Working with Stories: Street-Level Bureaucrats and Their Work with Individuals with Psychiatric Disability Exposed to Interpersonal Violence

ABSTRACT

The focus of our attention is the meeting between street-level bureaucrats and individuals with psychiatric disability exposed to interpersonal violence. Based on 11 interviews, we illustrate how stories are understood, used, and made meaningful to the street-level bureaucrat. The contribution of this article is first of all that of being a framework, from a storytelling point of view, for the work and organizational experiences of street-level bureaucrats. Second, by paying attention to the story part of these relationships, we can better understand the situation of individuals with psychiatric disability exposed to interpersonal violence given their interaction with different street-level bureaucrats.

KEYWORDS:

• Case management services
• communication
• mental illness
• policy practice
• qualitative research
• social construction
• social work practice and disabilities
• stories
• street-level bureaucrats
• work

Notes

^1. It is important to stress that we, the authors of this text, are also transformed from listeners to writers. We are not passive observers of something; we are, of course, part of the formulation of the stories used in this article. The stories are reshaped to fit the context of social science research and our intention.