Who is viewed as client by social workers and general practitioners?

This chapter examines whom social workers and general practitioners regard as a client, and how they gather information about a client. These professions have two very different approaches. For example, an applicant and a client do not need to be the same person for social workers, and social workers put clients in a broad social context to examine whether there are other clients such as a partner or children who could be affected by the problem. General practitioners concentrate mainly on the medical problem and consider social relationships to clients as less important. The chapter argues that the “traditional” theoretical understanding of professional practice as a linear and rational process consisting of diagnose, inference and treatment, reflects general practitioners’ practice as a mono-client profession, but not social workers’ as a multi-client profession.

Can complexity in welfare professionals’ work be handled with standardised professional knowledge?

Complexity in professional work is often discussed in relation to the professional body of knowledge. There is a tendency to relate professional success, problems and shortcomings to flaws and limitations in the professions’ expert knowledge or use of knowledge. To reduce complexity, overcome problematic situations and achieve best practice, welfare states invest considerable resources in raising professional groups’ level of knowledge and use of evidence-based knowledge. Non-medical professions such as social workers are expected to adopt and implement the principles that underpin evidence-based medicine. However, based on two empirical studies of social workers within Swedish social services, this chapter argues that problematic situations and complexity in social work can have sources other than lack of knowledge or insufficient use of knowledge. The chapter argues that these complex and problematic situations cannot be solved by standardised professional knowledge about interventions and results.

The formation of a profession: the case of physiotherapy in Norway

The chapter claims that a profession progresses through interaction and conflict with adjacent professions. Using the professional development of physiotherapy in Norway as an example, the chapter illustrates how inter-professional disputes are central to the ways division of labour and responsibility are shaped. The chapter shows how the physiotherapists’ struggle to gain public authorisation, and to become a part of the national health services, were entwined with the medical professions aspirations to control and subordinate other professions working within the field of health and medicine. The chapter shows how physiotherapists battled the medical profession by seeking active support from the state.

State regulation of the social work profession: an example from Poland

This chapter examines how regulation from the state can shape conditions and practices for welfare professions. New members of the European Union, such as Poland, often lack a tradition of social work as an integral part of the welfare state. Challenges for these countries are both to educate social workers and to create legislative solutions stipulating the responsibilities and professional jurisdiction of the social work profession. In the chapter, it is argued that strong regulation and control from the Polish government has resulted in the standardisation of social work. This has curtailed professional autonomy in a manner that is unfavourable to social workers as well as to clients.

Reconfiguring professional autonomy? The case of social work in the UK

This chapter discusses the contemporary position of social work in the United Kingdom, and in particular the challenges to what is seen as a managerial-technicist version of social work. The chapter begins with focus on the situation from the 1990s to the present day in which this version of social work takes root and flourishes. The discussion then concentrates on three different routes away from a managerial-technicist social work: the first, reconfiguring professional practice in the direction of evaluation in practice, the second ‘reclaiming social work’ on the Hackney relationship-based model and the third ‘reclaiming social work’ in a more radical, highly politicised way. Special attention is devoted to a discussion about how much autonomy the social workers have in different models, but also what kind of autonomy and for what purpose.

Activation work as professional practice: complexities and professional boundaries at the street level of employment policy implementation

In several European countries there is an increasing trend within social and labour market policy to implement employment-oriented policies. In some countries, this turn towards employment has opened up a new professional arena for social workers, so called employment-oriented social work. The chapter examines the challenges that this development has brought to the social work profession, especially in regard to how knowledge and decision-making is negotiated in relation to clients and other professions within the same policy arena. The chapter is based on Danish, Italian and Austrian data including register data, semi-structured interviews, observations and sound recordings.

On the unnoticed aspects of professional practice

The chapter focuses on some mostly unnoticed, but crucial, aspects of professional practice among welfare professions. One such aspect comprises of the informal and strategic forms of negotiations occurring within professional practice and how they relate to various forms of complexity. The text illustrates informal and strategic negotiations by using examples from empirical research on different groups of service users (e.g. people with dementia, unemployed, families with complex problems). A central assertion is that knowledge about such negotiations is vital in terms of understanding how professional practice is actually conducted and works. Such knowledge can enhance professional creativity, confidence and capability to act.

Auditing and accountability

The chapter presents a conceptual framework for studying the interplay of audit and democratic governance in today’s audit societies. The presented framework is then used to analyse how two major audit systems play out in a specific, but major, welfare area, namely the elder care sector in Sweden. The chapter also examines the implications of audit and accountability for elder care policy and governance, and discusses desirable as well as perverse consequences for key-actors in the field with a special focus on professionals.

The construction of professional identity in social work: experience, analytical reflection and time

This chapter discusses the construction of professional identity, posing that it requires experience, analytical reflection and time, and that it is a lifelong process of learning, acting and reflecting in education and practice. The construction of professional identity is regarded as an interdependent process relating to interaction, knowledge and values, which cannot be separated when exploring identities of welfare professionals. The chapter discusses the construction of professional identity during education, in practice and across different contexts.

Professional supervision and professional autonomy

This chapter examines the rapidly growing phenomenon of professional supervision, which has become a central element of several modern professions. The expansion of supervision goes hand in hand with professionalization processes, but also with the emergence of new managerial regimes like New Public Management. Supervision can therefore be seen as both an instrument of protecting professional autonomy and an instrument of implying politically and economically conditioned forms of governance or a governmental mentality. But the authors see a potential for “critically reflective supervision” that can help to recognise and manage the fine balance between the supportive and surveillance or managerial organisational dimensions. A conclusion is that supervision can both contribute to the development of professionals themselves and their field of work.