What You Should Do To Challenge The Social Workers Decision Or They Win!

 Social Workers Decision

When I worked in a social work department several years ago, one of the things that haunted my mind was how social workers often wanted to decide what to do with colleagues. My expectation was that the relevant information would be easy to collect and to make a conclusion followed by a decision. When asked how they made their choices, they mostly referred to group discussions rather than giving me a clear response. No one, except in situations where children were put in care, appeared to be able to clarify how decisions were made. Only in situations involving the use of intimidation was a decision pinned down at a statutory board meeting. The case was sometimes approached by social workers with compelling reasons recorded in the case file. They sometimes needed support and the community included colleagues and supervisors.

In my mind, these doubts persisted. What was valuable information for social workers, what data was significant, and how did they systematize and interpret it? What happens when the knowledge was collected and judged and eventually agreed to do something for the child's benefit? After the choices they made, how did they deal with the child and the parents? Did the record of the case represent what happened, e.g. did it adhere to the law?

These concerns came back a few years ago when we investigated improvements in how social work was organized according to the Current Public Management regime in two separate research projects and how the emphasis on costs affected decisions in cases of child protection (Nørrelykke, Zeeberg, and Ebsen 2011; Schrøder 2014). The projects illustrated how social workers and their organizations described their work as being characterized by decision linearity:

• Referral of a child in possible need
• The decision for further assessment or dismissal
• A profound and thorough assessment
• Writing down a child’s need
• The decision of doing something or dismissal
• Making suggestion to an action plan
• The decision on the action plan
• Putting the action plan into practice – ordering to delivery agencies and making contracts
• The action plan was followed sometime after having a follow-up to verify anything.

This order represents Danish social and administrative legislation supplemented by administrative instructions, mostly of a legislative nature. Over the last three decades, the order has evolved with new demands and concepts: appraisal systems, action plans, the participation of children, child interviews, supplier contracts, price negotiation, deadlines, quality requirements, and automated procedures. It appears as a line of order that social workers can quickly carry out in their local environments and can definitely provide the disabled child the best care by doing so. In England and Sweden (Munro 2011; Ponnert and Rasmusson 2015), the same kind of thought can be found.

The optimal order line is also an order of who should make the choices. The review of the referral and a subsequent in-depth assessment is always the product of decisions taken by a caseworker, often discussed with her colleagues (1-3). In consultative groups of colleagues and low-level managers (4-5), decisions on judging and the provision of small-scale services are made. The decisions about what to do in relation to a placement in a foster family or in a residential home also require advisors (6-7) from the frontline manager and also external experts. This is a comparison of the costs involved. The more it costs, the more interested the executives are. The last two assignments (8-9) end up at the desk of the caseworker and may also return to frontline manager meetings if they have to be altered for any reason. In our research (see also Hoybye-Mortensen 2015; Sørensen 2017), this ideal order was reflected.

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