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Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Municipal youth protection work has become infused with digital technology, and yet there is still limited research on how to assess the impact of digital technology on municipal youth social work. This article reviews a range of misconceptions regarding the assessment of digital technology for youth social work in municipal contexts. This review was generated in connection with the development of an app system for communication between young clients and their municipal social workers in Denmark. The misconceptions relate to: variations in technologies and contexts; the impact of digital technologies on the relationship; social justice; differentiating between the user and the digital technology; digitalization and standardization; stakeholder and functional models of municipal social work. The paper concludes that the relationship between municipal social work and digital technology is complex and that thus complex comprehensions of municipal social work practice are needed if the relationship between technologies and practice is to be grasped adequately. The paper argues that given the complexity of the field and the speed of technological and legal changes, external support with regard to assessing how to use, develop and incorporate digital technology needs to be made available to municipalities and social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intersection of gender and class concerning welfare clients with medically unexplained symptoms. The study is conducted in Denmark using qualitative interviews with welfare officers and clients. The paper's focus is on how issues of gender and class intersect in the negotiation of illness among welfare officers and clients. The particular client group in question consists of individuals that are defined by their lack of a bio-medical diagnosis. Their 'lack' of identity accentuates how gender and class become central in the categorisation practices, constructing the ill person as either bio-medically sick or as a person who may be suffering but only from diffuse psychological problems. The paper shows that it is predominantly poorly educated women without a bio-medical diagnosis that welfare officers describe as suffering from psychological problems despite the fact that the women themselves focus on physical ailments in their illness stories. Men and better-educated women are described by the welfare officers as tired and exhausted or truly stressed after a long working life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caseworkers in welfare organisations play a pivotal part in the production of performance information (PI), since the information they record determines the quality of the PI. Previous studies have demonstrated how tasks that are considered illegitimate are stressful for the professionals performing them and are not performed properly. Caseworkers' perception of the PI, which their recordings feed into, must therefore be of great importance with regard to how the caseworkers perform the task of recording. From a qualitative study of the production and use of PI in municipal disability services in Denmark, we gained insight into how caseworkers perceived the purposes of PI. We conclude that PI used in the planning of services to meet clients' needs is recognised as a legitimate purpose. The distance between the manager and caseworkers seems to be important for the degree of understanding of the purpose of the tasks: The shorter the distance, the more understanding. Furthermore, caseworkers also see more subjective purposes of doing the recordings properly. Firstly, it makes management aware of the size of their workload. Secondly, the recordings serve as a documentation tool, which can be useful when clients file complaints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AimThe purpose of this study, by exploring client perspectives, was to achieve a better understanding of how people with schizophrenia experience an occupational therapy intervention designed to enable them to carry out meaningful occupations in the early phases of recovery.MethodA qualitative design comprising an eight-week client-centred occupational therapy intervention with semi-structured interviews with five of the six clients out of 10 who completed the intervention. Braun and Clark’s thematic analysis was applied to the transcripts. Adherence rate and dropouts were recorded in a logbook. The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure was used to initiate and guide the intervention and the Canadian Model of Client-Centred Enablement for the client–therapist relationship.ResultsParticipants described the intervention, which presupposed a certain level of patient readiness, as demanding. Participants valued engaging in real-life occupations while anchoring new strategies but also the occupational therapist’s role in dealing with failure. Participants felt the intervention assisted in their recovery process and enabled them to engage in meaningful occupations.ConclusionThe study provided unique insight into how participants experienced a client-centred partnership with an occupational therapist in the early phases of recovery. The intervention was feasible and supported the participants’ recovery process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The context of care in assertive community treatment (ACT) can be precarious and generate ethical issues involving the principles of autonomy and paternalism. This focus group study examined case managers’ situated accounts of moral reasoning. Our findings show how they expressed strong moral obligation towards helping the clients. Their moral reasoning reflected a paternalistic position where, on different occasions, the potential benefits of their interventions would be prioritised at the expense of protecting the clients’ personal autonomy. The case managers’ reasoning emphasised situational awareness, but there was a risk of supporting paternalistic interventions and denying the clients’ right to autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empowerment is a keyword in treatment. Users should have the means and possibilities to influence their treatment and become self-managing. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish methadone treatment project, we find that the practices of users and staff are often not carried out in accordance with governmental intentions. We identify a gap between the official notions of treatment and practices. We analyse the notions and practices of empowerment by applying two analytical perspectives. First, we apply a constructionist perspective in which empowerment is analysed as wanting to set users ‘free’ but also as ways to govern. We elaborate the analysis by applying a more practice-oriented focus. Drawing on this perspective, we analyse the ways in which staff and users constantly produce, construct and negotiate institutional practices that differ from the governmental intentions for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staff who take calls at the emergency centers in Denmark have to decide whether, on hearing what the caller first says, to (a) immediately start asking dispatch-relevant questions (for example, the caller's address) or (b) first check whether the reported incident is actually an emergency at all. The call takers' choice not only conveys different signals to the caller with regard to whether or not assistance will be granted but also has consequences for the emergency centers' response times. In this study, I focus on cases where callers present their reason for calling by means of an overt request, without providing any information about the incident. I show that what the call takers base their initial decision on is the claim of entitlement that the callers encode into their request. The downside of this staff practice is that subsequent questioning may, in fact, reveal the decision to be inaccurate and the dispatch of assistance to have been either prematurely initiated or unduly delayed. I explicate the mechanisms involved, how the calls play out, and what the implications might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]