NESTABILNOST ZAKONA O SOCIJALNOJ SKRBI − KAKO UTJEČE NA RAD SOCIJALNIH RADNIKA U CENTRIMA ZA SOCIJALNU SKRB?

The Social Welfare Act is the most important piece of legislation that regulates the social care system. Since 2011 it has been amended six times, which has made it more difficult for social care centres to ensure compliance. Some of these changes have imposed additional workload on social workers, which is why regular every-day work with clients might be suffering. In this paper special attention is dedicated to those amendments of the Social Care Act that impose special burdens on social care centres. Further, the paper deals with the introduction in 2011 of the new work organisation in social care centres known as“one-stop office”, which, according to information from the field, is not equally applied in all social care centres. Due to frequent and hasty legislative amendments, as well as the changes and lack of uniformity in the organisation of social care centres in Croatia, the social care system is unstable both for beneficiaries and for social workers. The results of various studies (Kovačić, 2003; Friščić, 2006; Moštak Skupnjak, 2012; Družić Ljubotina and Frišić, 2014 etc.) show that social workers working in such a system are exposed to professional stress, which can lead to negative outcomes both at personal and professional levels. Health problems are becoming more common, which represents a special concern for the professional community. The final section of the paper is dedicated to challenges and possibilities of work improvement in social care centres, with special accent put on the need for prompt and better quality support provided to social care centres by the Ministry, on the participation of social work practitioners in working groups that draft new laws in the area of social care or amend existing ones, and on the necessity of homogenisation of the social work