Professional roles of caseworkers in citizen conversations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to give an insight in the different professional roles that a caseworker has to carry when meeting the citizen in order to decide what help he or she needs and is entitled to. This work includes help and support, as well as control and sanctioning. Therefore, the professional role as a caseworker cannot be reduced to one. From analysis of citizen conversations the article extracts and discusses the use of six different but complementing roles of the caseworker: Guest/Host, Chairperson, Investigator, Midwife, Adviser and Judge. These roles have different purposes that are all important in balancing help and control in citizen conversations. The roles operate together and supply each other at different times within the same encounter. This article presents an analysis of a conversation between a caseworker and a citizen and his relative in order to illustrate the different roles of the caseworker during a conversation and how balancing the roles can support human symmetry in the relationship. The article is based on Kloster, Dahl, and Alrø (2019) that develops and discusses the six roles based on the analysis of a number of citizen conversations.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen conversations
• analysis of conversations
• professional roles
• casework

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The courses are offered to all municipalities in Denmark on the initiative of The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs (Styrelsen for Specialrådgivning og Social Service 2007). Since 2010 they are conducted by Kloster’s consulting company ‘Vølund og Kloster’ (later ‘Substans’), and they serve as formally qualifying education for caseworkers. On these courses, the caseworkers e.g. share and work with cases that have been particularly challenging or successful.