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fourteen - Can complexity in welfare professionals’ work be handled with standardised professional knowledge?
- Edited by Björn Blom, Umeå universitet, Sweden, Lars Evertsson, Umeå universitet, Sweden, Marek Perlinski, Umeå universitet, Sweden
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- Book:
- Social and Caring Professions in European Welfare States
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 05 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 08 February 2017, pp 209-222
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
In order to reduce uncertainty and complexity, and to prevent or manage the emergence of problematic situations in professional work, many welfare professions have experienced increased expectations to standardise and evidence base their professional practice (Grimen and Terum, 2009; Morago, 2010; Rexvid et al, 2012). To overcome problematic situations, reduce complexity and achieve best practice (Reynolds, 2000; Grimen and Terum, 2009), non-medical professions such as social workers are expected to adopt and implement the principles that underpin evidence-based medicine.
But what are the sources of complexity, uncertainty and problematic situations? In research on professions, complexity in professional work is often discussed in relation to the professional body of knowledge, and the role and use of expert knowledge (Larson, 1977; Abbott, 1988; Johnson, 1993; Freidson, 2004; Molander and Terum, 2010; Svensson and Karlsson, 2008; Svensson and Evetts, 2010). There is a tendency to relate professional success, problems, mishaps and shortcomings to flaws and limitations in the professions’ expert knowledge or how that expert knowledge is utilised (Abbott, 1988; Sackett et al, 1996; Sackett, 2000; Howitt and Armstrong, 1999; Sekimoto et al, 2006; Serour et al, 2009; Hasenfeld, 2010; Molander and Terum, 2010; Morago, 2010).
However, in this chapter we are going to argue that complexity and problematic situations in professional work can have other sources. More precisely, based on two empirical studies of social workers within Swedish social services, we are going to show how complexity and social workers’ perception of problematic situations stem out of everyday encounter with clients and the way that the work is organised.
The troublesome work organisation
In a Swedish study social workers reported that the way their work was organised gave rise to problematic situations and disrupted their professional practice (Perlinski, 2010; Perlinski et al, 2012). Based on the social workers’ description we have chosen to call them specialised professional rooms and multiple timetables. Specialised rooms refers to social workers’ description of how the work organisation divides their professional practice on several ‘hands’, thereby spatially separating social workers working with the same client. Multiple timetables refer to social workers’ notion that the work organisation put high demands on social workers to synchronise and coordinate their work.
fifteen - Who is viewed as a client by social workers and general practitioners?
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- By Devin Rexvid
- Edited by Björn Blom, Umeå universitet, Sweden, Lars Evertsson, Umeå universitet, Sweden, Marek Perlinski, Umeå universitet, Sweden
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- Book:
- Social and Caring Professions in European Welfare States
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 05 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 08 February 2017, pp 223-236
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Introduction
Welfare professions are described in different ways. A common way is to describe them as occupational groups that, on the basis of their specific mandate and their expertise, are considered to be best suited to solve citizens’ problems and meet their needs (Molander and Terum, 2010; Svensson, 2010). However, a basic prerequisite for professionals to be able to solve problems and meet needs is that they clarify who has the problem or who can be considered as a client (Mosesson, 2000). Put differently, professions need to first figure out who is a client, in order to be able to initiate an intervention process that usually begins with diagnosis of the client's problem and generally ends with proposals for treating the problem (Hasenfeld, 1983; Abbott, 1988).
For many professions, the question of who is a client is self-evident or unproblematic. In research on professions and human services organisations it is often taken for granted that the person who pays for or seeks a service provided by professionals may be regarded as a client (Johnson, 1972; Hasenfeld, 1983; Abbott, 1988; Salonen, 2000). For professionals like social workers (SWs), however, this question is not so clear-cut, since a case can be initiated by persons other than the one who has a problem to be solved or a need to be met. More specifically, aside from individual clients, authorities or private individuals also can report to the social services a person who appears to be in need of the SWs intervention (Mosesson, 2000; Salonen, 2000). SWs are therefore often uncertain about who can be seen as a client. This chapter examines whom SWs and GPs view as a client, and how they gather information about the client and think about the client's problem. The data consists of vignette-based focus group interviews with 14 SWs and 11 GPs. The chapter demonstrates that for SWs it is an initial and central element of their professional practice to identify who the client is, while for the GPs it is self-evident that the person who visits them with a problem is a client (the term client refers both to the clients met by SWs and the patients that GPs encounter in their professional practice).