Ethics in Professional Interaction: Justifying the Limits of Helping in a Supported Housing Unit

Abstract

This paper studies the construction of ethics in interactions between professionals in meetings, in relation to the rationing of resources. The research context is a supported housing unit targeted at clients with mental health and substance abuse problems. The service is provided for a municipality, which expects good progress of the clients. The research question is: how do the professionals produce implicit ethical justifications for setting limits to helping, even though the need for professional help is not called into question? Five types of justification appear in the data covering 28 meetings. However, these types of justification do not solve the central ethical difficulty arising in the conversations. Limiting help would easily push people out of reach of all help. Thus, in spite of the talk about ethical justification, workers do not ultimately resort to limiting help in situations with no real alternatives for getting help. The ethical principle of following non-exclusionary practices is highly prioritized.

Keywords:

• Professional Ethics
• Ethnomethodology
• Interaction
• Ethical Difficulty
• Rationing
• Justification
• Help
• Need

Acknowledgements

The article is part of the ‘Dilemma between Control and Support in Social Work Practices’ and ‘The Categorization of the Most Difficult Cases in Social Work Practices’ research projects funded by the Academy of Finland and conducted in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Tampere. The authors would like to acknowledge the important contribution of the other members of the projects to this text, as well as comments from colleagues in the DANASWAC international research group.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirsi Juhila

Kirsi Juhila is Professor in Social Work at the University of Tampere. Her research interests include the issues of social exclusion, marginality and homelessness, social work practices in welfare states, interaction in social work settings and discourse analysis

Suvi Raitakari

Suvi Raitakari is acting Assistant Professor in Social Work at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research interests include social work practices in welfare states, mental health and substance abuse problems, argumentation and rhetoric studies