Structuration processes of client-oriented and system-oriented social work practice: the view point of client documentation (original) (raw)
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European Journal of Social Work, 2021
The social services in Sweden are clearly influenced by international development towards organisational specialisation. However, little is known about how organisational structures are associated with the client work of social services. The article presents a narrative research review aimed to summarise and discusses empirical research on organisational structures in the social services and how these structures might influence client work. Building on the tension between specialisation and integration, the article identifies both the advantages and the disadvantages of the different approaches to organising social services along a continuum from high levels of specialisation, via coordination and collaboration solutions, to high levels of integration. The findings suggest that, to function adequately, social service organisations need to combine and balance aspects of both specialisation and integration. SAMMANFATTNING Svensk och internationell socialtjänst präglas tydligt av organisatorisk specialisering. Det saknas dock kunskap om hur organisationsstrukturer påverkar socialttjänstens klientarbete. Denna artikel presenterar en narrativ forskningsöversikt med syftet att sammanfatta och diskutera empirisk forskning organisationsstrukturer i socialtjänsten och hur dessa kan påverka klientarbetet. Med spänningsfältet mellan specialisering och integrering som utgångspunkt, identifierar artikeln både för-och nackdelar med dessa båda organisatoriska principer utifrån ett kontinuum från höggradig specialisering via samordning och samarbete till tydligt integrering. Resultatet visar att socialtjänstens organisation behöver kombinera och balansera olika strukturer utefter kontinuumet mellan specialisering och integrering för att klientarbetet ska fungera ändamålsenligt.
Social Work & Society, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2012
The article presents a study of the personal social services’ (PSS) organisation and economy as conditions for social workers’ assessments of needs and appropriate interventions. One central aim was to study how different organisation models affect social workers’ client work, especially concerning possibilities to establish supportive relationships with the clients. The study includes all staff in the PSS in three Swedish municipalities (n=247) with different organisation models: a specialised organisation, an integrated (generic) organisation as well as a combined organisation with elements of both specialisation and integration. Data collection used an on-line survey questionnaire which allowed various types of data, including relatively in-depth qualitative data. Consequently both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were used. The results reveal significant differences between the studied organisations. Neither the specialised organisation nor the combined one is able to create sufficient economic or organisational conditions for working with clients. This also holds true for assessment of needs and possibilities to make appropriate interventions, such as establishing working alliances. Social workers in the integrated organisation, on the contrary, to a high extent report adequate conditions for assessments of needs and interventions. This organisation hence appears as more advantageous than the combined and the specialised. It is also striking that social workers in the specialised organisation perceive the organisation as not being focused on supportive relationships with clients, and sometimes as a direct obstacle. The specialised organisation is also characterised by substantial workload, social workers’ lack of time for their clients and discontinuity.
Being a Case Manager - Doing Case Management; Translating Political Policy to Practice
Case managers and Case management were implemented in the Swedish mental health care system as a result of political policies which aimed towards the empowerment of mentally disabled clients. This thesis engages the implementation of policy into local practice in terms of a translation process performed by case managers as they go about understanding and handling their everyday labour conditions. The empirical material consists of 15 interviews and many more informal conversations with case managers, as well as 3 participant observations of interactions between case managers, their clients and other human service workers in the course of producing client empowerment. The empirical material is analysed from a grounded theory approach in dialogue with a critically relativist perspective and social psychological theories on constructions of social reality and selves. Resultant categories were subjected to situational analysis, individually as well as collaboratively, focusing relationships between social acts and contextual aspects of power. Empirically the study contributes with an understanding of how case manager’s experiences and handling of their labour conditions affect mentally disabled clients possibilities of empowerment within the Swedish mental health care system. Results show that the case managers’ labour conditions are primarily structured by two labour conditions: The need to balance between the purpose of empowering clients and the organization’s financial interests, and the need to manage a lack of a mandate which is accepted in practice when coordinating the efforts of other human service workers. It is further shown that case managers hope for a change and act to socially negotiate mandate to be able to fulfil their duties of coordinating other human service workers as well as actively seek long-term empowerment through professionalization. It is further shown that the organizations financial interests sometimes disempower both case managers and clients alike by restricting the case managers’ space of action. Together the results suggest client empowerment is ultimately a product of what the case managers perceive that the organization is willing to pay for, rather than a principal right for mentally disabled clients to hold the power to choose for themselves. Theoretically the study pushes at a central concept in the sociology of work; the ‘service triangle’, by demonstrating that middle managers aren’t necessarily a proxy for the abstract organization. A methodological contribution is that the study demonstrates how an application of a critically relativist social psychological perspective can be used to study how constructions of social reality impact organizational results in tangible and real ways. Keywords: Case Managers, Case Management, Managers, Labour Conditions, Political Policy, Sociology of Work, Critical Relativism, Social Psychology, Grounded Theory, Situational Analysis, Empowerment, Power, Professionalization
Being a Case Manager - Doing Case Management; Translating Political Policy to Pratice
2014
Case managers and Case management were implemented in the Swedish mental health care system as a result of political policies which aimed towards the empowerment of mentally disabled clients. This thesis engages the implementation of policy into local practice in terms of a translation process performed by case managers as they go about understanding and handling their everyday labour conditions. The empirical material consists of 15 interviews and many more informal conversations with case managers, as well as 3 participant observations of interactions between case managers, their clients and other human service workers in the course of producing client empowerment. The empirical material is analysed from a grounded theory approach in dialogue with a critically relativist perspective and social psychological theories on constructions of social reality and selves. Resultant categories were subjected to situational analysis, individually as well as collaboratively, focusing relationships between social acts and contextual aspects of power. Empirically the study contributes with an understanding of how case manager's experiences and handling of their labour conditions affect mentally disabled clients possibilities of empowerment within the Swedish mental health care system. Results show that the case managers' labour conditions are primarily structured by two labour conditions: The need to balance between the purpose of empowering clients and the organization's financial interests, and the need to manage a lack of a mandate which is accepted in practice when coordinating the efforts of other human service workers. It is further shown that case managers hope for a change and act to socially negotiate mandate to be able to fulfil their duties of coordinating other human service workers as well as actively seek long-term empowerment through professionalization. It is further shown that the organizations financial interests sometimes disempower both case managers and clients alike by restricting the case managers' space of action. Together the results suggest client empowerment is ultimately a product of what the case managers perceive that the organization is willing to pay for, rather than a principal right for mentally disabled clients to hold the power to choose for themselves. Theoretically the study pushes at a central concept in the sociology of work; the 'service triangle', by demonstrating that middle managers aren't necessarily a proxy for the abstract organization. A methodological contribution is that the study demonstrates how an application of a critically relativist social psychological perspective can be used to study how constructions of social reality impact organizational results in tangible and real ways.
2007
Despite the commitment of structural social work to hearing the voices of service users, these voices have not been evident in evaluations of structural social work as a model of practice. In this qualitative study, researchers interviewed service users at three social service agencies to elicit their perspectives on service delivery in agencies practising from a structural social work approach. Findings show that structural social work practice in these agencies transcends "providing service" to engage service users in a process that affirms their humanity and that ultimately creates a space for them to become powerful agents of change.
Return to the Client: On the Contemporary Search for the Meaning of Social Work
The study discusses the search for meaning and position of social work in postmodern social context. At present there is talk in social work of crisis and failure of social work, which consists in the blurring of its identity, the fact that social work is carried out by unqualified workers, and loss of social prestige. In the contemporary professional discourse of social work in the Czech Republic the study first identifies three areas from which the loss of meaning and threat to the identity of social work stem (definition of social work, system of social services, real conditions of carrying out social work). Based on reflecting these areas the study states that the discourse concerning the identity and meaning of social work loses sight of the client of social work. That is why it briefly summarizes the conception of social work in Silvia Staub-Bernasconi, who in defining social work emphasizes the question “Who is vulnerable”. On this basis the study then concludes that further defence of the professional interests of social work in public discourse and in the context of social services providers is needed, which as its goal will pursue not a general question of the identity of social work but the good of its client.
2020
How could social workers apply theory in their everyday practice? According to John Dewey, theories are helpful instruments in analysing situations and forming hypotheses which are tested in practical experiments. Inspired by Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, we designed a “Practice and Theory” pilot intervention group in which social workers were provided external, theorydriven supervision. This research is a three-case study of the pilot intervention group. Based on a thematic analysis of reflective discussions during the last group sessions and follow-up group interviews, we investigate the difficulties the social workers described in applying theoretical knowledge to practice. We explore what consequences they recognized when reflecting on and experimenting with theoretical knowledge. Our study demonstrates that the major barriers were lack of time and access to theories, difficulties in changing one’s own practice and establishing supportive structures, the lack of competence to u...
Child & Family Social Work
Social work in the UK is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long-term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organisational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationshipbased practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co-located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan 'hot-desking' office. Drawing on relational, systemic and complexity theories the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers' and service users' experiences of relating together.
Relating social work theory and practice: developing new models
Indian Journal of Social Sceinces, 2012
The critical path method (CPM) is a tool which helps to understand projects by breaking down all the vital steps throughout the implementation process into smaller tasks/steps. In social work education, CPM has a significant role in the professional impartation of knowledge. Every activity implemented in the field has to be related to a theorem that the student has learnt. A student builds their capacity when they are able to identify and explain all the pertinent links involved in project implementation; this is also crucial in ongoing professional development for qualified practitioners. Using CPM as a guideline, social work students can develop professional and personal analytical skills and knowledge needed to identify the philosophy, principles, values, social work methods and principles, tools, techniques and skills used whilst implementing any intervention.The process produces an outcome but also assists students continuously learn and evaluate their actions during field placements and later when practicing in the field. The framework thus helps the field supervisor/educator and the student to design field work objectives with specific plans, to make the most of experiences as learning. Failure to follow each step will help to identify gaps in the social work education and therefore can lead to rectification which is another learning outcome in itself. By taking an activity implemented by a Social Work student duringfield placement the author is trying to explain below how the concept is practiced in the field.
2014
The main topic of this meta-analysis is the disclosure of the process of social work becoming a profession in Lithuania under complicated conditions of society transformation. When we speak about the process of any activity becoming a profession we speak about professionalization. The aims of this meta-analysis are: 1) to analyse social work professionalization in Lithuania in the light of constructivist and systemic theoretical perspectives. 2) to extract and elaborate the main factors creating the conditions for professional social work development in Lithuania over the period of 1992-2013. 3) to answer to the main research question of the meta-analysis – how did Lithuanian social work professionalize? The code of society transformation becomes an ultimate assumption for modelling the construction of social work professionalization, highlighting its manifestation. In Lithuania, there is a lack of a detailed work, which would sum up the results of twenty years of social work develo...