YEREVAN, MARCH 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The Institute of social work in Armenia is on stable bases. Aghvan Vardanian, the RA Minister of Labour and Social Issues stated about it at the March 29 conference entitled "Formation of Institute of Social Work in Armenia: Achievements and Problems." He mentioned that the system of social services was formed in conditions of social tension existing in the country in 1993. That system was to organize works of addressed allocation of the humanitarian aid. In A. Vardanian's words, a social worker's functions change during the time, making them corresponding to the population's needs and process of the country's social-economic development. The Minister attached importance to the RA law "On Social Assistance" functioning from 2006 in which the "Social Work and Specialists of Social Work" part exists. "The law also envisages working out and adoption of ethics rules for specialists of social work, methodological instructions on paying home visits," he stated. A. Vardanian mentioned at the same time that there are problems in this sphere as well. Those are, particularly, working out of standards of the social work, continual training of social workers and increase of special qualification. The Minister expressed a hope that the themes being presented and discussed during the conference will assist improvement of the quality of social services to different groups of the population as well as will serve a basis for working out of the state policy.

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