Social work professionals’ management of institutional and professional responsibilities at the micro-level of welfare-to-work

ABSTRACT

Tensions between professional knowledge and values, and institutional rules and regulations in welfare-to-work practices targeting vulnerable clients have been well established. How these tensions are managed at the frontlines of welfare services is crucial for the effects on both clients’ and frontline workers’ own professional roles. However, we have little insight into the ways this is actually done in routine practice. Based on a micro-discursive analysis of 97 team meetings in 3 Danish municipalities, I examine how social work professionals manage their professional responsibilities within the institutional context of welfare-to-work. Findings suggest that team members enact a dual orientation to professional and institutional responsibilities, characterised by the shifting between professional and institutional discourses. Second, when a dual orientation cannot be managed, the institutional obligations overrule the professional ones. This is characterised by contrasting discourses and giving primacy to ‘documenting’ the case. The findings suggest that the question of how frontline workers manage institutional/professional tensions is less about an inherent opposition between institutional and professional rationales than a matter of the structured enactment of these rationales in interactions between professionals within the institutional complex.

ABSTRAKT

Spændinger mellem professionel viden og værdier på den ene hånd, og institutionelle regler og procedurer på den anden hånd, er veldokumenterede i den aktive beskæftigelsesindsats. Måden hvorpå disse spændinger håndteres i den beskæftigelsespolitiske frontlinje har afgørende betydning for både de udsatte borgere og for medarbejdernes egne professionelle roller. Vi har dog begrænset viden om, hvordan dette faktisk gøres i de professionelles daglige praksis. Med afsæt i en mikro-diskursiv analyse af 97 team møder i tre danske kommuner, undersøger jeg hvordan medarbejdere håndterer deres professionelle ansvar inden for den institutionelle kontekst af den aktive beskæftigelsesindsats. Resultaterne indikerer at team medlemmerne udøver en samtidig orientering mod både professionelle og institutionelle ansvar, og at denne praksis er karakteriseret ved en vekslen mellem professionelle og institutionelle diskurser. Når denne dobbelte og samtidige orientering ikke kan udøves i den enkelte sag, finder jeg, at de institutionelle hensyn tilsidesætter professionelle hensyn. Denne praksis er karakteriseret ved en kontrasterende brug af diskurser, og at ‘dokumentation af sagen’ gives førsteprioritet. På baggrund af disse resultater foreslår jeg, at frontlinje medarbejderes håndtering af institutionelle/professionelle spændinger i mindre grad er et spørgsmål en iboende modsætning mellem institutionelle og professionelle rationaliteter, og i højere grad handler om den strukturerede udøvelse af disse sammenknyttede rationaler i interaktion mellem professionelle i den givne institutionelle kontekst.

KEYWORDS:

• Welfare-to-work
• social work profession
• professional discourse
• institutional discourse

NØGLEORD:

• aktiv beskæftigelsesindsats
• professionelt socialt arbejde
• professionel diskurs
• institutionel diskurs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Tanja Dall is a social worker and PhD, employed at Aalborg University, Department of Sociology and Social work. She does research on social work within public employment services, looking at both professional and client perspectives on efforts to bring clients with complex social problems closer to the labour market. Recent research is focused on professional decision making in complex cases and inter-professional collaboration and coordination.

ORCID

Tanja Dall http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9081-4600

Notes

1 Transcription key in Appendix.