On September 29, the Lithuania Prison Service hosted the final seminar “Social Relations in Prison: Practices and Opportunities” of the project “Strengthening social relations in prisons: interplay and synergy between prisoners’ needs, effective measures and their implementation” (NARYS), implemented by the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences. The event was dedicated to commemorating Social Workers' Day.

The aim of the NARYS project was to analyze the practical implementation of measures applied in Lithuanian prisons to maintain and restore the social relations of incarcerated individuals—from the perspectives of both social workers and inmates. The study sought to review international best practices in social work with families, evaluate current practices, challenges, and quality, and develop recommendations for a sustainable social work model. The project implementers, researchers from the LCSS Law Institute Dr. Rūta Vaičiūnienė, Goda Dainauskaitė, Aušra Maskaliovienė, and Agata Katkonienė, presented the results of the conducted research at this scientific seminar.

In her presentation, the project leader Dr. Rūta Vaičiūnienė discussed three role strains of a social worker operating in prison—role overload, role conflict, and role ambiguity—as well as seven adaptation mechanisms: strategies that workers use to balance impossible demands. Doctoral student Goda Dainauskaitė presented the spectrum of measures for maintaining social relations in Lithuanian and foreign prisons and looked at relations with loved one as a motivation for prisoners to make an effort, as a practical resource when relatives help resolve various issues, and at the same time as a certain risk (e.g., financial exploitation of relatives). Agata Katkonienė outlined the four stages of a social worker's work with an inmate: need recognition, setting an individual plan, action, and intervention evaluation, and provided concrete recommendations that could be implemented in practice as early as tomorrow. Aušra Maskaliovienė focused on the practices of maintaining contact with children during imprisonment: telephone and video calls, contact visits, short-term outings, and family day events, and discussed the challenges, benefits, and best practices of these methods of maintaining contact.

The project “Strengthening social relations in prisons: interplay and synergy between prisoners’ needs, effective measures and their implementation” (NARYS), implemented by the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, was funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT) under its supported measure "Targeted Research Projects", contract No. S-REP-25-7.