Social work as knowledge work: knowledge practices and multi-professional collaboration

Abstract

This paper investigates new kinds of practices of social work in Finland through two relevant issues to all current professions: (i) organizing effective knowledge work and (ii) organizing effective multi-professional collaboration. We look into how various forms of creating and using knowledge relate to social work and the collaboration between social work and other public services. The theoretical contribution of this paper is in the introduction of knowledge practices as a theoretical concept suitable for analysing the new forms of technology-mediated social work. The result the paper shows is that although multi-professional work has become one central issue in the development of new kinds of services, they still rely on relatively traditional knowledge tools. Majority of tools developed for the purposes of these service practices are directed at enhancement of traditional knowledge tasks such as gathering data about the client’s situation. Only few of the analysed practices actually had tools aimed at enhancing collaboration between the professionals or between clients and the professionals. Furthermore, the multi-professionalism in these practices was mainly focused on the interaction between the professionals and only few were targeted to enhance the active role of the clients in these processes. In conclusion, the development of practices of multi-professional work still require further attention to the active role of the clients in these processes as well as to tools that enhance collaborative knowledge creation in these practices in a way that it enhances client participation.

Keywords:

• information technology
• social care
• practice research
• social policy