Mental Health Workers Negotiating Risk on the Frontline

Abstract

Following deinstitutionalisation and the shift to models of community care, mental health practice has become increasingly focused on managing the risks posed by service users. However, the effects of risk management on workers’ professional identities have not been investigated empirically in Australia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mental health workers from Victoria, Australia, this paper explores the diverse ways in which these workers adapted the formal technologies of risk management (e.g., the completion of risk assessment screens) to their professional identities. Some workers experienced risk management technologies as constraining their interventions with clients, while others saw these technologies as providing opportunities to strengthen and enhance their professional skills. Pondering these differences, the author speculates on the emergence of a new form of professional identity in the broader context of contemporary community mental health care.

Keywords:

• Mental Health
• Risk Management
• Frontline Workers
• Community Care
• Professional Identities
• Social Work Practice

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research conducted with the support of an Australian Research Council Linkages Grant, no. LP0667485. Our industry partners were the Victorian Department of Human Services and the Victorian Office of the Public Advocate. I wish to thank our interviewees for generously giving up their time to participate in this research project. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and to David Green for his very insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

¹All identifying information has been removed.

1. The author is the Research Fellow in the project team. When describing the research process, collective pronouns are used to reflect the team effort involved.