In the dissertation, based on the analysis of the works of scientists, teachers and psychologists, it is proved that the legal competence of a social worker is a set of qualities reflecting the degree of his qualification, level of knowledge, readiness and ability associated with the implementation of a set of measures for social and legal protection of the population.
Considering the experience of foreign countries, it is concluded that there are many differences in individual models of teaching social work in different countries. As a result of the analysis of scientific literature it is established that the legal competence of a social worker is a systemic, integrated characteristic, the structure of which includes professional knowledge (belief in their necessity), the ability to use them in the performance of professional functions. The revealed pedagogical conditions allow to organize and realize conscious active educational and cognitive activity of social workers. These conditions are: availability of scientifically grounded system of work with students; Provision of educational materials (training programs, textbooks, manuals, methodical recommendations, programs of workshops and trainings, etc.); the presence of a creative educational environment; motivation to form the legal competence of future social workers; the direction of studying socio-legal and other disciplines; orientation of the educational process on the formation of professionally important qualities of the individual; the presence in the content of professional disciplines material, which contributes to the formation of legal competence of future specialists; the orientation of the training process for the needs of the individual; realization of the process of formation of legal competence through effective training technologies; high level of self-education as the basis for raising the level of legal competence of future social workers.
It is revealed that these pedagogical conditions are interconnected and promote the increase of the level of legal competence of future social workers on the basis of leading ideas and provisions of competent, person-oriented and systemic approaches.
The conducted study made it possible to construct a structural model for forming the legal competence of future social workers on the basis of systemic, competence and personality-oriented approaches. The constituent elements of this model are target, content, organizational and activity blocks and effective. The target block contains the basic approaches and principles of the organization of the educational process. The content unit includes the components of the legal competence of the future social worker and the need for the implementation of the above-mentioned pedagogical conditions. The organizational-activity block includes the activities of students, the forms and methods of organizing the educational process. The effective block contains criteria for assessing the educational achievements of future social workers and the results of their learning activities. All elements of the model have content and correspond to the specific task of forming the legal competence of future social workers. The developed model directs the training of a specialist, organizes it in both the content and organizational plans. The structure and content of the model have a general-didactic character, which makes it possible to adapt it to the training of specialists on other aspects of social work. The results of experimental work gave grounds to assert that the developed model of formation of legal competence of future social workers contributes to positive steady changes in cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and motivational attitude to vocational training and forms sufficient level of read in ess for fulfillment of social and legal functions by students.
