Involvement or empowerment - assumptions and differences in social work practice

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss the different forms of practice that can be identified in relations to the relaunch of empowerment within employment. This is a realm that demands that professionals own their own practice, actively relating to, creating and interpreting the practice of social work and establishing cooperation and partnership with their clients. This article looks at the forms of practice that are developed in this process, thus contributing to the discussion of the professional translation of empowerment and of how professionals can form partnerships with users, actively involving them in their own cases without producing yet another form of clientization. The major challenge is to discover whether empowerment can be translated into expansion of the realm of possibilities for inclusion, partnership and ownership for users as well as professionals – and if so, how. Citizens, practitioners, and researchers must work together to shed light on empowerment as a concept, as a mindset and as a practical tool in social work, discussing empowerment and reflecting critically on it. This article is a contribution to the discussion of how the practical translation of the concept can contribute productively to the development of critical social work. The article also examines how empowerment as a concept relates to older concepts in social work such as participation and involvement, and to newer concepts such as new public management, new public governance and co-creation in the public sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Empowerment
• Practice research
• involvement
• collaboration
• participation