside the people who are doing this work, then it provides them with a little bit of reassurance of if we go off track of what we intended to do, we've got someone to pull us back in line. Well, when you have a project, you need to monitor it. But to be honest, I believe that that is individually. You know, people can write to the donors that they did do the monitoring, but they didn't. so I'm not sure. I can speak only about the project that I was involved in.

I was a project manager of the one big project, one NGO, and I did it, but I did it by myself because I thought that is very important, because if you do monitoring, it's not just monitoring of the activities that you implement. It is monitoring of your own work, you know. And you can see, oh, I'm going to have a problem here. I need to think about it. I believe that monitoring is the crucial part of everyday job that we do. Even when I was in the ministry, you know, you constantly reevaluate yourself.

It's the way that you need to work for making your job done and not just done to be a good job. Yeah. And hopefully the supervision is helping with that as well for people to have someone else to reflect that information back to them. Yeah, yeah. And I also believe that it is important in institutions, but also in NGOs, to have a person who is doing only that monitoring and evaluation, like in some other countries that you do have, people who are employed in big organizations, they only do monitoring and evaluation. It's a huge job, you know. It's not just, oh, I'm going to see if I did this or I didn't. It's much more of that.

And I believe it is very important because people here, when you mention in Balkans, when you mention monitoring, they hear control. It's not control. It's just, you know, I'm present. I want to see what's happening. Please tell me if something's wrong. I will receive your feedback. We're going to resolve it together. It's not control because I'm not your chief.

You are my employer or something. We have the same interest. I always say in the social welfare area, we all have the same goal. So we need to work together. And also during my work, I was always emphasizing the importance of working together with other professions, with other areas, as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, our colleagues from education, from health, from justice. We all need to sit together to talk about the things because when we do it separately, you know, that's not it. Absolutely. And I feel like in my country, you can kind of find fault in every system.

But in Australia, I feel as though we can speak out and we can act without feeling as though there's going to be some sort of negative impact. But in countries where perhaps there's been a bit more of a history of oppression or government control, is there at any point at which you have felt as though you're taking a risk or, you know, in terms of communicating or publishing critical ideas, is freedom of speech really strong? How do you feel in terms of how much you can communicate and how much you can speak out against systems? Well, each system has its bad things, things that could be improved. And I believe that it's really individual because you need to know a way how to say a critic,

You can say everything when you really think about the way, how you're going to say, to who are you going to say it? Because pure criticism, when you only criticize, it's not productive. You know, it's sending a bad image for you because people will say, oh, that person always criticizing without any suggestions. Because most of the people do that. but if you find a way, that is why it is very important to be a good communicator, you know, and to have those skills of, you know, to say what you want, but in a way that you really say what is important, but you say and you give a recommendation, or you already give a suggestion,

or you offer your help to be part of the solution. So I believe that we can criticize a lot of things. you have right to criticize, but if you do not make that critic constructive, you don't have a point. People won't listen to you. You won't make any change because I was in Bosnia, I truly believe that I can talk about it because I understand it. I was working in the system. I was working out of the system. Now I'm working for myself and I can see the things, how they're happening and you need to, before saying something that is bad, you need to know, are you going to say to the journalist or are you going to say to the person who is in charge that change,

you know, meeting, to have a meeting one on one. Because I believe that people will appreciate if you first ask for a meeting, you know, to sit with that person, to talk. But no, people don't ask for meetings. They just go on TV and they criticize. I don't know if you understand me. Of course, it is important to say what's wrong if you see things that are wrong, but you need to find a really polite and nice way to tell it, because then people will really offer you some help. And most importantly, as I mentioned during our conversations many times, international organizations will step up and provide some guidance, help. But if you just yell, criticize without any solution, it's not going to happen. So your workers or your responses are, I guess, more clever and calculated than reactive. Yeah, I'm a bit more diplomatic.

And I must say from my experience, in my profession as a social worker, as in government, working in government NGOs, I did work with different characters of people. It's all about people. it's not only about their positions. You need to know who are you talking with. And you need to find a way to tell everything that you want, that you want to tell, but in a nice way. And I always do that.

And I must say that I achieve what I want. Because when people see that they are appreciated and that it's not criticism of their personality or their function, it is a critique of the system or something that was not done, then people will say, okay, thank you for telling me this. Do you have any suggestion? And you need to be prepared to have suggestion, recommendation or something. They will listen to you and then they will involve you to take part in making that change. And I believe that is very important, you know, very, very important.

Because being a good communicator, you can achieve a lot. Yeah. I think some people though, some people are just not going to listen. and they have their agenda, they'll come to you with what they want to say and they're not going to listen regardless. So I think what you're able to do, perhaps you're a super communicator, I don't know, but you're able to listen and you're able to appreciate what they've come to the table with, but you're able to turn that around and say there are two sides to this perspective.

There are other things that we can discuss. There are other things that need to be represented. So I think just being able to read the room and understand who you're talking to. to understand the context, that takes a significant skill, and that's not always something we learn in social work. Perhaps that's just an indication that this is something that you were meant to do. Yeah, yeah, and definitely we as social workers, we do learn how to feel people, you know. One of the reasons also why I did enroll in social work was not only that I had difficult childhood, war traumas and so on, but also because I did notice that I can feel.

the other person sitting in the room, how it feels. I could understand that person. And I remember when I was a little girl, I was walking on the street and I was thinking, looking all those people and thinking about their lives, what they're going through, you know. And later on, when I did finalize my studies,

I said that was it. It was meant for me social workers. And that's what I must say for social workers, it is really good to have something more than just social worker perspective. I mentioned criminalistics. For me, that was criminalistics because I enjoy in that. It is very important to have different perspectives.

Not only, you know, we can have million perspectives, but to have diploma from something else, psychology, from law, or something very similar to social work. Because we as social workers, we can work in so many places. For example, now, you know, that IT sector is very, very, well developed and I always say social workers are definitely great choice for working in HR. I think also here unemployment in Balkans is very high and we need to think about, you know, solutions for ourselves. We cannot sit and wait, oh, maybe our government will think about something

to help us to open some working place. No, you need to think about it by yourself, you know, to see what you're good at because social work is such a huge area. I always say like a medicine and you choose one area that you like and you go for it. Also, I remember, I don't know about your experience, but I remember when I was first year of the faculty, I had colleagues who said, I cannot do this. I really, for me, it's too much. It's too stressful. They went on another faculties also, but also I had colleagues who said, oh, I cannot work with children. For me, that is taking too much, I'm traumatized, or I don't know, you had some issue in your family, you have somebody with disabilities, and you say, oh, I want to work with that population.

You always have something that's some area of social work that is more, that you're more passionate about. And it's important to follow your passion, because in all hard work that we all do, you need to find also your passion. And I think that's one of the benefits of having the practical experience before we leave university is that you can say, I really want more experience in this area or I don't want to work in that area. And you have the opportunity, at least in Australia, to some extent, to choose what your placements are and to be able to follow that passion. Do you have placements early on in your degree? And is that why some of your fellow students were thinking very early on that perhaps this wasn't something they were cut out for?

We have a practice. I had it in a center for social work in family counseling, but it's later on. It's not on the first year. I believe that when my colleagues saw the subjects that we had, that they just saw, oh, this is not for me. This is too much psychology or too much. But I also say that is very important when you say, okay, this is not for me. I'm going to change and do something else. It is better than to have a social work, who doesn't see themselves in this profession because this profession takes you all. It really needs empathy, sensitivity. It's not for everybody, definitely. That's right. You've mentioned quite a few things that you find really rewarding about this work in terms of the collaboration, the networking, partnerships, joint projects, the ability to share good news stories as well and promoting the profession.

Is there anything else that you've gotten out of this opportunity to go freelance that you find just really incredibly powerful or that's resonated with you or made you feel even more passionate about the profession? Well, from this perspective now, after, you know, working eight hours in the office every day, I can say for me it's really rewarding to have an opportunity to work on different projects, not only. related to social work. That is very important. For example, a lot of projects that I was part of was regarding employment. And in my country, employment, it's a totally different ministry, like I mentioned, education, health. And now I have the opportunity, you know, to choose what I see challenging for me, especially working in the region or maybe in the future internationally, to see the project in another country, social welfare systems in another country. Also, for me, that is very, very important and interesting.

Also, for me, it is rewarding that now I have more time for myself. I can, you know, plan my time. I believe that it's not only important for the profession of social work, but also for every human being to have the opportunity, you know, to say next 10 days, I will just take rest because I need it. that is very important and from that perspective that I was early on, but I was really working a lot, you know, at one moment I was on my, I was working. I was traveling a lot because of my work. I was on my postgraduate studies that I traveled every week in Serbia in another country for classes. During the night, I was writing my papers, scientific papers, because during the night I had time and I like to write it when it's quiet. And from this perspective, it's a lot. It's a lot. I was non-stop in some rush, you know. I was doing things that I like, that I enjoy, but I was tired and my health was not so good. And now from this perspective, when I can say, now I will take rest. And I really see that we all need it, especially in this profession. You need time for yourself. And it's okay to have time for yourself. You need it for your mental health, for your physical health. It's really, really important to help yourself. first and then you will enjoy more in your profession and everything you do. And for me,

I also must say that not a lot of social workers do what I do. Usually my friends, they are working or in some NGO or in Center for Social Work or in ministry. Not a lot of them want to, you know, go on further studies, to write, to go on the conferences, to work with international organizations. I like it. And for me, it's really fulfilling and in the few. I really see myself in the area, doing some interesting work, some work that requires knowledge, working with people, energy, because I'm really hard worker. I cannot stop, you know. But when you actually see the change, when you meet your colleagues, most of those colleagues

are now my friends, I can say that really on that level I'm a rich person, you know, to having all that experience and all people around me. That's really something fulfilling for me. And that's keeping me from burnout, you know, that's really something that I did for myself. Yeah. If you were to work one-on-one with people, with communities, with a client, for instance,

what might that be doing? What area of social work do you think? I was thinking a lot about it. And on faculty, as I mentioned before, I already knew if you asked me what I'm going to do, it's with elderly. I really think that they're from the all categories, vulnerable categories that we work with, I think that they are maybe not so much in the focus, but they need to be. They really need our help. And there's a lot of things that we can do to improve lives of the elderly, to talk with them,

think about some programs not only within the system, but also, you know, to be creative. Especially a lot of NGOs are very well, you know, doing some daycare centers. So many, many other things that we can do for this population.

I'm especially sensitive for the elderly. That would be my choice, for many choices that we can work with. And also the second choice, if you ask me, it's people with addictions. That was very, very, very, for me, very interesting, you know, different kind of addictions. I think that is very challenging. I think a lot of people have problems with it. They don't ask for help. Not only that they don't ask, the families don't

ask for help, you know. People try to hide it, but it is something that is very challenging, I believe, for a social worker to work. So that would be my first and second choice, let's say. Yeah, nice. Are there any projects or programs that you're working on at the moment that you're able to talk about or any conferences coming up, any travel that you're getting to do? Well, recently I was in one very good conference in Novisad in Serbia. I believe that I was the only social worker there. They were all judges, professors. It was area everything related to the law. And for them, it was very interesting to hear about the perspectives of social worker.

You know, you have a judge with writing some article about, I don't know, children, witnesses. And they, from the legal perspective, they are number one in that. But they don't know what we know, you know, from our perspective, how they feel, how you need to communicate with them, how to approach them, how to talk with parents, what you should do, what you shouldn't do. So for me, that is something very, very interesting to see how appreciated social workers are from the aspects of people. judges, professors at the universities of law. For me, it was very good connect with people there. I am now in the contact with few of them. They already invited me on some conferences for the next year.

Maybe we can plan to do some projects together. You never know. That's why it is important also to network. Currently, I'm working, as I mentioned you, on that area regarding communication and work with children and witnesses in criminal proceedings. but not directly working with them. Actually, I was one of the members of a team who conducted analysis of one law in protection of those children,

and we did evaluate that law. It wrote a guide for the professionals working in centers for social work, but also working in courts, you know, how to communicate with those children, what to be aware of. When I mentioned those specialized knowledge that you need to have when you work with those children, I was part of it. So for me, that was something very, very important. Also, when I was in this conference that I mentioned to UNOVSAD,

I wrote about disaster risk reduction. That is something that is very important right now here in the region, because we had floods, we had earthquakes in the last 10 years, and it is important to be prepared what to do in case that some catastrophe happens, especially for centers for social work, you know, because they need to map our beneficiaries where they are, who's going to

help them. And that was also the good way of different sectors involved, you know, civil sector, like civil protection, they are number one when catastrophe happens. Social welfare health system, it's really, really something important right now. And also

what is important for Boston and Herzegovina now is to work on topics like human rights protection, discrimination and so on, because that is really important for our way in the European integration process. I do follow countries' progress, and I write also a different kind of analysis, and that is something that is now really, really important from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yeah, nice. Is there any sort of resource or maybe reading, viewing that you would direct people to

if they wanted to know a little bit more about your context or even just social work in the Balkans? First of all, listeners, if they want, they can contact me, of course, for everything they want to know. Regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina papers and everything that we talked about, unfortunately, not a lot of things are translated into English. That is the problem. And not all of the analysis or something is published online. So that is the problem. But they can visit UNICEF website because,

they publish different kind of publications of what they do in Bosnia and Herzegovina so they can visit their website to check on. Also, my papers are mainly on written English language and they are available online. So, of course, if anybody is interested to read, they can reach to me or Google my name. I think it's available online, everything. That's lovely. Thank you. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to mention about your work, about social work before we finish up? Have we missed anything, do you think? I think that we did mention a lot of topics and also I think that we can talk three hours more. I agree.

Definitely, this is a topic that is very interesting, very challenging, huge. For this first time, I think that we did mention enough. But I would love to stay in touch, of course, for any other exchange of experiences or anything you want to know more or even I want to know about social work in Australia. I'll be free to ask you about it. So let's keep touch. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. It is very important what you are doing.

And I believe that you are the only person who, from our area of social, work with so proactive. So keep going like that, keep connecting us all around the world. Please share everything with us. And I was really pleased when you contacted me. And I wish you a lot of success in your next conversations from our colleagues all around the world. And thank you very much. It's been my absolute pleasure. And thank you so much for your generosity and your honesty and sharing what your experience has been like.

And also just your sense of justice from day one from when you were such a young. young person has carried through to what you're doing now and you always wanted to help people. So that social context in the Balkans has led to a really good understanding of what people need and what disadvantage looks like in your area and you've wanted to be part of the decision making. So you put yourself in a really good position where you can do that and you can understand how things work. You've built the networks. You've utilized the strengths of the teams that you've worked with as well.

so you really understand who you're working with, who you're talking to. And I think also when you were talking about the evaluating projects, I think that enables, as you were saying, the stakeholders and the funding bodies to then justify additional support. So there's this huge circular thing that's going on that perhaps a lot of people don't understand. It's not just you identifying the need. It's other people, perhaps people who are investors or people who want to

doing good but they don't know how. So you're helping them put a voice to what it is that they want to do and you're helping them to understand the context and the reach of the funding that they're putting into. So yeah, there's this huge wrap around. It's almost like a big hug that you're giving the sector of here's what needs to happen. Here's the connections that I have. You're basically a bridge between the people that need support and the people that can give it. and you can't do that without having A, the passion and be the understanding of the systems and the things that you're working within. So it all makes sense to me and hopefully it will be really inspiring for other people.

But yeah, I truly just so appreciative of your time and that you can share all of that. Thank you very much for such a nice word. It really means a lot. Thank you. Thank you again for your time. Lovely to meet with you. Lovely to meet you too. Thanks for joining me.

this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Yelena, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Next episode's guest is Marta in Portugal, who beyond being someone who is deeply passionate about people, considers herself a nonconformist, someone who strives every day to make a difference. Marta holds a degree in social work and a masters in social work with a focus on chronic kidney disease and its impact on patients and their families. Marta is also a couple and family therapist and the mother of four daughters. I release a new episode every two weeks.

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