[DEL: ZVLÁDÁNÍ DILEMAT :DEL] [INS: COPING WITH DILEMMAS :INS]


[DEL: Pracovní podmínky a interakce sociálních pracovníků s klienty :DEL] [INS: Working conditions
and interactions of social workers with their clients :INS]














Libor Musil
















































[DEL: Děkuji Grantové agentuře České republiky, která práci na této studii v letech 2002 až 2005
finančně podporovala. :DEL] [INS: I would like to thank the Czech Science Foundation :INS] for[INS:
financially support :INS] ing[INS: work on this study from 2002 to 2005. :INS]


to be canceled and changed: Please, to add IMPRINT






































© Libor MUSIL

© translation: Jan ADÁMEK


[DEL: OBSAH :DEL]

[DEL:   :DEL]

[DEL:   :DEL]

[DEL: Úvod :DEL]

[DEL:   :DEL]

[DEL: kapitola 1 Obcházení dilemat  :DEL]

[DEL: kapitola 2 Komplexní nebo zjednodušené cíle :DEL] [INS: TABLE OF CONTENTS :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

[INS: Introduction :INS]
               5[INS: :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

[INS: chapter 1 Avoiding dilemma :INS]
s                                                              7[INS: :INS]

[INS: chapter 2 Complex or simplified goals :INS]                                               18

[INS: chapter :INS] 3 The quantity [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] or the quality of
services               31

[INS: chapter :INS] 4 [DEL: Neutralita a favoritismus :DEL] [INS: Neutrality and favo :INS] u[INS:
ritism :INS]                                                   45

[INS: chapter :INS] 5 [DEL: Jednostranné nebo symetrické vztahy s klientem :DEL]

[DEL: kapitola 6 Procedurální nebo situační přístup :DEL] [INS: One-sided or symmetric
relationships :INS]                                 57[INS: :INS]

[INS: chapter 6 Procedural or situational approach :INS]                                      76

[INS: chapter :INS] 7 Material or [DEL: nemateriální pomoc :DEL] [INS: immaterial help :INS]
                                          92

[INS: chapter :INS] 8 [DEL: Zasáhnout nebo nezasáhnout :DEL] [INS: Intervene or not to intervene
:INS]                                             100


Conclusion – An alternative to avoiding dilemmas                         110


Bibliography
113

Index
   115




[DEL: ÚVOD :DEL] [INS: INTRODUCTION :INS]



The aim of this study is to present for discussion an empirical picture of [INS: social workers’
approach to their clients[INS: [1] :INS] :INS] that follows up Lipsky's concept of "Street-level
Bureaucracy" (1980).

From the perspective of Lipsky's understanding, it is reasonable to say that the following
circumstances are crucial for the forming of [INS: frontline social workers’ approach to their
clients :INS] : 1. The working conditions of street-level bureaucrats – of which social workers are
a special category[2] – are unavoidably uncertain. 2. Street-level bureaucrats are regularly
confronted with dilemmas that are the inevitable consequence of working under these uncertain
conditions. 3. Regular working interaction with clients gives street-level bureaucrats a relatively
high degree of "discretion". 4. Hence, the working position of street-level bureaucrats permits
them to make their own "policy" with respect to their interaction with clients. 5. The purpose of
these policies is to establish and justify patterns of behaviour that enable street-level
bureaucrats to avoid the aforementioned dilemmas. From these five arguments, Lipsky explicitly
mentions the first four (Lipsky 1980; 1991: 213–216). The fifth dilemma is implicitly contained in
his descriptions of the ways in which street-level bureaucrats cope with dilemmas (Lipsky 1980:
114–115, 125–131, 145–156, etc.). Even though the fifth argument can be read merely "between the
lines", it represents a key element in Lipsky's understanding of everyday "client processing"
(Lipsky, 1980: xii) by street-level bureaucrats.

Lipsky's implicit idea of "avoiding dilemmas" frequently emerges with other researchers of social
work and it seems to tempt some of them to emulate him. The empirical research results quoted by me
in this text remarkably often interprets the everyday working practice of social workers in a way
that is close to Lipsky's understanding. There are so many authors who, in their case studies of
service organisations, interpret the actions of frontline workers[3] as the outcome of an attempt
to "avoid dilemmas" that it perhaps would be possible to speak about a specific research tradition.
I want to describe this tradition in the following pages while pointing to its limits (see also
Musil, etc., 2004).

Inspired by Lipsky, in the first chapter I will explore the idea that it is useful to perceive the
[DEL: přístup ke klientům :DEL] [INS: approach to clients :INS] as a result of an attempt of
frontline social workers to cope with equivocal working conditions and the associated dilemmas,
which has become part of the culture of a specific organisation. In the chapters that follow, I
will show how the [DEL: přístup ke klientům :DEL] [INS: approach to clients :INS] is based on the
attempt of social workers to cope with dilemmas between [DEL: komplexními a zjednodušenými cíli,
:DEL] [INS: complex and simplified goals, :INS] between the quantity [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS: of
clients :INS] and the quality of services, between [DEL: neutralitou a favoritismem, mezi
jednostranností a symetrií ve vztazích s klienty, mezi procedurálním a situačním přístupem, :DEL]
[INS: neutrality and favo :INS] u[INS: ritism, :INS] between [INS: one-sided or symmetric
relationships with clients, :INS] between [INS: procedural and situational approaches, :INS]
between providing material and immaterial [DEL: pomoci :DEL] [INS: help :INS] and, finally, between
the attempt to [INS: intervene :INS] in a [INS: timely :INS] fashion [INS: and :INS] an
apprehension that the [INS: intervention could be pr :INS] e[INS: cipitate. :INS] I will define
each of these dilemmas and show with empirical examples how the given dilemma is "avoided" in
practical situations and how this practice influences the [DEL: přístup pracovníků ke klientům.
:DEL] [INS: approach of workers to clients. :INS]

The findings of those researchers who understand the treatment of clients by social workers as the
outcome of "avoiding dilemmas" may inspire social workers, social work teachers and their students
alike. It should be noted however that Lipsky pays attention to just one way of coping with
dilemmas in work with clients[INS: , :INS] and it is hence not advisable to hastily generalise his
theoretical assumptions. I will therefore conclude by showing an empirical description of the
approach of social workers who face dilemmas in their work otherwise than "avoiding" them.


chapter 1

AVOIDING DILEMMAS



Lipsky's above-mentioned understanding of the circumstances that influence the [DEL: přístup ke
klientům, :DEL] [INS: approach to clients :INS] rests on four notions that in represent a
consistent framework in his eyes. These are: "uncertain[4] working conditions", "discretion",
"street-level policy" and "avoiding dilemmas". In this chapter, I will discuss the latter in detail
and refer to the remaining three where needed. I am doing so for three reasons: Firstly because
each of the said notions would deserve a separate treatise, for which there is not enough room
here. Secondly because the notion of "avoiding dilemmas" is crucial from the perspective of the
research tradition on which this study focuses, and finally because Lipsky employs the idea of
"avoiding dilemmas" implicitly, which suggests that although applying it, he has never
systematically described and worked it out. I will therefore try to do this myself.

I will show in what sense Lipsky uses the term "dilemma", how he understands the emergence of
dilemmas in work with the client in practice and how Lipsky describes the coping with dilemmas
[DEL: řadovými pracovníky :DEL] [INS: by frontline workers :INS] of street-level bureaucracies[5].
I will attempt to systematically convey his understanding of "avoiding dilemmas" using the notions
of [DEL: “neodbytná“ :DEL] "[INS: importunate :INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd [DEL: a “latentní“ dilemata
:DEL] "[INS: latent :INS] "[INS: dilemmas :INS] and the notion "rationalisation" captured in the
Goffmanian way. In the conclusion of the initial chapter, I will discuss the question of how, from
Lipsky's perspective, coping with dilemmas influences the [DEL: přístup sociálních pracovníků ke
klientům. :DEL] [INS: approach of social workers to clients. :INS] In this context, I will present
the assumption that it is a specific function of the culture of social work service organisations
to create grounds for avoiding dilemmas [DEL: jejími řadovými pracovníky. :DEL] [INS: by their
frontline workers. :INS]



How to avoid dilemmas?


According to the dictionary, a "dilemma" is a "necessary (and sometimes difficult) choice between
two mutually exclusive options" (Klimeš, 1981: 112). This definition refers to two characteristics
of dilemmatic situations: Firstly, some options are incompatible. Secondly, choosing between them
tends to be difficult. The meaning of the affirmation that a "choice is necessary" is not entirely
clear within the said definition. It can be understood in two ways. Either it may refer to the idea
that people who face a dilemma have no other option and they "necessarily have to decide". Or it
may emphasise the incompatibility of the options between which those who are forced to undergo the
choice "necessarily have to choose" without there being any avoidance. The two options remain
incompatible for those who need not grapple with the dilemma, but they need not choose between
them.

It is difficult to guess how the author of the dictionary entry meant it. It is clear however that
Lipsky would prefer the second of the two interpretations, for in his eyes people can avoid
dilemmas or at least do so for as long as possible when confronted with them. Although the term
"dilemma" comes up on innumerable occasions on the pages of his book, you will not find a story in
it about street-level bureaucrats having difficulty choosing between mutually exclusive options.
Instead you will read descriptions of habits and attitudes that make it possible for the workers of
street-level bureaucracies to avoid such difficult decisions for prolonged periods of time.

Lipsky's description of the way in which street-level bureaucrats cope with the difficult decisions
between providing their service to a large number of clients and preserving the quality of their
services, is a demonstration of this train of thought. In this context, Lipsky (1980: 99) literally
labels as a "dilemma" the fact that it is hard for frontline workers to address the problems of
every client appropriately to his or her situation. If they approached too large a number of
clients in the same way, their ability to be responsive would be exhausted, because there would be
no time left for other clients.

Had Lipsky used the term "dilemma" to refer to the fact that [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS:
frontline workers :INS] "have to unavoidably decide between two incompatible options", he would
probably have continued by describing how street-level bureaucrats hopelessly fret over the
insoluble question: "How to behave [INS: in :INS] a [INS: responsive manner :INS] to all
clients[INS: :INS] when that is unmanageable?!?" In fact Lipsky does not speak about the difficulty
of deciding at all. Instead he regards resolving this question as a threat that, although "being in
the air", street-level bureaucrats are capable of endlessly putting off in terms of its actual
emergence.

According to Lipsky (1980: 38, 99–107, 125–139), they do this by somewhat lowering the quality of
their services when needed, perhaps by allowing long queues before their offices. Some [DEL:
klienti :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] get “fed up with it” and give up. Those who persist are divided
by the street-level bureaucrats into "more urgent cases" to which they pay more attention and
provide better services, and "less urgent cases" to which they attend less. There is less work in
general, the accustomed quality standards are preserved for a part of the clients and any
complaints there are about neglecting the other clients can be explained by the "necessity to
mobilise the insufficient resources for the most urgent cases". Should the number of clients in the
first group increase over time and the quality of work be once again threatened by this increasing
number, it is possible to put off the potentially impending dilemma once again using a similar
method: for example by beginning to attach a lot of importance to properly completed forms, finding
out retrospectively from time to time that an additional confirmation should have been served,
letting the client queue several times, etc. Those interested in the service who fail to give up
even under such circumstances, can be further "sorted", this time perhaps by the duration of their
dependence on [DEL: dávkách sociální pomoci :DEL] [INS: social assistance benefits :INS] , into
"strainers" and "sluggards". Thus the dilemma that remains permanently impending due to public
services being free to the clients, can be put off almost indefinitely.

Hence in Lipsky's understanding, [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS]
frequently face a difficult choice. This usually presents a challenge for them which they rarely
resolve by urgently making a decision. Workers try to find a way of putting the difficult choice
off or avoiding it entirely. If they succeed, they routinely repeat the invented method. Sometimes
the solution found fails and the painful choice must be made anyway. If this happens just
exceptionally or to an acceptable and foreseeable extent, the solution found is accepted in the
organisation as a recognised rule for treating clients[INS: . :INS] The dilemma falls into the
shade to be replaced by a routine way of grinding it down.



[DEL: “Neodbytná“ a “latentní´“ dilemata :DEL] "[INS: Importunate :INS] "[INS: and :INS] "[INS:
latent :INS] "[INS: dilemmas :INS]


We shall further avoid the above ambiguities in the interpretation of the term "necessary choice"
by discriminating between two types of dilemma – [DEL: ”neodbytná“ a ”latentní“. :DEL] "[INS:
importunate :INS] "[INS: and :INS] "[INS: latent :INS] "[INS: . :INS]

An "i[INS: mportunate dilemma :INS] " is faced by those workers whose working [INS: conditions[INS:
[6] :INS] :INS] and the way in which they perceive these conditions make them urgently choose
between two options, which are incompatible from their perspective. Workers facing this type of
dilemma have no other option but to necessarily make a decision. This happens if three
circumstances occur at once. Firstly, working conditions make the [DEL: řadové pracovníky :DEL]
[INS: frontline workers :INS] in the organisation face [DEL: s konfliktem očekávání. :DEL] [INS:
expectation conflict :INS] ; secondly, these workers are [INS: moral :INS] ly[INS: sensitive :INS]
to this [DEL: konfliktu očekávání „morálně citliví“ (Fleck-Henderson, 1991: 192–193). :DEL] [INS:
expectation conflict :INS] ; and thirdly, [DEL: pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] in
the given organisation have a feeling of their own responsibility for urgently making a difficult
decision.

The first two conditions characterise the onset of any dilemma. Hence the dilemmas to which Lipsky
refers emerge from the interaction between uncertain working conditions on one hand and a more or
less receptive response[7] [DEL: řadových pracovníků na konflikt očekávání, :DEL] [INS: of
frontline workers :INS] to the [INS: expectation conflict :INS] induced by these working
conditions. The dilemma thus arising becomes [DEL: „neodbytným“, pokud řadoví pracovníci :DEL]
"[INS: importunate :INS] "[INS: :INS] if [INS: frontline workers :INS] have a sufficiently strong
motivation to make the difficult decision.

The necessity to cope with [INS: expectation conflict :INS] may firstly be provoked by "conflict
with the surroundings", i.e. a conflict between expectations of the workers and expectations of an
influential entity in their surroundings. Secondly, the necessity to cope with [INS: expectation
conflict :INS] may be the result of a so-called "battle of motives" – a conflict between two[8]
different expectations of workers who experience it as their "inner conflict".

A conflict with the surroundings sets in if the entity whose decisions matter under the rules
recognised in the organisation[9] promotes an approach difficult to accept for [DEL: řadové
pracovníky :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] . For example, a [DEL: případová konference :DEL]
[INS: case conference :INS] gives an order "to remove a child from the family", but the social
workers insist that this "is an unreasonably drastic measure that will be harmful for the child in
the long run". In this case social workers and the persons bestowed with authority [INS: and
power[INS: [10] :INS] :INS] fundamentally divide upon the issue as to how to respond to a specific
working event (such as the situation in the child's family).

It is not necessarily the difference between the expectation of the surroundings and the
expectation of the workers that is the source of [DEL: konfliktu očekávání :DEL] [INS: expectation
conflict :INS] . The workers may experience discord between their own expectations in their minds.

Let us envisage social workers in whose organisation the difficult deciding between the quantity of
clients and responsiveness to their needs is routinely put off in the way described above. In such
an organisation, nobody expects anyone to be equally responsive to all clients[INS: . :INS] Thanks
to this social workers cope with their job stress and have no intention of changing established
practice. Even so they may live with the feeling that things should be different. That were they
perhaps [DEL: vstřícnější ke klientům, :DEL] [INS: more responsive :INS] to [INS: clients :INS] who
are generally regarded as "less needy sluggards", some of these might learn to function more
independently in social terms. This would be a case where the dilemma would not relate to conflict
with the surroundings; it would be the result of an inner conflict between differing expectations
of the workers. They expect that their job stress be manageable, and to achieve that they save
energy by reducing the quality of their services for the "less needy". At the same time however
they expect that those regarded in their organisation as the "less needy", who receive thriftier
treatment, should be helped as well. Both expectations seem barely compatible and the workers
therefore experience an inner expectation conflict, a so-called "battle of motives".

Whether [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] are exposed to a conflict with
their surroundings or they experience a battle of motives, either case meets the first of the above
prerequisites for the emergence of a dilemma – working conditions have brought [DEL: řadové
pracovníky :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] the necessity to cope with an [INS: expectation
conflict. :INS]

Earlier in this text I presented the "moral sensitivity" of workers towards [DEL: konfliktu
očekávání. :DEL] [INS: expectation conflict :INS] as the second prerequisite for the emergence of a
dilemma[INS: . :INS] Fleck-Henderson (1991: 192–193) uses this term for the ability "of reading a
moral dilemma in a real situation" and being "conscious of the moral nature of the situation".

In the case of the battle of motives this prerequisite is met, because the inner [DEL: konflikt
očekávání :DEL] [INS: expectation conflict :INS] is a display of awareness of its moral nature. The
statements "to experience an inner [DEL: konflikt očekávání“ :DEL] [INS: expectation conflict :INS]
" and "to perceive one's own conduct as morally controversial" can be taken as synonymous. If I
place in my own thoughts two expectations against each other that I believe mutually cast doubt on
each other, I have admitted to judging them in moral terms.

The presence of moral sensitivity is not so self-evident in the case of a conflict with the
expectations of the surroundings. Whether the workers perceive the difference between their
expectations and those of someone in their surroundings as morally serious depends on the context
into which they place it. Some social workers take an indifferent attitude to the collision between
the order "to remove a child from the family" and their opinion that this "is an unreasonably
drastic measure that will be harmful to the child in the long run". They may believe that neither
removal of the child nor leaving it in a problematic family will substantially change the child's
fate. In this case the dilemma does not arise. Another group of social workers will perceive the
removal of the child from the family as a step towards the child's deep emotional deprivation that
in their opinion will result in irrecoverable and undesirable changes in the child's personality.
This group of social workers – who are [DEL: morálně citlivějších :DEL] [INS: more sensitive in
moral terms :INS] in this particular case – face a dilemma they will need to cope with somehow.

This does not necessarily mean though that they will agonisingly decide for each child in their
care as to whether to "remove" it or not.

The identification of a dilemma [DEL: řadovým pracovníkem :DEL] [INS: by frontline workers :INS]
does not mean that they take it as a matter of their responsibility to resolve the dilemma.
Fleck-Henderson considers "identifying or constructing" a dilemma to be a process that precedes its
"resolving". He maintains that reading a moral dilemma in a real life situation "is very different
from" resolving it. This suggests that a dilemma that has been identified will not necessarily be
resolved. "It is possible that, when one is routinely faced with certain potentially difficult
choices that were agonized over originally, a resolution becomes morally unproblematic by habit and
justification." (Fleck-Henderson, 1991: 188, 192.) In this sentence Fleck-Henderson systematically
defines the assumptions we can read between the lines in Lipsky.

Lipsky assumes that street-level bureaucrats "often enter public service with some interest in
client-oriented work, embrace professional orientations that call for altruistic behaviour toward
clients, and continually interact with clients, thus regularly confronting client characteristics
and concerns“ (Lipsky, 1980: 144, see also 81–82). Their [DEL: přístup ke klientům bývá ovlivněn
mýty ”altruismu”, ”péče“ a ”zodpovědnosti” a očekáváním profesního společenství, že ”klientovým
potřebám bude dávána přednost” (Lipsky, 1980: 71 :DEL] [DEL: - :DEL] [DEL: 80). ”Ty, kdo si sami
vybrali práci ve veřejných službách, do jisté míry přitahuje vidina, že pomoc jiným lidem :DEL]
[INS: approach to clients :INS] tends to be influenced by the myths of "[INS: altruism :INS] "[INS:
, :INS] "[INS: care :INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: responsibility :INS] "[INS: a :INS]
s[INS: :INS] well as the expectation of the professional communities that their members "[INS: make
clients’ needs primary :INS] "[INS: (Lipsky, 1980: 72, 71 :INS] [INS: - :INS] [INS: 80). :INS]
"[INS: Those who recruit themselves for public service work are a :INS] t[INS: tracted to some
degree by the prospect that :INS] [DEL: dá smysl jejich životu” :DEL] [INS: their lives will gain
meaning through helping others :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980: 72). I believe that these quotations can be
interpreted as a display of Lipsky's conviction that street-level bureaucrats – and social workers
among them – tend to be [DEL: morálně citliví k těm konfliktům očekávání, které se týkají
vstřícnosti vůči potřebám klientů. :DEL] [INS: moral :INS] ly[INS: sensitive :INS] to those [INS:
expectation conflicts :INS] that are related to [INS: responsiv :INS] eness[INS: :INS] towards the
needs [INS: of clients. :INS] Lipsky therefore assumes that the second prerequisite for the
emergence of a dilemma – [DEL: morální citlivost řadových pracovníků vůči konfliktům očekávání
:DEL] [INS: moral sensitivity of frontline workers :INS] to [INS: expectation conflicts :INS]
concerning work with clients – is usually met.

What Lipsky is doubtful about is the tendency of street-level bureaucrats to meet the third of the
above prerequisites for the emergence of an [DEL: neodbytného dilematu :DEL] [INS: importunate
dilemma :INS] – to have the feeling of one's own responsibility for urgently making a difficult
choice. He says indeed that street-level bureaucrats "are functioning effectively and properly
under the constraint they encounter" (Lipsky, 1980: 82) and take "limitations in the work as a
fixed reality rather than a problem with which to grapple" (Lipsky, 1980: 144). Hence, according to
Lipsky, [DEL: Řadoví pracovníci :DEL] f[INS: rontline workers :INS] are [DEL: morálně citliví,
:DEL] [INS: moral :INS] ly[INS: sensitive :INS] and therefore they experience numerous dilemmas in
their work with clients[INS: . :INS] Yet they do not consider themselves to be those to urgently
make difficult decisions that ensue from these dilemmas and assume responsibility for them.

Although they are able to identify dilemmas, they try to make them slip their minds. They commonly
employ approaches that weaken the importunate nature[INS: of dilemmas[INS: [11] :INS] . :INS] The
resolving of "[INS: importunate dilemmas :INS] " is therefore rare in Lipsky's descriptions of
social workers' practice. Instead Lipsky describes the dilemmas that are "latent" by their nature:
although the workers know or at least suspect that they might be confronting a difficult choice
between barely compatible options, they still live with the feeling that the choice does not need
to be made urgently. Rather than being present, [DEL: Konflikt očekávání :DEL] e[INS: xpectation
conflict :INS] is impending. Although the m[DEL: Morální citlivost :DEL] [INS: oral sensitivity
:INS] of workers to it is still present, it ceases to be the object of acute awareness. Sometimes
it weakens significantly due to rationalisations we will discuss at a later point.

For example job counsellors, according to Lipsky, frequently find themselves unable to meet the
expectations of their superior personnel from the perspective of success of unemployed clients in
finding jobs. Actually the success rate significantly depends on circumstances the counsellors are
unable to influence – in particular the situation in the labour market and the clients' qualities
that are difficult to alter in the short run[INS: . :INS] Aspiring to a good rating, the
counsellors prioritise those people when offering vacancies who have good prospects for success at
employers, thanks to which they achieve a satisfying rate of success. Yet the feeling of a job well
done may elude the counsellors, because they have been successful at the expense of [INS: clients
:INS] with less chance for a placement and at odds with the official requirement that all clients
be given the same opportunities. Thus the counsellors are confronted with a dilemma of two
expectations: "either to achieve the expected success rate or behave in an equally [INS: responsive
manner :INS] to all [INS: clients :INS] ". According to Lipsky, they manage to avoid this dilemma
through "blaming the victims". The counsellors mutually affirm to one another that the less
successful clients are hopeless, lazy and unwilling to work, and that working with them would be a
waste of energy that can be dedicated to those who are more hopeful, diligent and interested in
work. (Lipsky, 1980: 107, 153.) From this perspective the selection of the more successful ones
seems to be a rational method of using limited resources. Choosing between success rate and [DEL:
vstřícností ke klientům :DEL] [INS: responsiv :INS] eness[INS: :INS] to clients seems to be less
urgent, the feeling of moral failure ceases to be the object of everyday attention and delight in
success and a good rating is no longer polluted by the feeling of misconduct.

A latent dilemma "treated" in this way "waits" in the minds of the workers for resuscitation of the
circumstances that can restore it to an [DEL: neodbytné. :DEL] [INS: importunate :INS] dilemma[INS:
. :INS] This "waiting" however – depending on the circumstances and the nature of the dilemma – may
take years. If the means of avoiding the dilemma is successful, everything walks along the path of
"out of sight, out of mind". This process can sometimes proceed to a point where the dilemma is
entirely suppressed to the latent phase and nobody bothers any more.

The processes of coping with dilemmas are therefore hard to examine by means of interviews. Workers
fail to talk about their [DEL: latentních dilematech :DEL] [INS: latent dilemmas :INS] for two
reasons. Firstly, they do not find them important if they are suppressed to their latent phase, and
secondly they do not wish to talk about them. Workers are trying to suppress the dilemma to its
latent phase in order to make it "out of sight, out of mind" rather than be "needlessly" reminded
of it, which the researchers do by asking their inquisitive questions.



Rationalisations


In Lipsky's descriptions of coping with dilemmas, contemplations can be found on the fact that the
approach that makes it possible to avoid an impending dilemma is justified in some way (Lipsky,
1980: 82, 140, 153–157, and elsewhere). In the language of this study, Lipsky alerts us to the fact
that the practices instrumental in suppressing a dilemma to the latent phase are often barely
acceptable in moral terms as well as from the perspective of civil rights, political interests,
professional regulations or other aspects. Hence additional, [DEL: druhotné konflikty očekávání,
:DEL] [INS: secondary expectation conflict :INS] s arise for street-level bureaucrats to which they
tend to be [DEL: morálně citliví. :DEL] [INS: moral :INS] ly[INS: sensitive. :INS] The secondary
dilemmas that so emerge are, from the perspective of [INS: frontline workers :INS] [DEL: pracovníků
:DEL] , the result of the practice they use themselves in their own interest. If they are reluctant
to give up such practices, they have no other choice but to "rationalise" their use in some way
(Lipsky, 1980: xiii, 141).

Goffman (1991: 50) describes "rationalisations" as thought stereotypes by means of which the
helping workers can [DEL: dodatečně zdůvodnit, :DEL] [INS: subsequently justify :INS] that what
might seem incorrect is in fact desirable or acceptable for a reason defined by the
rationalisation. Collectively recognised justifications of this sort legitimise either in the eyes
of the workers themselves or in the eyes of clients as well as public authorities an approach
employed by the organisation in the work with clients, which is debatable for some reason (Goffman,
1991: 80–88, 330).

According to Lipsky, rationalisations rely on prejudices - in particular those prejudices that are
related to clients' characteristics[INS: . :INS] Street-level bureaucrats embrace the prevailing
biases of the society and along the same lines they summarise in a simplified way or hastily
generalise the prevailing features of those categories of clients that show some identical
characteristics (Lipsky, 1980: 142, 155). Although such summarises are not entirely untrue, they
often fail if we want to assume from them the characteristics of individual clients[INS: . :INS]
The problem is that street-level bureaucrats "strongly believe"[12] in their validity for
individual cases. This means that they assume and act in a [INS: prejudiced manner :INS] on their
basis[INS: . :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: xiii, 142.)

Rationalisations are difficult to identify. Their advocates trust them and do not doubt that they
are a faithful reflection of the actual meaning and "biography" of their treatment of clients[INS:
. :INS] To put it more accurately, over time people lose the ability to distinguish between the
plausibility [DEL: dodatečného zdůvodnění :DEL] [INS: of subsequent justification :INS] of a
practical principle and the original circumstances of its emergence.

Let us take the example of debtors' counsellors who will be discussed in Chapter 7. In 1980s the
inrush of the unemployed made them attenuate the provision of long-term immaterial help and brought
them to offer just short-term material help to their clients[INS: . :INS] Some were frustrated by
the situation and left their jobs. Material help without the possibility of training the clients in
promoting their interests by their own strength did not make sense in counsellors’ opinions. Under
the pressure of increasing job stress, the other counsellors resigned from earlier attempts to
"activate" poor clients by organising a "social action". They decided to provide at least
short-term "first aid" to the clients[INS: . :INS] They ceased to provide a combination of material
and immaterial help and publicly justified this change by claiming that only thus can they help at
least the most needy clients[INS: . :INS] They declared themselves to be "condemned to care for the
poor" and decided that only "people who have predominantly material problems" would receive their
help from then on, while people "who have predominantly immaterial problems" would have to appeal
elsewhere. They claimed that this was their response to growing poverty. (Laan, 1998a: 23.)

It is difficult to tell to what extent this public declaration was a display of an honest
conviction. It is more than likely that for the fired advocates of "social action", the breakaway
of [DEL: ”první pomoci” :DEL] "[INS: first aid :INS] " for those with material difficulties from
the attempt to empower clients in the long run in their struggle for civil rights was at least
difficult. We can therefore assume that the justification of the resignation to immaterial help by
solidarity with the poor could be a [DEL: dodatečným odůvodněním změny přístupu, :DEL] [INS:
subsequent justification :INS] of the change [INS: of approach :INS] necessitated by growing
unemployment. The advocates of politicising social work usually regard the paying of [DEL: hmotné
pomoci :DEL] [INS: financial as :INS] s[INS: istance :INS] to be a tool for keeping the poor
obedient. The question therefore creeps in as to whether they can possibly believe that they can
help their clients by what they until recently considered to be "giving alms".

The problem is that the question put this way can only be answered by the above former advocates of
political action – the authors of the assumed rationalisation. These would probably repeat the
already mentioned justification that – as I assume – probably helped them suppress the difficult
dilemma between the original ideals of the political articulation of the interests of the poor and
the loss of the possibility to patiently train, in their working hours, crowds of debtors in
political resistance to banks. They could not accept the question of an [INS: external observer
:INS] as to whether their arguments are a rationalisation of a fact difficult to accept. Had they
done so, the dilemma they want to avoid would rise before them in full strength and the spell of
rationalisation would pass. It might therefore be immoral to ask them about the actual grounds of
their justification of the approach they have chosen.

Obviously, rationalisations are a hard nut for those who want to understand the reason for
employing certain principles of work with the client. But there is no need to worry one's head
about it. The purpose of getting to know the culture of a certain group of social workers is not to
determine whether someone is deceiving his or herself or whether they have in fact changed their
opinion. This task must be thrown away. It is more important and ethical to seek answers to three
questions when learning to know an organisation: "What dilemma could the assumed rationalisation
help to cope with according to the workers of the organisation?"; "In what and why, according to
them, could the expectation conflict they probably attenuate through rationalisation, be sensitive
in moral terms[INS: ? :INS] "; "What do they think they could gain if they – as we assume – avoid
the dilemma?" If we find answers to these questions, we will understand what working conditions the
workers might find contradictory, why the same conditions could from their perspective bring the
difficult choice between the incompatible options and why they might find it expedient to avoid the
choice. This can help us understand from what standpoints the workers of the given organisation are
used to perceiving their work with clients[INS: . :INS] In this way we will attain hypotheses on
the culture of their organisation instead of becoming uninvited and incompetent judges of their
conduct in an attempt to judge the plausibility of the justification of a practice.



The culture of an organisation as a collective manual for avoiding dilemmas


In his whole book about street-level bureaucrats Lipsky describes the ways of avoiding the dilemmas
in work with the client as collectively employed behavioural as well as mental patterns of practice
(see especially Lipsky, 1980: 81–86, 225, etc.) and refers to them as organisational processes (see
especially Lipsky, 1980: 82, 144–146, 155–156, etc.). It can therefore be said that Lipsky
interprets habitual patterns and symbolic constructs that enable [DEL: řadovým pracovníkům :DEL]
[INS: frontline workers :INS] to cope with equivocal working conditions and dilemmas of work with
the client as the elements of the culture of the organisations[13] he calls "street-level
bureaucracies".

Lipsky looks at the culture of these organisations from a specific standpoint. He understands it as
a tool which allows the workers of street-level bureaucracies to maintain the dilemmas of work with
clients in their latent[DEL: ní :DEL] , less urgent form. Lipsky says that the patterns of routines
and rationalisations used by street-level bureaucrats as "coping strategies" are "psychological
adaptations apparently required by [their] jobs", they "arise in street-level work in response to
job stress" and have "psychological importance" for [DEL: řadové pracovníky :DEL] [INS: frontline
workers :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 86, 140, 151, see also 142, 145, 152). It can therefore be said that
according to Lipsky, the culture of an organisation functions as prevention of the psychological
stress that would accompany coping with [INS: importunate dilemmas. :INS]

A frequent and immediate choice between incompatible responses to the client and his or her
problems would be extremely demanding for frontline workers in psychological terms. It is therefore
understandable that street-level bureaucrats try to avoid this stress. They do this by collectively
creating and routinely employing patterns of interaction with clients and rationalisations that
allow them to push [DEL: neodbytná dilemata :DEL] [INS: importunate dilemmas :INS] beyond the scope
of everyday attention. This routine putting off or overlooking of impending [DEL: konfliktů
očekávání :DEL] [INS: expectation conflicts :INS] is "programmed" in the organisation's culture by
means of stabilised habits and their justifications. Thus the culture allows the workers to avoid
everyday repetition of psychologically stressful decisions between equally unacceptable or,
alternatively, equally tempting options.

The patterns of interaction with clients and their rationalisation, which make it possible for
[DEL: řadovým pracovníkům :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] in organisations to routinely avoid
[DEL: neodbytná dilemata, :DEL] [INS: importunate dilemmas, :INS] become a common part of the [INS:
approach :INS] of street-level bureaucrats [DEL: ke klientům. :DEL] [INS: to clients. :INS] The
process of creating such practices and their secondary justification is at the same time a process
during which the approach to clients and its key elements are created or become finalised. I am
using here the term "approach to clients" for the stabilised and collectively recognised way in
which helping workers are used to responding to the client[INS: . :INS] The key elements of the
approach so construed are firstly the preferences[14] the workers try to achieve in treating their
clients, secondly the stereotypes[15] from the perspective of which the workers perceive and
interpret the characteristics of the clients[INS: , :INS] and thirdly the rules of behaviour[16]
following which the workers are used to act during interactions with the clients and other
participants in their life situations.

In terms of preferences, Lipsky builds on the assumption that the driving force in avoiding
dilemmas is an attempt of street-level bureaucrats towards "making their jobs psychologically
easier to manage" (Lipsky, 1980: 141). It is also important for them "to retain a concept of their
own adequacy in the job", which in their eyes means that they can "assert that they are doing what
they think is best they can do" and that "they try to do a good job in some way" (Lipsky, 1980:
81–82). In order to fulfil these preferences, they categorise [DEL: klienty pomocí zjednodušujících
a prejudical :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] using [INS: simplified and prejudiced :INS] stereotypes,
using which they [DEL: odůvodňují :DEL] [INS: justify :INS] the fact that they treat different
categories of clients using different rules and provide to them services of variable quality. In
this way they can offer to at least a part of the clients a "performance relatively consistent with
ideal conceptions of the job" and retain the conviction that they are "capable of doing the job
well". (Lipsky, 1980: 151.) From this perspective, the [DEL: Přístup ke klientům :DEL] a[INS:
pproach to clients :INS] is the result of the process of coping with the equivocal working
conditions, and the dilemmas and psychological tensions these working conditions bring in the eyes
of [INS: frontline workers. :INS]



Avoiding dilemmas in social work service organisations


In the following chapters I will deal with the question of how, according to published research
results, the prevention of frequently repeated psychologically stressful confrontation with the
dilemmas of work with the client is ensured in the culture of social work service organisations.

The notion "social work services" refers to the fact that social workers usually accomplish the
goals of their intervention using services they mediate instead of providing them directly. In
doing so, they sometimes participate in accomplishing the intentions of other specialists, such as
judges, doctors, etc. It is hence useful to discriminate between social work itself and the complex
of helping services the social workers' activities are part of. In every individual instance,
workers of various helping jobs[17] become involved in the operation of such a complex and in
practice the complex contributes in one way or another to the accomplishment of the goals of
workers from all these jobs. From this perspective, the following question can be asked: "How does
a specific complex of services of various helping fields working with specific clients contribute
to the fulfilment of the goals of social work?" This question is determining for the definition of
the term "social work services". I will be using it to refer to specific complexes of helping
services whenever reflecting on their operation from the perspective of this question[18].

When examining the "social work services" defined in this manner, the primary goal of social work
will be for me, in accordance with the traditions of this field (see Bartlett, 1970; Navrátil,
Musil, 2000: 138–145), the provision of help in coping with difficult life situations by
strengthening the balance of interactions between the varied characteristics of clients
(individuals or groups) and the varied characteristics of their social environment. Fulfilment of
this goal depends on the ability of social workers to take into account the life situation of the
client as a whole. Two derived, secondary goals of social work start here. The first one is to
observe, during work with a specific client, the goals that are laid down on the basis of findings
on the varied types of relevant barriers[19] to coping with difficult life situation [DEL: klientem
:DEL] [INS: by :INS] the [INS: client :INS] as well as on the basis of findings on connections
between these barriers[20]. The second goal, which derives from the mutual conditionality of the
varied circumstances [DEL: klientova života, :DEL] [INS: of :INS] the [INS: client’s life, :INS] is
to ensure during work with the specific client a sequence of actions of those helping jobs the
services of which are relevant for coping with the situation by the given client[DEL: klientem
:DEL] . Neither the social worker nor his or her client can indeed exist without co-operation with
specialists from other helping jobs in overcoming individual parts of the complex of obstacles to
coping with a difficult life situation. (Musil, 1999.)

I will use the term "social work service organisations" in this study for the "social [INS: work
service agencies :INS] "[INS: [INS: [21] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] or "[INS: social work service
teams :INS] "[INS: [INS: [22] :INS] :INS] [INS: , :INS] the workers of which participate in various
ways in the fulfilment of social work goals within the social work service complexes.

From Lipsky's perspective, social work service organisations defined in this way are a specific
type of street-level bureaucracy. Some [DEL: případové studie :DEL] [INS: case studies :INS] of
social work service organisations describe how their [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline
workers :INS] cope with those dilemmas that Lipsky believes are typical for street-level
bureaucracies. The second, third and fourth chapters are dedicated to them. Apart from this the
research of the culture of social work service organisations brings findings on coping with
dilemmas not mentioned by Lipsky. These are dealt with in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth
chapters. The question remains as to whether these dilemmas have stayed beyond Lipsky's attention
because they are specific for the social work service organisations and do not apply to the
operation of street-level bureaucracies in general. Whether the answer to this question is positive
or negative, it is certain that researchers identify ways of coping with dilemmas in social work
service organisations that are in many respects similar to the patterns of routines and
rationalisations found by Lipsky in all street-level bureaucracies.


chapter 2

[DEL: KOMPLEXNÍ NEBO ZJEDNODUŠENÉ CÍLE :DEL] [INS: COMPLEX OR SIMPLIFIED GOALS :INS]



Lipsky (1980, 82–85) regards [DEL: zjednodušování cílů :DEL] [INS: simplification of goals :INS] as
one of the three ways in which social work service people – as with other categories of street
level bureaucrats – cope with the overall uncertainty of the conditions of their work. Their work
is characterised by a relatively high level of discretion. As a rule, resources (mainly capacity)
are not sufficient for the tasks. Any improvement in the provided (free) services results in an
increased demand for them. The performance of [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] is difficult to
measure. Working goals tend to be ambiguous, uncertain or even contradictory. [DEL: Klienti :DEL]
[INS: Clients :INS] often do not come voluntarily and they often do not belong in the social strata
with which the workers would associate their personal aspirations. (Lipsky, 1980: 27-28.)

According to Lipsky (1980: 83–85), social work service people cope with these conditions in three
ways: [DEL: zjednodušováním složitých cílů, omezováním poptávky :DEL] [INS: by simplification of
complex goals, :INS] by [INS: limiting demand :INS] and by treating clients unequally based on
[DEL: předsudků. :DEL] [INS: prejudices. :INS] Using each of these three ways of handling the
uncertainty of the working situation is connected with a specific dilemma. [DEL: Zjednodušování
cílů :DEL] [INS: Simplification of goals :INS] installs a dilemma between [DEL: komplexností a
zjednodušováním. Omezování poptávky provází dilema :DEL] [INS: complexity and simplification.
Limiting demand :INS] is a phenomenon accompanying the dilemma between the quality of services and
the quantity of clients[INS: . :INS] Unequal treatment of clients opens the dilemma between a [DEL:
neutrálním přístupem bez předsudků :DEL] [INS: neutral approach :INS] without [INS: prejudices
:INS] and discriminating between [INS: clients :INS] depending on the characteristics attributed to
them [INS: in :INS] a [INS: prejudiced manner. :INS]

This chapter is dedicated to the [DEL: předsudečně přisuzovány. :DEL]

dilemma between [DEL: komplexností a zjednodušováním :DEL] [INS: complexity and simplification
:INS] . Chapter three discusses the dilemma between quality and quantity, while the dilemma between
neutrality and favouritism is treated in Chapter four.

The dilemma between [DEL: komplexností a zjednodušováním cílů práce s klientem :DEL] [INS:
complexity and simplification of goals :INS] in the work with clients follows from the vagueness of
goals of social work services. I will therefore commence by describing the circumstances that cause
this vagueness. I will define the dilemma between [DEL: komplexností a zjednodušováním, :DEL] [INS:
complexity and simplification, :INS] which is an accompanying phenomenon of coping with the
vagueness of goals, and describe the ways of solving it mentioned by Lipsky. I will conclude by
giving practical examples illustrating some of the solutions described by Lipsky.



Reasons for the vagueness of the goals of social work services


Even the simplest goal of social work services cannot be unambiguous and clear. Even providing a
subsistence level benefit tends to be accompanied by contradictory feelings: "Is the [DEL: dávka
pomocí v nouzi, :DEL] [INS: assistance benefit help in need :INS] or support for laziness?"; "Is it
an act of solidarity or disdain?"; "Will its provision free the hands of the drowning man or result
in an even stronger dependence of the helpless?" The sheer fact that providing public services is
always connected with their moral justification and evaluation (Hasenfeld, 1983: 9) results in an
ambiguity in public services' goals. However, there are more reasons for the ambiguity.

The goals of public services tend to be phrased in a way that says [DEL: ”spíše vzdálené horizonty
než jasné úkoly” :DEL] "[INS: more like receding horizons than fixed targets :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980:
40). They usually convey a moral vision, a dreamt-of ideal of society that builds on that vision.
However, different people associate different conceptions with ideals that in their eyes should
justify the provision of a public service. A broad acceptance of a goal therefore requires that its
public phrasing express just the rough contours of the ideal. The goal tends to be defined just in
general so that different parts of the public can associate it with their own idealised
conceptions. The workers who provide the services have no other option but to do the same and
specify the general goal in their own way.

The ambiguity of goals sometimes results from the attempt of the designers of a specific programme
of services to avoid the conflicts that accompany its phrasing. Inability to openly resolve the
conflict between differing conceptions takes the creators of the programme to a situation where the
unmanaged conflict[DEL: ”zahalí” :DEL] "[INS: is submerged :INS] " by phrasing a goal that is
broadly accepted but misty. In this way the clarity of goals can be exchanged in the process of
programme design for the political stability of the coalition that presently governs the municipal
council, to give an example. The resolution[DEL: Konflikt potom řeší (nebo ”soustavně neřeší”)
administrátoři programu – manažeři a pracovníci :DEL] [INS: ( :INS] or "[INS: continued
irresolution :INS] "[INS: ) :INS] is then a matter for the programme administrators [INS: – :INS]
managers and social work service people. (Lipsky, 1980: 41.) Under these circumstances, the
helplessness of street-level bureaucrats[DEL: bývá :DEL] tends to be accompanied by (frequently
vain) waiting for "implementing regulations" and "methodological guidance" of the respective
programme. If the administrators put the unclear goals of the programme more precisely in their own
way, they may be appreciated for their initiative. On the other hand they may face criticism from
those programme-makers for whom the conflict veiled by the misty phrasing of goals remained
unresolved and who regard the precision of programme goals chosen by the administrators to be
unsatisfactory. An attempt to veil these new conflicts once again may result in an "[INS: accretion
:INS] " of contradictions that have never been openly named (Lipsky, 1980: 41).

"Uncertainty of social service technologies" can be another reason for ambiguity of goals (Lipsky,
1980: 41; Hasenfeld, 1983: 9). With a limited knowledge of the reasons for the life difficulties
[DEL: klientů, :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] that tend to be[DEL: ”složitě propleteny a mění se od
člověka k člověku” :DEL] "[INS: highly interrelated and yet vary from person to person :INS] "
(Hasenfeld, 1983: 9–10), it is not always clear whether and mainly how the expected goals can be
achieved. In this situation there is usually a growing willingness to adapt objectives to
technologies that promise success. An attempt to change goals can then be either a display of
flexibility or rather the opposite, helplessness or indecisiveness. (Lipsky, 1980: 41.)

Apart from moral, political and technological uncertainty, differences in expectations among the
entities involved in the provision of public services may result in vagueness or contradictory
social work service goals. Lipsky (1980: 41–48) describes three categories of such conflicts:

Firstly, conflicts between [DEL: cíli zaměřenými na klienta a představami veřejnosti o úloze
organizace, která poskytuje určitý typ služeb, ve společnosti. :DEL] [INS: client-centred goals and
public demands on the general social role of the agency. :INS] An example of these can be the
conflict between attempts of an approved school at the social rehabilitation of delinquents and the
expectation of the public that the institution will primarily ensure the isolation its wards and
the protection of society from them.

Secondly, conflicts between [DEL: cíli zaměřenými na klienta a cíli organizace. :DEL] [INS:
client-centred goals and organi :INS] s[INS: ation-centred goals :INS] can be the source of an
ambiguous situation[INS: . :INS] A typical example of this type of conflict is the clash between an
attempt to provide individualised services to a large number of clients or in other words to cope
with a large number of clients, and scarce personnel[23].

Thirdly, the consistency of goals can be disturbed by conflicts that are the result of [INS:
multiple street-level bureaucrats’ role expectations of conflicting reference groups :INS] –
representatives of the public, workers of various helping professions, [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS:
clients :INS] , etc. These groups create a "[INS: turbulent environment :INS] "[INS: :INS] in the
organisation[INS: , :INS] which "[INS: is composed of :INS] [DEL: ”prostředí” :DEL] [DEL:
organizace, které ”sestává z mnoha zájmových skupin” . Každá z nich ”se pokouší prostřednictvím
organizace uskutečňovat své hodnoty a dosahovat své cíle”. :DEL] [INS: many interest groups :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] Each of them tries "[INS: to achieve its values and aims through the organi :INS]
s[INS: ation :INS] "[INS: . :INS] (Hasenfeld, 1983: 9.) The number and social diversity of these
interest groups increases the likelihood that the organisation will aspire to fulfil barely
compatible or contradictory goals.



Coping with unclear, competing goals


The uncertainty and ambiguity of a working situation that arises as a result of the said
circumstances is coped with by the [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] by giving specificity to
the goals that are too misty from their perspective and by choosing those from among the competing
goals that they believe are compatible[INS: . :INS] Thus [INS: frontline workers :INS] "[INS:
modify :INS] "[INS: :INS] the goals of their work and create "[INS: their conceptions of the job
:INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: (Lipsky, 1980: 83, 145). :INS] From their perspective, this has a dual
purpose.

Firstly, this allows them to "[INS: reduce the gap between available resources and achieving
objectives :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980: 83). To create one's own conception of goals means to transform
their idealised, contradictory and barely compatible phrasings into clear tasks that are executable
using the available resources. In the workers' eyes, this narrows the gap between intentions and
what seems to be feasible and achievable.

Secondly, using their own conception of goals frontline workers[DEL: ”racionalizují nesrovnalosti
mezi ideálem služby a službami, které poskytují” :DEL] "[INS: rationali :INS] s[INS: e the
discrepancy between service ideals and service provision :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980: 140). In other
words, modification helps [DEL: řadovým pracovníkům :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] justify the
correctness of practically implemented goals if they feel a contradiction between the "service
ideal" adopted by themselves and the expectation of other entities. If specified and chosen goals
are adopted by a team of co-workers, their conception of the goals becomes the [DEL: ”ideologií”
:DEL] "[INS: ideology :INS] " of the group or organisation and [DEL: řadoví pracovníci u něj :DEL]
[INS: frontline workers :INS] find support in it for their conviction that the conception of goals
practiced by them is correct (Lipsky, 1980: 144[INS: –146 :INS] ).

Phrasing [DEL: ”vlastního pojetí cílů práce” :DEL] "[INS: their conception of the job :INS] "
usually results in a certain [DEL: zjednodušení složité :DEL] [INS: simplification of :INS] a [INS:
complex :INS] and contradictory set of expectations of various entities. It therefore tends to be
accompanied by a dilemma between the tendency[DEL: ”vyhnout se pohledu na svou práci jako na celek”
:DEL] [DEL: a ”oddaností komplexnější soustavě cílů”. :DEL] "[INS: to avoid seeing their work as a
whole :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: allegiance to a more complex set of
goals :INS] "[INS: . :INS] The tendency to evade the complexity of "the whole picture" is
strengthened by the self-preserving desire [DEL: řadových pracovníků :DEL] [INS: of frontline
workers :INS] for feasible goals. The perceived relevance of the [DEL: ”Komplexnější soustavě
cílů”, :DEL] "m[INS: ore complex set of goals :INS] " that tends to be contradictory to the desire
for feasible goals is stressed by the ideals of service adopted earlier and by the authority of the
expectations of superior personnel, representatives of the public, [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS:
clients :INS] and other entities. (Lipsky, 1980:[DEL: 145– :DEL] 14[INS: 5–14 :INS] 7.)

A long-term tension between feasibility and the feeling of excessive [DEL: zjednodušení :DEL] [INS:
simplification :INS] brings qualms of conscience as well as practical difficulties. Deviation from
ideals may disrupt the feeling of meaningfulness of work. Deviation from a publicly recognised task
from superior personnel, politicians or clients increases the unfeasibility of the frontline
workers' approach and vulnerability of their interests when negotiating for resources. Workers
therefore tend to weaken the urgency of the dilemma by "rationalising" their own feasible goals –
they subsequently justify them before both themselves and others[INS: . :INS]

According to Lipsky, three types of argument serve to justify the simplified conception of goals,
the logic of which can be expressed as follows: "At least someone if not everyone." "There are none
so deaf as those who will not hear." "We only do what we're asked for."

The first thesis, "At least someone if not everyone," conveys the conviction that in a situation
where there is not enough time and opportunity to help all clients, it is correct to pay special
attention at least to some of them (Lipsky, 1980: 145). Workers who often genuinely believe in this
justification find it correct to help "the most needy". The selection of the criteria of
"neediness" however often remains in the hands of [INS: frontline workers. :INS] These may, under
the veil of "urgency", pay more attention to a group of [DEL: klientů, :DEL] [INS: clients :INS]
they prefer for other reasons, perhaps because work with them is less difficult.

The thesis "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear" justifies specialisation in those
clients whose characteristics predestine them to co-operate well when standard methodological
approaches are applied. In this case [DEL: Řadoví pracovníci :DEL] f[INS: rontline workers :INS]
have a tendency to perceive clients as part of “[INS: previously established processing categories
:INS] ” and assess their problems along the lines of a well established intervention technology
(Lipsky, 1980: 147). Goals are defined in line with the anticipated effects of the technology and
the workers’ attention focuses on those clients that are capable of successfully achieving these
effects. This approach is given legitimacy through the faith of modern society in the usefulness of
specialisation. The sense of justification of the focus of attention on the "more capable" clients
is also supported by a conviction that there is no point in wasting efforts on work with the "less
capable" clients[INS: . :INS] From this perspective, it is easier for those who are by the common
prejudices considered to be "incapable of remedy" to fall into the category of those who are "deaf
and will not hear", and hence beyond the attention of the workers. These are usually various
minority members, such as the “Roma” people in the Czech Republic, but also those people who are
disabled, former clients of children’s homes, etc.

The third thesis, “We only do what we're asked for,” serves [DEL: řadovým pracovníkům :DEL] [INS:
frontline workers :INS] [INS: :INS] as a tool protecting them from the possibility that they might
begin to deal with what the clients wish[INS: . :INS] Given the diversity of clients and their
situations, this would necessarily result in broadening the variety of goals. Workers reduce the
scope of their power by referring to their own incapacity. By doing so, they try to deny that they
are capable of providing the services the clients expect. They strictly follow regulations or
refuse to make an exception even if they perhaps could. To prove that they actually cannot, they
say: [DEL: ”Tak se věci mají!” ”Takový je zákon!” :DEL] [DEL: (Lipsky, 1980: 149) apod. :DEL]
“[INS: That’s the way things are,” :INS] “[INS: It’s the law, :INS] ”[INS: :INS] etc.[INS: (Lipsky,
1980: 149). :INS] The reference to "relentless rules or regulations" as well as to the notion of
"unchangeable circumstances of the client situation" serves this purpose quite often.



[DEL: Medikalizace :DEL] [INS: Medicali :INS] s[INS: ation :INS]


According to Lipsky, the “medicalisation” of social problems is an example of a widespread ideology
that helps social work service people avoid the dilemma between the [DEL: složitostí cílů a jejich
zjednodušováním, :DEL] [INS: complexity of goals and the :INS] i[INS: r simplification :INS] .
Advocates of this ideology find causes for any troublesome behaviour of people in a personality
deficit in an individual. For them, the main diagnostic principle is the idea that specific
psychological mindsets contribute to the emergence of specific forms of individual action rejected
by the surroundings. They apply this conception without deliberation to all types of behaviour
perceived by society as "troublesome", unpleasant or threatening. The likelihood of [INS:
simplification :INS] is considerable in this type of interpretation. It is particularly obvious for
example in "[INS: rebellious behavio :INS] u[INS: r :INS] " and other displays of non-compliance or
rejection of established order. In these cases behaviour that responds to the approach of society’s
institutions is simply labelled [DEL: za důsledek ”nemoci” :DEL] "[INS: as mere sickness :INS] " of
the individual. It is assumed in line with the general anticipation that an individual so-labelled
will accept the “sick” status including the living conditions and remedial tools considered
appropriate by society in the individual’s particular instance. (Lipsky, 1980: 148.)

The implicit logic and effects of [INS: medicali :INS] s[INS: ation :INS] are analysed in more
detail by Matoušek (1999: 38–47) who speaks about three [DEL: ”idolech” :DEL] ”[INS: icons :INS] ”
– “personality defect”, “evident diagnosis” and “the only just response”. Matoušek has encountered
these in Czech facilities.

Matoušek maintains that with the “[INS: icon of personality defect :INS] ”, the facility wards are
regarded as carriers of a diagnostic label rather than integral personalities. For example in
detention facilities human individuals are identified by the staff with their disease or problem.
Hence they become a “psychopath”, “deviant”, “alcoholic”, “encephalopath”, “psychotic”, etc. He
believes that the less drastic “granny” or “grandpa” plays a similar role in homes for elderly
people, which – uttered with a superior informality – stresses “advanced age” as the underlying
cause of all problems. The author points out that some of the said labels “may be reasonable at
expert forums where they simplify communication between professionals”. In facilities however they
“completely declass” the individual in the eyes of everyone he or she comes into contact with.
(Matoušek, 1999: 38.) In other words, they attribute to him or her the status of a subordinate,
sometimes also inferior and by all means a dependent individual.

Matoušek further illustrates the simplifying nature of [DEL: medikalizace :DEL] [INS: medicali
:INS] s[INS: ation :INS] by describing the icons “[INS: of evident diagnosis :INS] ”[INS: a :INS]
nd[INS: :INS] “[INS: of the only just response :INS] ”[INS: . :INS] The earlier rests on a
conviction that “it is possible to identify with final validity the set of causes of the condition
of the client”[INS: . :INS] The ideal of “precise diagnostics” has according to Matoušek penetrated
into the helping professions from medicine. Medicine has a high prestige and is therefore emulated:
psychologists have “psychodiagnostics”, social workers come up with their “social diagnoses”,
criminologists plunge into “penitentiary diagnoses”, etc. (Matoušek, 1999: 45).

According to Matoušek, diagnostics of this type rest on a simplifying idea that phenomena “with
complex determination” can be explained unambiguously, while in fact the unambiguous explanation is
dubious. In reality “precise diagnostics” are based on the results of statistical analyses of the
effect of various factors on the emergence of troublesome behaviour. The author warns that “all
these diagnoses will always remain mere hypotheses that will never be capable of explaining in an
exhaustive, definitive way all the phenomena they refer to.” For example, nobody “can say with
final validity why a certain woman left her husband and children on a certain day, just like it is
impossible to definitively establish why in the night a certain young man broke the windows of the
cars parked in front of the house he lives in”. (Matoušek, 1999: 45.)

Matoušek further notes that by setting down a diagnosis, the author of the diagnosis “anticipates
the further handling” of the diagnosed person. This takes us to the “[INS: icon of the only just
response” :INS] [INS: . :INS] “Proper treatment” should follow after a proper diagnosis, defined by
a binding description and prescription. Hence if an expert says that parents “harass a child”, he
or she directs their “treatment” elsewhere than if his “diagnosis” were to be ”unreasonable
punishing” of the child. In the earlier instance the child is removed, while in the latter parental
counselling is likely to follow rather than removal of the child from the family. Matoušek points
out that the diagnostic definition and its consequences for the life of the whole family are set
regardless of the fact that “it is impossible to find an exact criterion anchoring a boundary
between harassment and unreasonable punishment”. (Matoušek, 1999: 46.)

However, the i[DEL: Ideologie medikalizace :DEL] [INS: deology of medicalisation :INS] knows a
solution to this problem. If we complete the story of the “diagnosed” violence of the parents from
the perspective of medicalisation ideology, it will be as follows: the expert makes sure whether
“harassment” or “unreasonable punishment” took place based on whether he or she himself or herself
has identified the troublesome behaviour of the parents as the result of the parents’ “sickness”.
If so, the parents’ behaviour will be sufficiently pathological and it will be “harassment”. If
not, the child will not be regarded as one threatened by a pathological environment and
“unreasonable punishment” will be the case.

The question arises as to what such precise diagnosing, simplifying, undermining the status of the
client and predestining clear approaches for frontline workers in social work services is good for.
Lipsky gives two purposes. Firstly, [DEL: Medikalizace, :DEL] m[INS: edicali :INS] s[INS: ation
:INS] makes control over the client easier (Lipsky, 1980: 148). I will follow on this issue in
Chapter 5.

In this chapter, we are interested in the second reason, the fact that [DEL: medikalizace :DEL]
[INS: medicali :INS] sa[INS: tion :INS] justifies [DEL: zjednodušení cílů práce s klientem. :DEL]
[INS: simplification of goals :INS] of the work with the client[INS: . :INS] This happens in two
ways. Firstly, thinking from the perspective of [DEL: medikalizace, za prvé, ”skýtá pracovníkovi
ochranu před osobní odpovědností tím, že za chování klienta činí odpovědný vývoj jeho fyzického
nebo :DEL] [INS: medicali :INS] s[INS: ation :INS] [INS: ”provides a defen :INS] c[INS: e against
personal responsibility of the worker by resting responsibility for clients in their physical or
:INS] [DEL: psychického zdraví” :DEL] [INS: psychological development :INS] “ (Lipsky, 1980: 148).
Pointing to the personality deficit [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: of the client :INS] has a similar
role here as the above-described referring to the power restricted by the relentless regulation.
Face to face with the mental problems of the client, the worker can justify his or her helplessness
or unwillingness by stating that “all in all, nothing more can be done for a person with such a
diagnosis”.

In addition, m[DEL: Medikalizace, :DEL] [INS: edicali :INS] s[INS: ation :INS] justifies [DEL:
zjednodušení cílů tím, že řadovým pracovníkům nabízí ”jasné vymezení problémů klienta způsobem,
který umožňuje formulovat další postup” :DEL] [INS: simplification of :INS] goals[INS: :INS] by
offering [INS: frontline workers :INS] a [INS: ”clear statement of clients :INS] '[INS: problems in
terms of which responses can be formulated :INS] ” (Lipsky, 1980: 148). Focusing on the personality
deficit [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: of the client :INS] justifies the fact that the worker focuses
only on partial aspects of the client’s situation that are important from the perspective of the
organisation and official approach, and he or she proceeds in the prescribed way (Howe, 1986: 76).
If the origin of undesirable behaviour is as complex and uncertain as Matoušek states above, the
question arises of why so many people believe that a “final diagnosis” can be set. It seems that
wishful thinking comes into play here. Social work service people need to argue clearly and
compellingly in the official process while somehow coping with the suspicion that their official
arguing is strongly simplifying. The magical clarity of an unambiguous and statistically
justifiable explanation of the troublesome conduct [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] lets
them forget the complexity and uncertainty of the circumstances that have in each individual
instance resulted in an undesirable development. Dazzled by the well-arranged diagnosis, they
become convinced that their explanation is correct. They can put aside the complicated reflection
of the disarranged mess of circumstances, the chain of which has lead the “deviant” to his or her
misconduct. In an official process (such as before a court), such a reflection would after all be
regarded as “confused and inconclusive“.

According to Lipsky (1980: 148), the said motives [DEL: řadových pracovníků :DEL] [INS: of
frontline workers :INS] explain the[DEL: ”popularitu” :DEL] [DEL: a ”hegemonii” ideologie
medikalizace. :DEL] “[INS: attraction :INS] ”[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: ”hegemony” ideology
of medicalisation. :INS] It is therefore reasonable to assume that we might take the same reasons
to explain the unwillingness of lawyers from the experiment in Beielfield, Germany, who were
reluctant to accept a more [INS: complex approach :INS] to resolve the cases of juvenile
delinquents.


The Bielefeld experiment


The experiment described by Otto (1989: 526–531) departed from criticism of German social work in
justice, which was assaulted in the 1970s for strengthening the overseeing functions of courts
instead of “offering alternatives to punitive measures” (Otto, 1989: 525). As a response to this
criticism, an attempt was made to change the role of the social worker in justice. The experiment
that took place in Bielefeld was based on the rejection of the [DEL: medikalizace :DEL] [INS:
medicali :INS] s[INS: ation :INS] of juvenile delinquency.

The judicial practice controlled by lawyers was based on an understanding that the cause of
deviations in juvenile delinquents is a “personality deficit” (Otto, 1989: 526). It was assumed
that the more serious the deviant display is, the more serious the deficit from which the deviation
stems, and the fiercer the court’s intervention should be. Social workers’ task was to handle the
[DEL: deficit osobnosti provinilce, :DEL] [INS: delinquent’s personality deficit :INS] if that was
at all possible.

Criminology research supported the assumption of a normal personality in many juvenile delinquents.
Using this argument, social workers in the 1980s tried to replace the existing “model [DEL:
osobnostního deficitu” :DEL] [DEL: alternativním ”modelem osobnosti delikventa v situaci”(Otto,
:DEL] [INS: of personality deficit” :INS] [INS: :INS] with the alternative “[INS: model of :INS]
the [INS: delinquent’s personality in :INS] the [INS: situation” :INS] [INS: (Otto, :INS] 1989:
526). The objective was no longer to assess the penalty appropriate to the level of insufficiency
of personality, but rather to involve the juvenile in resolving the consequences of his or her
offence. It was therefore necessary to focus attention on the circumstances of the offence and its
consequences both for the victim and the juvenile delinquent.

At the same time the role of the social worker was supposed to change. His or her task was no
longer to supply pedagogical data into a definition of a case given by the court or to carry out
the pedagogical part of a penalty assessed by the court. Instead, the social worker was supposed to
employ a wider range of alternative interventions, making sure that both the offender and the
victim participate in the deciding on the case, and present proposals to the court for a solution
of the case.

Otto notes that social workers tried to apply the said principles in an experimental way. They
dealt with the circumstances and consequences of delinquent behaviour. They organised an exchange
of views between the offender and his or her victim. They helped the juveniles surmise the
consequences of their acts. To help the juveniles understand the relations between people and the
effect of breaching norms on others, they conducted interviews with them based on a thought
reconstruction of the causes of the act and its meaning for the offender and the victim. The
interviews showed that the subjective perception of the circumstances of the breaching of the norm
differ in individual delinquents. Based on the differences between the juveniles' view of the
circumstances of their own offence, the differences in the development of the relationship between
culprit and victim and differences in the changing approach of the juveniles to their own offence,
it seemed to be sensible to formulate different solutions to[DEL: jednotlivých případů. :DEL] [INS:
:INS] the [INS: individual cases. :INS]

The proposals won recognition with difficulty, according to the quoted author. Social workers
co-operated with the state's attorneys for juveniles and presented them informally their own ideas
for solving the cases. However, the ideology [DEL: ”osobnostního deficitu” :DEL] [INS: of :INS]
"[INS: personality deficit :INS] " continued to have a crucial effect on the courts'
decision-making. On the other hand, some minor compromises were reached under the condition of
preserving the dominance of the state's attorneys. (Several attempts were made to appeal to young
culprits during interviews at the office of the state's attorney for juveniles.) However, the
justice staff continued to insist that the case solution goals be defined from the perspective of
[DEL: ”osobnostního deficitu”, :DEL] "[INS: personality deficit :INS] "[INS: , :INS] a conception
preferred by the state's attorney.

Otto unfortunately does not deal with the reasons causing the unwillingness of justice staff to
accept the social workers' proposals. He confines himself to mentioning that the suitability of the
"[INS: personality deficit :INS] " was difficult to deny in serious crimes (Otto, 1989: 531). I
will therefore try to suggest several hypotheses, using Lipsky's assumptions concerning the reasons
for the popularity of medicalisation, about what might have caused the lawyers' unwillingness to
accept the point of the "[INS: delinquent’s personality in situation :INS] ", and formulate the
objectives of justice in a broader way.

It is not impossible that the state's attorneys and judges rejected the "personality in situation"
point because accepting it would mean strengthening the authority of social workers and hence
weakening the authority of lawyers in justice. Preserving the "[INS: personality deficit :INS] "
model might have become an instrument for the lawyers for retaining the power they were used to in
their organisation.

Another reason for the lawyers' unwillingness could be the fact that applying a [DEL:
komplexnějšího modelu ”osobnosti delikventa v situaci” :DEL] [INS: more complex model of :INS]
a[INS: :INS] "[INS: delinquent’s personality in situation :INS] " cast doubts on the legitimacy of
the still used [DEL: zjednodušeného :DEL] [INS: simplified :INS] approach to goals. The lawyers to
whom faith in the appropriateness of the "personality deficit" model had given a feeling of the
correctness of their own [DEL: přístupu, :DEL] [INS: approach :INS] up to that time[INS: , :INS]
might have feared that the proposals of the social workers would cast doubts on their professional
competence. The social workers' suggestions may have drawn the attention of the lawyers to the
previously neglected aspects of the cases being solved and provoked in them previously suppressed
doubts concerning the suitability of the applied [DEL: zjednodušení. :DEL] [INS: simplifications.
:INS] The lawyers were able to suppress these doubts by promoting the older approach and clinging
to its "correctness".

The next reason for failing to accept the model of the "[INS: delinquent’s personality in situation
:INS] " could be that the model of a "[INS: personality deficit :INS] " makes the application of
solutions prescribed by the law easier. Thinking in the categories of law strengthens the lawyers'
tendency to choose "the only just response" among the options defined by the law. This may be why
they clung to the trains of thought of the medicalisation ideology[INS: , :INS] which sees a clear
link between a downright diagnosis and the corresponding solution process. Casting doubt on the
habit of setting the "intensity of the penalty" based on the "magnitude of the offence" and the
depth[DEL: ”osobnostního deficitu”, :DEL] of the "[INS: personality deficit :INS] " regarded as its
cause, may have caused the lawyers' decision-making difficulties.



Avoiding alcoholism at the welfare department


How the justification of [DEL: zjednodušených cílů, :DEL] [INS: simplified goals :INS] may look in
practice is shown by a study of the [DEL: přístupu :DEL] [INS: approach :INS] of workers at a
county welfare department in California to applicants for [DEL: dávky sociální pomoci, :DEL]
welfare [INS: benefits :INS] with alcohol abuse problems (Schmidt, 1990: 390–401).

The department workers considered dealing with applications for welfare benefits to be their main
task[INS: . :INS] They faced the issue that there were [DEL: podstatná část žadatelů měla ”problémy
s pitím” :DEL] "[INS: a substa :INS] n[INS: tial num :INS] b[INS: er of cases involving problem
drinking in public assistance caseloads :INS] " (Schmidt, 1990: 390–391). At the time of the study,
in 1988, the welfare workers had enough reasons not to pay attention to these problems. They
overlooked them, although at the expense of facing practical difficulties, qualms of conscience and
feeling helpless.

After 1962, America experienced an attempt to combine the administration of applications for [DEL:
dávky sociální pomoci se ”snahou :DEL] welfare [INS: benefits :INS] with efforts to rehabilitate
the beneficiaries to self sufficiency[DEL: ” :DEL] . The attempt encountered criticism from several
directions. Social workers argued that administering money suppresses attention to wider work with
the client, [DEL: s klientem, :DEL] and promoted restitution to the benefit agenda separated from
[DEL: případové práce. :DEL] [INS: casework. :INS] Conservative politicians feared that [DEL:
případoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: caseworkers :INS] sympathising with clients would award benefits
to which the applicants would not be entitled. The movement for social rights of the poor feared
that combining benefit payments with other life circumstances of the poor would work as an obstacle
to asserting the right to security, arguing that the beneficiaries need no such rehabilitation.
Following the criticism, two types of agency were set up in 1967[INS: , :INS] one for administering
applications for benefits and one for providing personal social services. (Brock, Harknett, 1998:
495–497.)

This development in the U.S. lead to the stabilisation of conceptions that over the next thirty
years rejected [DEL: spojovat potřebnost s ”takovými znechucujícími patologiemi” :DEL] "[INS: the
undignifying association of individual pathologies such as alcoholi :INS] s[INS: m with the social
status of poverty :INS] ” (Schmidt, 1990: 391)[DEL: , :DEL] [DEL: jako je alkoholismus :DEL] . It
was an ideology giving [DEL: úřady sociální pomoci :DEL] [INS: welfare departments :INS] the right
to deal exclusively with income support and leave services for alcoholics to other organisations.
Attempting to pay special attention to the problems of drinking applicants was considered to be
undesirable for the [INS: welfare department :INS] .

Another reason for overlooking alcoholism among the applicants was the risk that associating their
problems with the department’s tasks could attract public attention to problematic aspects of the
whole system of social welfare[INS: . :INS] Work with poor alcoholics "[INS: symbol :INS] is[INS:
es the worthlessness of trying to help the poor :INS] " (Schmidt, 1990: 391), and the expectation
that they buy more alcohol for their benefits could revive doubts about the moral substantiation of
benefits payment. It was therefore clear to everyone at the department that it was necessary to
avoid the poor alcoholics becoming a major target population requiring special attention.

According to Schmidt, overlooking the drinking problems of applicants was also supported by the
troubles encountered in the co-operation of [INS: welfare department :INS] s with doctors and
organisations working with alcoholics. Medical certification was required for the official
acknowledgement that a client is "unemployable because of alcohol problems". Practitioners however
were reluctant to give it, apprehending that drinking clients would "settle" into the role of
officially recognised alcoholics which would allow them to collect welfare benefits, and that the
already low willingness to undergo treatment would further decline. The practitioners’ willingness
to issue the certification was also reduced by the excessive paperwork involved.

Where practitioners’ certification was successfully obtained, difficulty set in with participation
of the officially recognised alcoholics in the therapeutic programmes, which was obligatory.
Schmidt notes that the relevant organisations were reluctant to enlist the [DEL: klienty úřadu
sociální pomoci :DEL] [INS: clients of welfare department :INS] s for their programmes. It was not
financially rewarding for them and the personnel maintained that the [DEL: klienti sociální pomoci
:DEL] [INS: clients of social welfare :INS] lacked the motivation which was perceived as the
crucial prerequisite for successful therapy by the respective staff. It can be said that from the
perspective of Lipsky’s conception, doctors justified their unwillingness to deal with alcoholism
among the poor using the thesis "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear."

It was therefore easier for a [DEL: úřad sociální pomoci :DEL] [INS: welfare department :INS] to
label a drinking client as "employable" and try to involve him or her in the department’s own
training and rehabilitation programmes than toil to obtain a doctor’s certification and a vacancy
in a therapeutic programme.

These were the reasons for which the intake department workers at welfare departments avoided
direct naming of drinking problem signs, believing that their task was to write the client’s
answers to defined questions in the intake form. Although the form was dedicated to personal
difficulties [DEL: klienta, :DEL] [INS: of the client, :INS] it failed to contain a box for alcohol
abuse problems. If the applicant showed more or less obvious signs of recent or sustained alcohol
abuse, no visible attention was paid to that. When some applicants appeared for the intake
interview so drunk that [DEL: ”sotva udrželi papíry” :DEL] "[INS: they can barely sign the papers
:INS] ” (Schmidt, 1990: 394), the officer put the contact to an end and asked the applicant to
appear once he or she was no longer under the influence of alcohol. The common [DEL: přístup :DEL]
[INS: approach :INS] was clear: no solving of alcohol problems, just tiptoeing around it. Thanks to
this drinking clients could be placed among the "employable". If due to drinking problems they
failed to remain in a rehabilitation or training programme they were obliged to attend as the
"employable", they lost entitlement to benefit and had to apply for it again. Schmidt established
that the workers would not begin to address the drinking problems of an applicant until he or she
repeatedly failed in the job programme.

Some workers however found that [DEL: přístup :DEL] [INS: approach :INS] difficult. Silently
observing the clients’ alcohol problems was experienced by the workers as a moral dilemma
accompanied by a feeling of helplessness. As one of them put it: [DEL: ”Vím, když se někdo chystá
si po odchodu od nás koupit láhev :DEL] [DEL: […] Ale nemůžu nic dělat. Mnoha pracovníkům je to
:DEL] "[INS: I know when somebody’s going to go out and buy booze :INS] [INS: […] But I can’t do
anything. A lot of workers feel :INS] [DEL: nepříjemné.” :DEL] [INS: uncomfortable about this.
:INS] " (Schmidt, 1990: 395–396.)

The overlooking of alcoholism symptoms among applicants also resulted in difficulties in the
operation of the training and rehabilitation programmes. Under the threat of losing benefits, the
drinkers labelled as "employable" by the department became involved in the programmes. As a result,
people unable to follow participation conditions due to alcohol abuse attended the training and
rehabilitation programmes. They would come to the destination late and drunk, behaving impolitely
to the programme workers and co-operating poorly. They suffered occupational injuries more often
than other clients. It was not really possible to resolve these problems while overlooking the
symptoms of problem drinking, which caused significant difficulties to the employment services
section staff.

Hence the [DEL: Řadoví pracovníci :DEL] f[INS: rontline workers :INS] of the department knew on one
hand that it was not expedient for the department for both ideological and practical reasons to be
concerned with the applicants' alcohol problems. At the same time, overlooking this dimension of
the applicants' life situation caused them both moral and practical difficulties. They responded to
the situation in two ways.

A minority created[DEL: ”neoficiální strategie” :DEL] [DEL: , :DEL] "[INS: unofficial strategies
:INS] " for themselves that enabled them to respond to the alcoholism problem in a "non-showy" way.
It was possible not to speak explicitly about alcoholism while carefully noting obvious signs of
the client's drunkenness on the record[INS: . :INS] Such records could then be used by the other
workers as a decision-making background. Another "strategy" used suggestive statements for the same
purpose, such as: [DEL: ”Klient by mohl mít potíže při dodržování podmínek programu.” ”Klientovi
dělalo potíže soustředit se.” ”Klient měl potíže porozumět procesu podávání žádosti.” :DEL] "[INS:
Client may have inability to follow-through with program requirements. :INS] "[INS: :INS] "[INS:
Client was unable to focus. :INS] "[INS: :INS] "[INS: Client had trouble understanding the
application process. :INS] " Some workers informally communicated their findings on the applicant's
drinking problems straight to the worker to whom the client was sent[INS: . :INS] (Schmidt, 1990:
396.)

Most workers, according to the author, dealt exclusively with administering applications for
benefits, attenuating the moral disappointment or painfulness of the practical difficulties of the
usual approach by justifying the overlooking of the signs of alcoholism by referring to various
circumstances. It can be said that these rationalisations were mostly based on the logic of the
previously mentioned thesis: "We only do what we're asked for," or alternatively: "We're only
concerned with what we're in charge of." By various statements of this sort the workers delimited
the scope of their power.

For example the intake department workers pointed out that their documentation[DEL: ”je striktně
předepsaná” :DEL] [DEL: a ”není v ní prostor, abychom do ní zaznamenávali naše postřehy a závěry”.
:DEL] "[INS: is pretty much regimented :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS:
there’s no place for us to put our own observations, our conclusions :INS] "[INS: . :INS] They
assured themselves that the narrowing of their angle of view is correct by insisting that [DEL:
”zneužívání substancí není pro vymezení statusu klienta :DEL] "[INS: substance abuse is not
relevant to their status on :INS] GA [G[INS: eneral Assistance] :INS] [INS: [INS: [24] :INS] :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] Along a similar path they relieved their conscience by maintaining that the
department had[INS: :INS] "[INS: two sections :INS] "[INS: : :INS] "[INS: Half of us deals with
money problems. Half of us deals with social services. The only reason people come to us is for
money. :INS] " (Schmidt, 1990: 394.) They also made reference to the fact that they were not
capable of assessing alcoholism matters for a lack of qualification: [DEL: ”Víte, my jsme
administrátoři, ne samostatní odborníci. Posuzování není naše věc. Neorientujeme se v tom bezpečně.
Nejsme experti a není to naše věc.” :DEL] "[INS: You see, we’re technicians, not professional :INS]
[INS: […] It’ :INS] s [INS: not our place to assess. We have no way of knowing for sure. We’re not
professionals and it’s not our place.” :INS] (Schmidt, 1990: 395.)

Some workers put the overlooking of signs of alcoholism into context with the interests and rights
of the applicants for benefits. There were two such justifications. Firstly the workers pointed to
the fact that many clients were shy of applying for benefits and they would not come to apply until
they were really at the end of their tethers. [DEL: ”Když na něj vyrukuju s alkoholem a :DEL]
"[INS: If I confronted them :INS] [INS: [with :INS] the [INS: drinking :INS] [DEL: polekám ho, může
se stát, že už nepřijde” :DEL] [DEL: (Schmidt, :DEL] [INS: problem] and scared them, they might not
come back. :INS] " [INS: (Schmidt, :INS] 1990: 395). This would violate their rights and a person
in need would not be given [DEL: pomoci. :DEL] [INS: welfare assistance. :INS] Schmidt further
notes that the workers tried to be very cautious when mentioning alcoholism, because [DEL: klienti
:DEL] [INS: clients :INS] had access to their records. The workers knew that the records were
public domain documents, and they carefully tried to avoid any note that might be interpreted as
humiliating. There were two purposes for this, according to the workers. "They did not want to rub
more salt into the wounds" of the applicants who found just the contact with the department
humiliating. In addition it prevented troubles that might occur if the [DEL: klient :DEL] [INS:
client :INS] and his or her counsellor ex officio filed a complaint of discrimination in the
provision of [INS: welfare assistance. :INS] In such an instance the record of the intake
department worker on the case was used as evidence. It would have been unpleasant for the
department if the record constituted testimony in the complainant's favour.

It is difficult to identify to what extent showing regard to the interests and rights of the
applicants is a display of sympathy with them and to what extent it serves as an instrument of
assuring oneself that unconcern with a client's alcohol problems is actually the right thing. Both
are possible and the earlier does not exclude the latter. It is equally difficult to determine as
to whether the intake department workers are really not allowed to intervene in the "other
section's" competence or whether they hide their qualms of conscience and the already mentioned the
helpless feelings behind this and other limitations of their power. The fact that some of them
explicitly stated that they faced moral and practical difficulties due to overlooking alcoholism
suggests that all the above justifications of overlooking alcoholism enabled at least a part of the
workers to moderate their doubts about whether their conduct was correct.

It is likely that the ideology of the intake department workers plays a similar role. They labelled
their drinking clients as "employable" in spite of denting the functioning of the training and
rehabilitation programmes. They found the difficulties ensuing from this to be more acceptable when
they assured themselves that their task was to "[INS: assess their employability, not why they are
unemployable. :INS] "[INS: :INS] Hence they examined "[INS: the client’s :INS] employability"[INS:
:INS] without taking interest in "[INS: the personal habits and characteristics that may be the
source of his or her exclusion from the work force :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Although they sometimes
felt that they did themselves a "disservice", they still insisted that it was more correct to give
way to the [INS: client :INS] 's meaning[INS: : :INS] "[INS: Even people who are extremely mentally
ill – if they say they are emp :INS] l[INS: oyable, we treat them as employable. :INS] " (Schmidt,
1990: 397.)

Given what the author of the quoted study writes, it seems that the said justifications of
overlooking the signs of alcoholism had after all not managed to overcome all the difficulties
brought by neglecting this "delicate" dimension of the applicants' life. It indeed resulted in a
situation where the drinking clients went through the whole system repeatedly, because they failed
to meet the expectations placed on them. Drunkards repeatedly appeared at the intake department as
applicants, either because they failed in the training or rehabilitation programme (Schmidt, 1990:
397–398), or because after being officially recognised as unemployable due to alcoholism they
failed to meet the requirements for participation in the therapeutic programme for problem
drunkards (Schmidt, 1990: 398–400). At the welfare department under scrutiny, "recycling" lead to a
discussion on the effectiveness of the usual approach to applicants' alcoholism.

Rather than a change in approach, the excited debate between managers and frontline workers
resulted in sanctification of the existing approach through official regulations. The "f[INS:
unctional alcoholic :INS] " category was introduced, an euphemism labelling those [DEL:
činnostech”. :DEL] "[INS: problem drinkers who can participate as employables in non :INS] -[INS:
demanding work assignments :INS] "[INS: . :INS] The workers draw a clear conclusion from that:
[DEL: ”Teď můžeme klidně říci: ,Jste alkoholik, ale můžete pracovat.’” :DEL] "[INS: Now we’re
saying, :INS] '[INS: Okay, you are alcoholic and you can work.’” :INS] (Schmidt, 1990: 401.)



[DEL: Rozšiřování cílů :DEL] [INS: Broadening of goa :INS] l[INS: s :INS] in Horní Poustevna


There is one disadvantage in Lipsky's theory of the way of coping with the dilemma between [DEL:
komplexností a zjednodušováním cílů :DEL] [INS: complexity and simplification of goals :INS] of
work, from which this chapter derives. Lipsky finds support in two theses: Firstly, [DEL: úředníci
první linie :DEL] [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] cope with the dilemma between [DEL:
komplexností a zjednodušováním :DEL] [INS: complexity and simplification :INS] by creating their
own conception of work with the client[INS: . :INS] Secondly, their own conception serves [DEL:
úředníkům první linie :DEL] [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] to justify that they simplify the
goals of their work[INS: . :INS] I believe that the second thesis is disputable.

Some empirical examples (apart from Schmidt, 1990, see also e.g. Cloward, Epstein, 1965; Winkler,
2000, quoted by me in Chapter 4) suggest that using one's "own conception" for the [DEL:
k odůvodnění zjednodušení cílů :DEL] [INS: justification of simplification of goals :INS] is rather
common. Even so it should be admitted that the "own conception of goals" may under certain
circumstances serve for the justification of the [INS: broadening of goa :INS] l[INS: s. :INS] If
we only asked the single question, lead by Lipsky's conception, as to which simplifications
frontline workers justify by their own conception of goals, this could "obscure our view" and we
might fail to notice that [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] sometimes
seek arguments to the benefit of deepening the [INS: complexity :INS] of their goals.

This fact is referred to by the literature discussing the so-called [DEL: ”manažerismu” :DEL]
"[INS: managerialism :INS] " in social services (see e.g. Laan, 1998b; Clark, Newman, 1997). The
term [DEL: ”manažerismus” :DEL] "[INS: managerialism :INS] " refers to the attempt to adapt the
operation of social services to the market environment and to the requirement for running personal
social services in a "[INS: businesslike :INS] " [INS: manner (Clark, Newman, 1997: 58). :INS] The
managers of social work service organisations believe that success in the market depends on
depriving frontline workers of the ability to decide on the goals of their work, instead of which
"products" easy to convert into money predefined by managers should by "supplied" by them. These
can be ordered by a paying customer, such as a municipal office, a government department or a
client [DEL: klient :DEL] drawing a state subsidy.

Social work service people sometimes oppose this scheme (Clark, Newman, 1997: 95–120), finding
support in the argument that the life situation of the client is unique and so complex that the
goals of effective [DEL: pomoci :DEL] [INS: help :INS] cannot be planned in advance. Placing
emphasis on the [DEL: ”neredukovatelnou složitost” :DEL] [DEL: práce s klientem a ”vstřícnost”
:DEL] "[INS: irreducible complexity :INS] "[INS: :INS] of work with the [INS: client a :INS]
nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: responsiveness :INS] " towards him or her, they manage to resist the attempts
at [DEL: ”standardizaci” :DEL] "[INS: standardisation :INS] " of their goals (Clark, Newman, 1997:
119–120). We can therefore say that by promoting the more complex conception of goals, social
workers try to broaden the scope of their power that is being limited by the managers.

Therefore they do the exact opposite to what Lipsky describes. The underlying logic is identical:
[DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] cope with the work situation using
their own conception of goals. The objective however is the opposite to what Lipsky assumes: rather
than [DEL: zjednodušení, ale větší komplexnost, :DEL] [INS: simplification, :INS] the workers
justify a higher complexity than the advocates of "managerialism" expect from them.

Thus the initial question needs to be rephrased. Rather than "What [DEL: zjednodušení řadoví
pracovníci :DEL] [INS: simplifications frontline workers :INS] justify by their own conception of
goals?", it should be "Do [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS: frontline workers :INS] seek
justification for [DEL: zjednodušující nebo komplexnější :DEL] [INS: simplified or more complex
:INS] conceptions of goals?" Although the answer will more often be: "They want to justify
simplification," neglecting the latter, rarer option might prevent us from noticing those changes
in social work services that from time to time bring more versatile approaches to the problems of
the client[INS: . :INS]

An example is the changes made and advocated by Milan Cháb at the Social Care Institution[25]
in Horní Poustevna in North Bohemia in 1998. He regards the institution as a "trap" that prevents
people with mental handicaps from experiencing everyday risks. He therefore gives his [DEL:
klientům :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] a chance to work outside the institution and makes sure that
they have proper contracts with employers. He has established a sheltered workshop outside the
institution's walls. The clients can stay there for prolonged periods, working in a farmstead and
living independently, separated from the direct support of the institution's regime. They commonly
help in the farm in the summer. "Whoever wants to stay over a winter or two, is encouraged to stay
out of the institution. Take Luboš. […] he was not reliable in the facility. He knew that if he
didn't stoke, someone else would do it for him. Here in the forest estate he realised that he would
be dreadfully cold if he did not make a fire." (Varecký, 1998: 12.)

Mr Cháb must advocate before himself and those around him his trying to achieve a state where the
clients of the institution cope with the risks of everyday life. When volunteers took Luboš for a
"hop", Milan Cháb commented on it: " […] I must admit that initially I didn't feel OK with the idea
that he's having fun somewhere without supervision. After all his state is that of an inmate in a
facility. On the other hand I insist that even people with mental handicaps have the right to take
risks similar to those undertaken by us, normal people' […] It was probably good that we started
here in the Sudetenland where there is no strong local culture. In the Haná region for example[26],
people most probably wouldn't quite accept it that I don't keep the handicapped well behind the
fence; that I do something inappropriate." (Varecký, 1998: 12.)


chapter 3

THE QUANTITY [DEL: KLIENTŮ :DEL] [INS: OF CLIENTS :INS] OR THE QUALITY OF SERVICES


As noted at the beginning of the second chapter, [DEL: úředníci první linie :DEL] [INS:
street-level bureaucrats :INS] cope with their working conditions in three ways according to Lipsky
(1980: 83–85): [DEL: zjednodušováním složitých cílů, omezováním poptávky :DEL] [INS: by
simplification of complex goals, limiting demand :INS] and unequal treatment of clients based on
[DEL: předsudků. :DEL] [INS: prejudices. :INS] In this chapter we will deal with the second way.
[DEL: Omezování poptávky :DEL] [INS: Limiting demand :INS] is an accompanying phenomenon of the
dilemma between the quality of services and the quantity [DEL: klientů. :DEL] [INS: of clients.
:INS] I will therefore focus on the question as to whether the quality of social work services,
which is adversely influenced by the disproportion between the small number of workers and the high
number of clients, can be improved through increasing the number of workers.

My answer is based on the findings of Lipsky (1980) and Goffman (1991) who dealt with the dilemma
between quantity and quality in public services in the 1950s and 1960s. Goffman discusses how the
relatively scarce personnel cope with the much greater number of [INS: clients :INS] in residential
organisations. Lipsky approaches the same subject from the perspective of services provided on an
"out-patient" basis.

There is a unity between both authors in that an attempt to cope with large numbers of clients
steers the quality of services in two ways; firstly by reducing the time, energy and attention a
worker is able to give to an [INS: individual client :INS] , and secondly by influencing the
culture of work with the client[INS: : :INS] overloaded workers get used to making the nature of
their intervention reliant on the need to cope with higher numbers of cases. The habits making this
possible usually do not change much if the organisation's personnel expand; the newly recruited
workers embrace them as well. An expanded capacity therefore results, under otherwise unchanged
conditions, in an expanded reproduction of the original quality of services rather than
improvement. I will try to work out this argument using Lipsky's and Goffman's findings to a stage
of at least suggesting an answer to the question "Under what conditions can an increased number of
workers result in an improved quality of the services provided?"

In the text of this chapter, I will describe the features of the culture that is based on adjusting
services to an effort to cope with a greater number of clients[INS: . :INS] I will also focus on
what Lipsky and Goffman say about the potential to change this type of social work service
culture[27]. Using the arguments of these authors, I will answer both of the above questions. I
hope to cast some doubt on the myth that the quality of social work services directly depends on
the number of workers and will hopefully help the discussion about the possibility of resolving the
dilemma between working capacity and quality of intervention to adopt more realistic angles.



[DEL: Udržování výkonu v přijatelných mezích a omezování poptávky :DEL] [INS: Limiting demand :INS]
in street-level bureaucracies


Social work service people often have to face various difficulties. They usually have little time
and too many clients, who are not used to being responsive enough[INS: . :INS] They must abide by
the law while gratifying the funding body, superiors, colleagues, [DEL: klientům :DEL] [INS:
clients :INS] and the public; each wanting something different without exactly knowing how it
should be achieved. In addition to this, finding out if the expectations of all these entities have
been successfully met tends to be nearly impossible. (Lipsky, 1980: 27-28.) Under these
circumstances it is necessary to cope, among other things, with the tension between limited working
capacity and the number [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 82-83). Social
work service people face the [DEL: ”dilematem mezi :DEL] "[INS: dilemma of serving more :INS] [DEL:
poskytnutím služby většímu počtu klientů nebo zachováváním kvality služeb.” :DEL] [INS: clients or
maintaining high quality of service. :INS] " They know that they would probably be able to respond
to every individual client flexibly and appropriately to their situation. [DEL: ”Pokud by však
takto postupovali s příliš velkým počtem klientů, jejich schopnost reagovat pružně by se vytratila
:DEL] [DEL: .” :DEL] "[INS: But if they did this with too many clients their capacity to respond
flexibly would disappear. :INS] " Should all the needs of [INS: clients :INS] be given full
attention, there would be no time left for other clients[INS: . :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 99.)


[DEL: Dodatečné náklady využívání služeb :DEL] [INS: Additional costs of using service :INS]


Although working directly with people and influencing individual life situations leaves discretion
to the workers dealing with the quantity and quality dilemma[INS: , :INS] their independence is not
limitless. They usually cannot afford to show ostentatiously that they provide services in a
limited way or that they overlook the legitimate demands of users. While attenuating their
responsiveness, they must still pretend that limiting the quality or scope of services exposed to
public control is by no means conceivable. Within this limitation however they have the option of
not allowing demand to increase to a stage where providing the services is extremely difficult. If
the manageability threshold of demand threatens being exceeded, [DEL: řadoví pracovníci :DEL] [INS:
frontline workers :INS] can impose [DEL: ”dodatečné náklady”, :DEL] "[INS: additional costs :INS] "
on the users of their services, thus effectively limiting demand. (Lipsky, 1980: 38-39, 87-101.)

From the perspective of clients, the a[DEL: Dodatečné náklady, :DEL] [INS: dditional costs :INS]
that increase the difficulty of using public services and [DEL: omezují poptávku :DEL] [INS: limit
:INS] demand for them may take the form of financial expense, loss of time, disorientation or
psychological strain. The latter causes some clients to prefer to "give it up".

Increasing the financial expense of using services is less usual but not out of question according
to Lipsky. The providers may for instance require more and more copies of documents, ideally with a
public notary certificate. The financial cost of obtaining the documents increases especially if
travelling for them is involved.

Making the use of a service time-consuming is a form of strain mentioned by Lipsky as being more
frequent. Creating queues is the most well-known time-consuming technique for penalising excess
demand. It is also possible to organise meetings that repeatedly fail to happen, delay the
satisfying of clients through the already-mentioned requesting of [DEL: dodatečných :DEL] [INS:
additional :INS] documents, etc.

Another way of increasing the costs of using services is by failing to provide sufficient
information to the user needed to find one's bearings in the system. If this happens, using the
service is difficult; it requires time and makes the potential [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: client
:INS] use the trial and error method, tentatively addressing strange clerks who are not always
responsive.

Psychological strain is one of the most effective ways of penalising clients. Among the more
drastic forms of this type of [INS: additional cost :INS] is nourishing the feeling of diminishing
personal dignity experienced by some [DEL: klienti :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] of public services. As
a less obvious but widespread and very effective form [DEL: dodatečné zátěže :DEL] [INS: of
additional burden :INS] , feelings of uncertainty are provoked regarding the course and result of
contact [DEL: s úředníky první linie. :DEL] [INS: with street-level bureaucrats. :INS] All of the
above methods can serve to strengthen such feelings of uncertainty, burdening the use of the
otherwise "free" services and [DEL: omezovat tím poptávku, :DEL] by [INS: this way limit :INS]
ing[INS: demand, :INS] which is not regulated by market prices. This allows the workers to maintain
their workload within the limits they themselves find bearable.

Some ways of limiting [INS: demand :INS] for public services such as creating queues are easily
identifiable, while others are less obvious. These are for example rigorous clinching to the
procedures defined by laws and regulations, which give the workers an opportunity to point to the
limitations of the scope of their own authority and protect themselves against the requirements
[DEL: klientů na vstřícnost. :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] for [INS: responsiv :INS] eness[INS: .
:INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 100.)

The workers can better shape a case to their own needs if the client's matter is decided without
the client being present or observing the progress. The [DEL: Klientovi může například být dána
možnost :DEL] c[INS: lient can have for instance :INS] an [INS: opportunity :INS] to review a list
of his or her problems the workers are legally obliged to respond to. [DEL: Klient :DEL] The c[INS:
lient :INS] gains the impression that his or her case is being successfully processed without
realising that the list failed to include a decision about what should be done. (Lipsky, 1980:
127-128.)

Techniques that allow maintaining performance within bearable limits through [DEL: ”spoléhání se na
úsudek jiných” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: accepting the judgement of others :INS] "[INS: :INS]
[INS: (Lipsky, 1980: 128) :INS] have a similar effect[INS: . :INS] A social worker may for example
save her time by agreeing to a teachers' conclusion about a child's situation. She puts down her
proposals for the court without hearing other involved persons and examining the circumstances of
the case. It is possible then that decisions about people's fates are made on the basis of the
[DEL: stereotypního :DEL] [INS: prejudiced :INS] conclusion of one of the entitled persons rather
than comprehensive knowledge of the whole case. (Lipsky, 1980: [DEL: 129 :DEL] [DEL: - :DEL] [DEL:
131.) :DEL] [INS: 128 :INS] [INS: - :INS] [INS: 131.) :INS]


Acceptable workload and routine limiting of quality


Social workers may use the above ways of burdening their clients for three reasons. Firstly because
the volume and complexity of work truly threaten to exceed their capacity, secondly because
burdening consumption of their services makes their life easier, and thirdly because they need to
win time for dealing with matters that are not connected with the tasks of their job. In each of
the three cases, i.e. regardless of motivation, the workers' effort to keep work performance within
limits acceptable for them brings the stabilisation [DEL: ”rutinních praktik” :DEL] [DEL: , :DEL]
[INS: of :INS] "[INS: routines :INS] " that result in limiting the quality of the services provided
(Lipsky, 1980: 100-101). In this context, Lipsky points to two remarkable circumstances.

Firstly the fact that the [DEL: dodatečné náklady, uvalené na klienty :DEL] [INS: additional costs
:INS] imposed on clients with the aim of limiting their demand result in a deterioration in the
accessibility, [DEL: vstřícnosti, :DEL] [INS: responsiv :INS] eness[INS: , :INS] appropriateness or
reliability of services, or to put it simply, in limiting their quality. This, according to Lipsky,
does not happen to all clients[INS: , :INS] but only a larger, less preferred portion. More
complicated, vigorously presented or debatable cases, or cases observed by the public, are
forwarded to "[INS: pressure specialists :INS] "[INS: . :INS] These treat the more "sensitive"
cases [DEL: vstřícnějším způsobem, :DEL] [INS: in :INS] a [INS: more responsive manner, :INS] while
a majority of other cases is further coped with using routine procedures[28]. A portion [DEL:
klientů :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] is paid sufficient attention, thanks to which within the
organisation [DEL: uchovává ”představa, jak by služba měla v ideálním případě vypadat”. Chrání to
”věrohodnost byrokracie” a ”ideály, které o své službě mají pracovníci organizace”. :DEL] "a
conception is [INS: preserv :INS] ed[INS: of what services could be under ideal conditions :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] This protects "[INS: some of the bureaucracy’ :INS] s[INS: legitim :INS] ac[INS: y
:INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: the service ideal of agency personnel :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 133, 138.) However, this way of preserving the [DEL: ”ideálu služby”
:DEL] "[INS: service ideal :INS] " is double-edged. On one hand it makes it possible to nourish
models worth following within the organisation, on the other hand it leaves the principle in the
workers' consciousness that that services dictated by ideals need not be given to everybody.

Secondly Lipsky points out that the penalisation of clients through limiting quality occurs
"routinely". Workers within the organisation become accustomed to maintaining levels of demand and
performance by providing a limited quality. They unconsciously begin to perceive the techniques
that were originally meant to allow them to cope with excessive demand as obvious and desirable. In
addition, the routine coping with demand by limiting quality affects the conception of intervention
goals and the understanding of clients by the workers (Lipsky, 1980: 155).

The following question therefore arises: "Is it possible to change the habit of routinely providing
services of lower quality and adapting working goals and stereotypes of the client by recruiting
new workers to increase the capacity of the organisation overstrained by demand?"

[INS:   :INS]


Legitimising disciplinary system in total institutions


Goffman (1991[29]) examines the world of a mental hospital seen by him as one of the forms of what
is called a "[INS: total institution :INS] "[INS: [INS: [30] :INS] :INS] [INS: . :INS] In this
context Goffman describes how a "[INS: small supervisory staff” :INS] in the institution
environment copes with a "[INS: large managed group, conventionally called inmates :INS] "
(Goffman, 1991: 18).

Goffman's view of the institution staff's a[INS: pproach to  :INS] "[INS: inmates :INS] "[INS:
:INS] derives from the idea [INS: of :INS] "[INS: service society :INS] "[INS: . :INS] People in it
have the tendency to adapt their mutual behaviours to rules common in "[INS: the tinkering-services
model :INS] "[INS: . :INS] This, according to [INS: Goffman :INS] [INS: (1991: 283 :INS] [INS: -
:INS] [INS: 285) :INS] ,[INS: :INS] set up historically in "[INS: our Western society :INS] "[INS:
:INS] as a broadly recognised model of contact between people[INS: , :INS] and people apply it even
in situations [INS: ( :INS] such as in a shop[INS: , :INS] hospital or elsewhere[INS: ) :INS] where
the tinkering service in its original meaning is not involved[INS: . :INS] This brings up the
fundamental question of [INS: Goffman :INS] 's[INS: :INS] interpretation of the institution staff's
[INS: approach to inmates: :INS] "What happens if the hospital personnel in their interaction with
the inmates unconsciously follow '[INS: the tinkering-services model :INS] '[INS: ? :INS] "[INS: (
:INS] See [INS: Goffman :INS] [INS: , 1991: 283, 288 :INS] [INS: - :INS] [INS: 303.) Goffman :INS]
first describes the rules of the interactions that take place under this model[INS: , :INS] then
proceeding to[INS: :INS] the obstacles to implementation of these rules in the conditions of the
so-called "[INS: medical version of the tinkering-services model :INS] "[INS: . :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

Obstacles to implementation of "[INS: the tinkering-services model :INS] "[INS: :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

Interactions that take place under "[INS: the tinkering-services model :INS] "[INS: :INS] copy
according to Goffman [INS: (1991: 285) :INS] the principles of contact between "[INS: experts :INS]
"[INS: [INS: [31] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] and their "[INS: clients :INS] "[INS: . :INS] This
contact, in line with the "[INS: ideals :INS] "[INS: :INS] of service society, takes place under
the following rules[INS: : (1) :INS] An e[INS: xpert :INS] "[INS: has a complex physical system to
repair, construct, or tinker with :INS] "[INS: ( :INS] such as a car, radio, etc[INS: .). (2) :INS]
The system is "[INS: the client’s personal object or possession :INS] ".[INS: (3) :INS] The e[INS:
xpert :INS] comes into contact with two entities[INS: : :INS] the "[INS: client :INS] "[INS: :INS]
[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: the client’s malfunctioning object :INS] "[INS: . :INS] His
success depends on his ability of "[INS: keeping these two different kinds of entities separate
while giving each its due :INS] "[INS: . (4) Clients :INS] are regarded as "[INS: self :INS] -[INS:
determining beings :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: that :INS] "[INS: must be treated with appropriate
regard and ritual :INS] "[INS: . (5) :INS] The malfunctioning object [INS: of client :INS] belongs
in another world[INS: , :INS] "[INS: to be construed within a technical, not a ritual perspective
:INS] "[INS: , :INS] from the position of a "[INS: disinterested expert :INS] "[INS: . (6) :INS]
The c[INS: lient :INS] respects the "[INS: server’s technical competence” :INS] [INS: , :INS]
believing that being an expert[INS: , :INS] he "[INS: will use it ethically :INS] ";[INS: :INS] the
client shows "[INS: gratitude :INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] provides a "[INS: fee :INS] "[INS:
. (7) :INS] The service provider puts "[INS: effective competence :INS] " into the relation[INS: ,
:INS] "[INS: a willingne :INS] s[INS: s to place it at the client’s disposal :INS] "[INS: , :INS]
"[INS: professional discretion :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: a disciplined unconcern with the
client’s other affairs :INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: unservile :INS] [INS: civility
:INS] "[INS: . (8) :INS] The c[INS: lient :INS] accepts that the repair of his or her object takes
place in a "[INS: workshop complex :INS] "[INS: . :INS] This means that "[INS: the client is not
present while the actual work is done :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] that "[INS:
mistakes at work and padding of expenses are easily concealed :INS] " from him[INS: . :INS]
(Goffman, 1991: 285-288, 291.)

Although the described "ideal" of interaction between expert and [DEL: klientem :DEL] [INS: client
:INS] "in the service society of the West" is also tempting for hospitals, mental hospitals and
other institutions, it cannot be consistently emulated [DEL: v ”medicínské verzi modelu
opravárenských služeb” :DEL] in the "[INS: medical version of the tinkering-services model :INS] ".
[DEL: ”Tělo” :DEL] "[INS: The body :INS] " in the hospital (or "mind" in a mental hospital) [DEL:
”není majetkem, který by bylo :DEL] "[INS: is one possession that cannot be :INS] [DEL: možné
nechat v péči poskytovatele služby, zatímco si klient jde za svým”. :DEL] [DEL: Klient je přitom
:DEL] [INS: left under the care of the server while the client goes about his other business :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] The c[INS: lient :INS] has a lot of interest in what is going on with his or her
body (or mind) and has enough opportunities to see how he or she is treated: [DEL: ”Protože klient
musí během procesu opravy pobývat v dílně ve fázi aktivního ošetřování, má všechny možnosti vnímat
:DEL] "[INS: Since the client must reside in the workshop during the active treatment phase of the
repair cycle, he is well situated to :INS] [DEL: obtížnost zařazení všeho, co se s ním a kolem něho
odehrává, do modelu služby.” :DEL] [INS: see the difficulties of assimilating everything that
occurs around and to him to the service model. :INS] " The medical service provider depends on the
client reporting to him the symptoms of his or her disease, refraining from protest during the
"repair" and co-operating actively. Unlike the servicing of a possession, "[INS: the client is
still a participant to be respected in the :INS] [DEL: vztahu.” :DEL] [INS: service relationship.
:INS] " (Goffman, 1991: [DEL: 298 :DEL] [DEL: - :DEL] [DEL: 299.) :DEL] [INS: 297 :INS] [INS: -
:INS] [INS: 302.) :INS]

As a result of these circumstances, it is very difficult if not utterly impossible for the service
providers in a mental hospital (or another total institution) to observe one of the basic rules of
a successful expert's method, i.e. to approach differently the [DEL: klientovi :DEL] [INS: client
:INS] as a "self-determining being" on one hand and his or her malfunctioning "technical object" on
the other. The "self-determining being [DEL: klienta” :DEL] [INS: of :INS] the [INS: client :INS] "
and the "possessed object" are merged into a single being wholly present in the "repair" in the
medical model. The expert does not have the chance of approaching the [DEL: klientovi :DEL] [INS:
client :INS] "with appropriate regard and ritual" while approaching his or her body (or mind) as a
"possessed object", from a purely "technical perspective". He faces a dilemma and must decide: one
or the other.

And the choice is difficult. Approaching the [INS: client’s :INS] "self-determining being" from a
technical perspective, from the position of a "disinterested expert" means coming into conflict
with such[DEL: ”humanitními standardy” :DEL] [DEL: , :DEL] "[INS: humane standards :INS] " as the
expectation that inmates will be regarded as "[INS: ends in themselves :INS] " and that their
personal freedom, need for privacy or personal possession will be respected (Goffman, 1991: 75-78).
The client [DEL: Klient :DEL] - as a "self-determining being" - is willing to entrust his or her
body (or mind) to the experts' hands. Yet approaching him or her "from the perspective of
appropriate ritual" represents somewhat of a problem for the medical service provider: "[…] [DEL:
mohou zjistit, že sympatie k pacientovi :DEL] [INS: they may find that sympathy :INS] [DEL: je
vystavují emocionálnímu stresu, nejsou-li si jisti, v čem je chyba, nebo tím, co je možné pro
pacienta udělat, případně jsou-li si jisti, že se dá udělat jen velmi málo” :DEL] [INS: with the
patient subjects them to emotional stress when they are uncertain of what is wrong or what can be
done for the patient, or when they are certain th :INS] at[INS: little can be done :INS] [INS: […]
:INS] " (Goffman, 1991: 298, see also 79).


[DEL: “Účinnost instituce“ :DEL] "[INS: Institutional efficiency :INS] " and ways of ensuring it


The issue of the quantity of inmates and the need of a scarce staff to cope with them distinctly
enters the resolution of this dilemma, the reason being according to Goffman (1991: 76) that [DEL:
”Humanitní standardy” :DEL] "h[INS: umane standards :INS] " in the everyday practice of a mental
hospital (or any other institution) come into conflict[DEL: ”účinností instituce” :DEL] with "[INS:
institutional efficiency :INS] " and the need to have a high number of inmates respect the
institutional regime[INS: . :INS] I regard Goffman's book as evidence that the need to ensure
obedience of a large number of inmates takes mental hospital staff to a technical conception of
clients[INS: . :INS] They approach them as a "malfunctioning object", and even if they treat
clients in line with the "appropriate ritual", their conduct bears significant technical and
manipulative functions. I find this standpoint of Goffman to be important for two reasons. Firstly
because it exposes the practice of personal social services to serious ethical questions that I
will leave aside for the moment. Secondly because he alerts us to how fundamentally the effort to
cope with a high quantity of clients may affect the culture of an organisation and the quality of
the services provided.

Goffman believes that managers, and the other staff usually as well, find "institutional
efficiency" to be important in the everyday operation of a mental hospital. They identify
institutional efficiency with the meeting of two requirements: firstly to keep the obedience of
inmates while preserving the existing capacity, and secondly, to leave the impression on the public
that humane standards are observed and the official goal of the institution is pursued, i.e. that
the inmates receive support in their effort to[DEL: ”naučit se znovu žít ve společnosti” :DEL]
"[INS: relearn to live in society :INS] " (Goffman, 1991: 86-88). Although Goffman does not state
it explicitly, his description of the arrangement of life in a mental hospital radiates a
confidence that ensuring "[DEL: ”institucionální :DEL] [INS: institutional efficiency :INS] "
construed in this way would be impossible if the work with the inmates [DEL: účinnost” :DEL] were
built on an effort to respect them as[DEL: ”sebeurčující se bytosti”. :DEL] "[INS: self :INS]
-[INS: determini :INS] n[INS: g beings :INS] "[INS: . :INS] It is rather the opposite according to
Goffman; the inmates are treated like "malfunctioning" objects of diminished responsibility whose
behaviour is "technically" controllable. Along these lines [DEL: je život chovanců ”regulován a
:DEL] "[INS: the patient’s life is regulated and ordered :INS] [DEL: uspořádáván kázeňským
systémem, který vznikl za účelem zvládání velkého počtu nedobrovolných chovanců nepočetným
personálem” :DEL] [INS: according to a disciplinarian system developed for the management by a
small staff of a large number of involuntary inmates :INS] " (Goffman, 1991: 315). I will now
describe this "system" in order to characterise the role played in it by the institution's
professional staff.

Goffman (1991: 315) maintains that the life of inmates in a mental hospital (and similarly in other
types of "total institutions") is regulated using the [DEL: ”systému oddělení” :DEL] [DEL: . Ta
jsou odstupňována :DEL] "[INS: ward system :INS] "[INS: . Wards are hierarchised :INS] from two
angles: Firstly the extent to which "misbehaviour" is tolerated in the given ward, and secondly the
extent of discomfort and limitations to the inmates' possibilities that prevails in the ward. The
hierarchy of tolerance and sanction thus arising provides a possibility for placing the inmate,
[DEL: ”s libovolnou mírou odchylek v chování” :DEL] "[INS: whatever the level of the :INS] [INS:
[…] patient‘s misbehaviour :INS] ", in a ward in which his or her characteristic behaviour is
routinely coped with and even tolerated to a certain extent. If the inmate accepts the living
conditions in the ward, he or she is allowed to continue their "misbehaviour" within the ward where
they do not bother anyone. An inmate requiring an improvement in their fate "[INS: is then made to
state verbally that he is ready to mend his ways :INS] "[INS: . :INS] If they keep the promise for
a reasonably long period of time, they proceed to the next ward and their living conditions
improve. Should they resume their "misbehaviour" without being willing to give it up, they would be
admonished and returned to the original conditions.

Hence everything depends on[DEL: ”přijetí nutnosti podvolit se.” :DEL] "[INS: the process of an
admitted giving-in :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Accepting this requirement may even lead to a stage where
the inmate is entrusted during their walks within the hospital boundaries or to town to a relative
[DEL: který je oprávněn pacienta znovu ”uvěznit”, :DEL] [INS: ”who has the incarcerating
establishment :INS] ", i.e. the option to threaten: [DEL: ”Buď dobrý, nebo tě pošlu zpátky.” :DEL]
"[INS: Be good or else I’ll send :INS] [INS: you back. :INS] "[INS: :INS] This ensures that the
control of behaviour applied inside the hospital transfers even into life outside. The result is,
according to Goffman, that [DEL: ”morálka chovanců na odděleních rebelů zdá být silnější a
zdravější než na výstupním oddělení, kde člověka ovane neprůbojný dech lidí, kteří se museli zříci
sebe sama, aby se :DEL] "[INS: patient morale on the :INS] rebellious[INS: wards seems stronger and
healthier than on the discharge wards, where there is a slight air of persons having sold out to
get out. :INS] " [DEL: dostali ven.” :DEL] [DEL: :DEL] (Goffman, 1991: 315.)

The last quotation reveals that Goffman is doubtful about the contribution of staying in the
hospital for strengthening inner integrity of the inmate's personality and their capacity to resist
adverse life circumstances better than before the hospitalisation ("incarceration"). In a better
case the inmate – thanks to strengthened conformity of his or her conduct - learns to avoid some
dismissive responses of their surroundings. Their mind however does not become less vulnerable
based on the ward system experience.

Although the[DEL: ”systém oddělení” :DEL] "[INS: ward system :INS] " usually does not have a
glorious therapeutic effect[32], it is still an efficient tool for assuring order inside the
hospital. Everything is organised to ensure that the inmate changes ward and status three or four
times during their first year in the hospital and experience both changes they regard as favourable
and changes they regard as adverse. (Goffman, 1991: 149.) It is important here that the prizes
easily lost as a result of disobedience rest in access to goods or possibilities considered by the
inmate to be obvious things while outside the hospital. A small number of clearly defined rewards
and privileges such as the possibility to drink a coffee, smoke a cigarette, decide to speak or
read newspapers, are offered in exchange for obedience to staff. A small number of easily
controllable privileges are quite weighty in these conditions. Their removal has a huge relevance
for the inmates, and access to them is the subject of their relentless attention. Through
manipulation of these “rewards”, the personnel create grounds for winning co-operation of those
clients who have a tendency to self-determination and would have enough reason not to co-operate
under different circumstances. (Goffman, 1991: 51-54.)


Role of personnel and "[DEL: “psychiatrická doktrína“ :DEL] [INS: the doctrines of psychiatry :INS]
"


What role do hospital personnel play in the system?

Direct supervisors are tasked with ensuring control over patients [DEL: ”bez ohledu na jejich
blahobyt” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: irrespective of patient welfare :INS] "[INS: . :INS] To
achieve it, the supervisors consider the personal wishes of their charges - [DEL: ”jakkoliv jsou
smysluplná, klidně vyjádřená nebo vlídně sdělená” :DEL] "[INS: no matter how reasonable, how calmly
expressed, or how politely stated :INS] " - to be a display of wilfulness and proof of a mental
disorder. In an environment where abnormality is expected, normality is never admitted, according
to Goffman. The supervisors report most displays of this "inherent" abnormality to doctors. The
doctors usually confirm the supervisors' judgment and[DEL: ”oficiálně odvolávají nebo upravují
privilegia pacienta v rámci oddělení nebo nařídí jeho přechod do jiného oddělení” :DEL] [DEL: .
Lékaři tak ”pomáhají reprodukovat představu, :DEL] "[INS: officially revoke or modify the patient’s
privileges on the ward or work out a transfer to another ward :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Thus the doctors
"[INS: help to perpetuate the notion that :INS] [DEL: že smyslem zacházení s psychiatrickými
pacienty je jejich kontrola”. :DEL] [INS: the essential feature of dealing with mental patients is
in their control :INS] "[INS: . :INS] (Goffman, 1991: 81-82.)

This standpoint is supported by[DEL: ”psychiatrická doktrína” :DEL] [DEL: . Podle ní je ”systém
oddělení“, :DEL] "[INS: the doctrine of psychiatry :INS] ",[INS: :INS] according to which the
"[INS: ward system :INS] " experienced by the inmates as a system of forced obedience is [DEL:
”druhem sociálního skleníku, ve kterém pacienti začínají jako sociální nedospělci a po roce končí
na oddělení rekonvalescence jako resocializovaní dospělí.” :DEL] "[INS: a kind of social hothouse
in which patients start as social infants and end up, within the year, on convalescent wards as
resocialized adults. :INS] " This view of the qualified part of personnel gives its members
self-confidence and prestige while inducing [DEL: ”určitý druh slepoty” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS:
a certain amou :INS] n[INS: t of blindness :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Blindness prevents the hospital
personnel from perceiving the [DEL: systém oddělení :DEL] [INS: ward system :INS] as a method of
bringing disobedient persons to discipline. (Goffman, 1991: 150.) [DEL: ”Psychiatrická doktrína”
umožňuje, aby ”administrativní a kázeňská mašinérie” :DEL] With t[INS: he :INS] "[INS: doctrine of
psychiatry :INS] ",[INS: :INS] "[INS: the administrative and disciplinary machinery :INS] " can be
presented to patients, the public and the personnel as a quintessence of medical services of
psychiatry: a frame in which the breaking of rules and imposition of a penalty for inappropriate
behaviour are regarded as logical consequences of a relapse of psychiatric complaints. The
patient's presence in the hospital itself is regarded as a proof of their mental disorder. The
punishment of being placed in a worse ward is described as[DEL: ”přemístění pacienta na oddělení,
jehož vnitřní chod je pro něj zvládnutelný, a izolační cela, či spíše ,díra’, je popsána jako
místo, kde se bude pacient cítit z hlediska své neschopnosti zvládat projevy vlastního chování
pohodlně.” :DEL] "[INS: transfe :INS] r[INS: ring a patient to a ward whose arrangements he can
cope with, and the isolation cell or :INS] ‘[INS: hole :INS] ’[INS: is described as a place where
the patient will be able to feel comfortable with his inability to handle his acting-out impulses.”
:INS] (Goffman, 1991: 330-331.)

The limitations brought by life in the "ward system" allow the hospital to operate also because
they ensure the "interest" of inmates in the services of professional and voluntary therapists.
These are able to present the desire of the inmates to visit group activities, which according to
Goffman is invoked by deprivation of the hospital inhabitants, as a sign of the attractiveness of
their work. Indeed the possibility [DEL: ”dostat se mimo oddělení a utéci před kontrolou
dohlížitelů a fyzickým nepohodlím života v něm.” :DEL] "[INS: to get away from the ward and the
level of supervisory control and physical discomfort there” :INS] is an important reward for the
inmates. Goffman says that the [DEL: systém oddělení :DEL] [INS: ward system :INS] acts like a
[DEL: ”píst” :DEL] [DEL: , :DEL] "[INS: piston :INS] " that delivers an unmanageable desire of
patients to participate in all kinds of official activities. Whether the personnel offers kitchen
work, group therapy, relaxation in the park or even training courses, a crowd of candidates is
usually guaranteed simply because the proposed activity of whatever kind promises to provide a
considerable improvement in living conditions.[33] Therefore the inmates have a tendency to be
[DEL: ”se dobrovolně povinně nahrnout, kam je třeba”. :DEL] "[INS: freely marched into captivity
:INS] "[INS: . :INS] (Goffman, 1991: 20[INS: 1–20 :INS] 2.)

Trying to obtain immediate welfare is not the only reason for this. Some inmates feel that
participating in various – in particular therapeutic – activities might be regarded as a proof of
their "having been treated". Participation in [DEL: ”vyšších formách” terapie :DEL] "’[INS: higher’
therapies :INS] " might be presented after leaving the hospital to the employer or relatives as
proof that the treatment has actually taken place. The inmates are also aware that participation in
therapies and other activities organised by the personnel might increase the staff's willingness to
support their efforts to improve their personal living conditions in the hospital or to be released
from the hospital. (Goffman, 1991: 202.)

The reporting system helps to meet this expectation. Specialists who would fail to support "their"
clients and show appropriate esteem toward them would lack participation at their sessions. They
would have to report at the year's end to hospital management that interest in their activities has
dropped during the year. Personnel members therefore feel obliged to show "their" charges
appreciation and support them in various ways. (Goffman, 1991: 252-258.) Under these circumstances,
participation in therapeutic activities is guaranteed, although the personnel must cope with the
fact that the presence of the charges is prevailingly a display of their [DEL: ”úsilí o zlepšení
osobních :DEL] "[INS: efforts to improve their :INS] [DEL: životních podmínek v léčebně” :DEL]
[DEL: nebo snahy ”naklonit terapeuta na svou stranu”, a ne :DEL] [INS: living conditions in the
hospital :INS] "[INS: :INS] or an effort to "[INS: bring the therapist over to their side :INS]
"[INS: :INS] rather than a display of an active effort to co-operate in the treatment. (Goffman,
1991: 202.)

It is obvious that inmates exposed to a culture that reserves for them the position of
"malfunctioning objects" and makes them subjects of a "technically" designed system of control will
after all end up acting as self-determining beings (Goffman, 1991: 157-280)[34]. It follows that as
a result, the therapeutic intervention available to them somewhere at the margin[35] of the
obedience control system, fails to meet its end to a considerable degree. Goffman believes that in
fact therapy is prevailingly not the case in the hospital, and he therefore does not pay much
attention to the impact of "ward system" functioning on the quality of therapeutic intervention.
Yet he mentions that professionals are displeased if an inmate participates in a psychodrama [DEL:
”jen proto, aby potkal své děvče nebo byl mezi lidmi, a ne aby prezentovat problémy a snažil se
zlepšit” :DEL] [DEL: , nebo že si :DEL] "[INS: merely to meet his girl or to sociali :INS] s[INS: e
and not present problems and try to get better” :INS] [INS: , :INS] or to see inmates [DEL:
chovanci ”přicházejí stěžovat na instituci, místo aby prezentovali své osobní a citové problémy”.
:DEL] "[INS: bringing grip :INS] e[INS: s about the institution :INS] [INS: […] instead of their
personal emotional problems :INS] " to group psychotherapy[INS: . :INS] (Goffman, 1991: 202.)



Culture of coping with a large clientele and possibilities of changing it


The ways of coping with a large clientele as described by Lipsky and Goffman differ in many
aspects. Nevertheless both authors in parallel mention the following features of dealing with the
dilemma between quantity and quality in public social services:


-   "Dominance of quantity": [DEL: přístup ke klientům :DEL] [INS: approach to clients :INS] is
made subordinate to the effort to cope with their number.

-   "Unresponsiveness of services": the effort to cope with a large clientele leads to a situation
where the services provided [DEL: nevycházejí dostatečně vstříc :DEL] [INS: are not responsive
enough to :INS] the needs of (all) [DEL: klientů :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] and do not respond
appropriately to their problems and difficulties.

-   "Undignified circumstances": a high number of [INS: clients :INS] is coped with thanks to
exposing clients to conditions that are undignified from their perspective and possibly from the
perspective of the public. The sharpness of perceiving their insufficient dignity depends, among
other things, on whether the [DEL: klienti :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] or the public buy the
"unresponsiveness rationalisations" (see below) formulated by the organisation’s workers.

-   "Acceptable workload": the responsiveness of services to the needs of (some) [DEL: klientů
:DEL] [INS: clients :INS] is limited and the clients are exposed to conditions undignified for
them, which allows the workers to maintain the workload within limits acceptable for themselves and
adapt the costs of the work-performance to the resources available to them as employees of their
organisation.

-   "Rationalisation of unresponsiveness": the workers believe that the procedures helping to limit
the responsiveness of services to the needs of clients, exposing clients to undignified conditions
and allowing them to keep the workload of workers within acceptable limits, are beneficial to the
clients[INS: . :INS] They regard them as rationally designed means of intervention that do good to
public goals. They present them as such to one another and to the public where needed.

-   "Institutionalisation of unresponsiveness": procedures making it possible to cope with a large
clientele become established habits. This means that rather than construing them as methods of
coping with difficult working conditions, the workers often regard them as obvious and desirable
procedures used among other things because other workers expect them to do so and because meeting
this expectation is checked by colleagues or superiors.


If the procedures making it possible to cope with a large clientele are institutionalised in the
form of established habits, collective expectations and checking within the group, it is certainly
not suitable to think that their application is solely a personal matter of the workers. "Dominance
of quantity", "unresponsiveness of services", "undignified circumstances of their provision",
"acceptable workload" or "rationalisation of unresponsiveness" are usually not a display of an
individual's will(fullness). Although the impacts of practical application of these principles may
appear to clients or an external observer as consequences of moral failure of individuals and it is
useful to assess them in such moral terms, I believe that it is equally practical to construe them
as a display of an attempt of the work team to check if its members act in a way that makes it
possible to keep work performance within tolerable limits. To put it briefly: given the findings of
Lipsky and Goffman, it is practical to regard the practices described by them not only as morally
dubious acts of individual will, but also as displays of a collectively promoted and meaningful,
from the perspective of coping with working conditions, "culture of coping with a large clientele".

The above "rationalisation of unresponsiveness" principle shows among other things that the culture
of coping with a large clientele involves inherent tensions. It is not always easy for the workers
to follow the rules they themselves collectively promote in their attempt at self-preservation.
Providing services within this framework presents the workers with a dilemma between the need not
to exceed the acceptable workload on one hand and the need to approach people in a humane and
socially responsible way on the other. The workers can free themselves from that dilemma
essentially in two ways. Firstly they may try to construe the practices of coping with a large
clientele as reasonably justified procedures that are beneficial to clients[INS: . :INS] Secondly
they may refer to the fact that they cannot work in a high-quality way due to lacking sufficient
resources such as time.

Both Lipsky and Goffman describe the ways of "rationalising unresponsiveness" based on an assertion
that the practices of coping with a large clientele are beneficial to clients. These include the
"protection of the credibility of the bureaucracy and the service ideal by transferring sensitive
cases to pressure specialists" in Lipsky as well as [DEL: ”psychiatrická doktrína”, :DEL] "[INS:
the doctrine of psychiatry :INS] " that makes it possible to "present the disciplinary machinery in
the hospital as an embodiment of the therapy justified by psychiatry", as described by Goffman.

The requirements for increasing the number of workers is an example of the latter type of
"rationalisation of unresponsiveness", which is based on justifying the insufficient quality of
work with a lack of resources. The workers attribute various meanings to these requirements.

Firstly, the idea of distributing workload among a higher number of people can be meant as a "moan"
and an imaginary "mental vent". A mere thought that "there could be more of us to cope with it" can
help people moderate the tension stemming from the feeling that they "are not coping" with their
work or that they "cope" only at the expense of treating the clients in a distant way[INS: . :INS]

Secondly, the same idea can be a means of self-defence. If it is clear that an organisation cannot
recruit new employees due to a lack of funds, it is possible to ward off attempts to criticise the
unresponsiveness of services to the needs of clients by noisily voicing the requirement to increase
the number of workers[INS: . :INS] The logic of this way of "rationalising unresponsiveness" are:
"Give us the required number of people first and then criticise us!"

The third meaning of expressing the requirement for an increased number of workers is the case
where someone appeals to it while being clearly aware that compliance with their requirement would
have no effect on the quality (responsiveness) of the provided services. It seems that the author
of this requirement bargains on job relief through the potential increase in the number of workers,
believing that the expected change in quality will either be somehow reported or that "objective
reasons" will be found due to which the expected change in quality did not happen.

It is also possible that someone expresses the requirement to recruit a new worker with the sincere
hope that the recruitment will help improve the services provided. I believe that in this case it
should be admitted that while sincerely attempting to improve the provided services, the author of
the requirement is either unrealistic in their expectation of improvement or has forgotten to
mention other changes that should be made to meet the author's end. Whatever the case, one
objection stands against their expectation: instead of improving the quality of services, a simple
increase in the number of workers would result in a situation where the culture of coping with a
large clientele, with all its consequences and contradictions, would simply be pursued by a higher
number of workers. Both Goffman and Lipsky take a position supporting this doubting argument. Let
us examine what the two authors say about this matter.


Possibilities and conditions of change [DEL: přístupu :DEL] [INS: of approach :INS]


Goffman does not deal with the idea of changing the [DEL: přístupu léčebny k chovancům :DEL] [INS:
approach :INS] of hospitals [INS: to their inmates :INS] at all, considering it as unrealistic. In
fact he assumes that the [DEL: ”systém oddělení” :DEL] "[INS: ward system :INS] " (and indeed the
whole culture of coping with a large clientele) is an inseparable feature of "total institutions".
Goffman therefore describes the situation into which the hospital places its professional personnel
and contemplates what arrangements the personnel can make if they disagree. In this context he
mentions [DEL: Uvádí pouze možnosti, :DEL] [INS: – :INS] to put it in the language of [INS: Lipsky
:INS] [INS: – :INS] the [INS: coping strategies :INS] that in some ways accept the principles of
"[INS: ward system :INS] " operation[INS: . :INS] Some of these strategies involve more or less
suppressed displays of denial[INS: . :INS]

Goffman maintains that specialists are hired by hospitals to provide their services directly in the
residential organisation and [DEL: ”zbavili tak management nutnosti posílat chovance za službami
mimo samu instituci” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: to save management the necessity of sending inmates
out of the institution :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Avoiding the movement of inmates outside the
institution is indeed an important condition for preventing them from getting access to the
consumer goods and common experiences that are otherwise easily accessible; it is therefore a
condition for controlling the inmates and for operation of the "ward system"[INS: . :INS] Recruited
for these reasons, the specialists find out [DEL: ”že nemohou náležitě praktikovat své poslání a že
jsou využíváni jako ,vývěsní štít’, aby dodali profesionální punc systému privilegií”. :DEL] "[INS:
that they cannot :INS] [INS: […] properly practi :INS] c[INS: e their calling and are being used as
‘captives’, to add professional sanction to the privilege system :INS] "[INS: . :INS] The recruited
specialist finds out that their work is "[INS: a :INS] [DEL: ”druhem práce s veřejností”. :DEL]
[INS: species of public relations work :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Therapy is supported by the management
just "for show". The only exception from this rule is a situation [DEL: ”kdy instituci navštíví
hosté a vyšší management má zájem ukázat, jak moderní a bezvadná je její infrastruktura” :DEL]
[DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: when visitors come to the institution and higher management is concerned to
show how moder :INS] n[INS: and complete the facilities are” :INS] [INS: . :INS] (Goffman, 1991:
87-88.)

Psychiatrists and other specialist personnel respond in various ways to experience of this kind,
according to Goffman (1991: [DEL: 332 :DEL] [DEL: - :DEL] [DEL: 323) :DEL] [INS: 322 :INS] [INS: -
:INS] [INS: 324) :INS] : they "[INS: leave the state mental hospital :INS] " with an idea of going
to a place where they could do their specialist work[DEL: ”opouštějí státní psychiatrické léčebny”.
:DEL] [INS: . :INS] If they cannot or do not want to leave, they [DEL: ”předefinují svoji úlohu”
:DEL] [DEL: a stávají se ”moudrým :DEL] "[INS: redefine his role :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS]
nd[INS: :INS] becom[INS: e :INS] a "[INS: wise governor :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: devote :INS]
[DEL: vedoucím” :DEL] [DEL: , ”věnují se osvícené administraci”, obrátí se k výzkumu, pokusí se
”oprostit od kontaktu s pacienty a věnovat se práci s papíry”, :DEL] [INS: himself to enlightened
administration :INS] "[INS: , :INS] pursue research, try [INS: to :INS] "[INS: withdraw from patien
:INS] t[INS: contact :INS] [INS: […] retreating into paper work :INS] "[INS: , :INS] focusing their
attention on a "[INS: small number of ‘promising’ patients :INS] "[INS: [INS: [36] :INS] :INS]
[INS: :INS] or provide "[INS: […] therapy with the lower levels of staff :INS] "[INS: . :INS] In an
extreme case, they can take a distant, cynical attitude to their role in the hospital, "[INS:
protecting himself, if not his patients :INS] "[INS: . :INS]

Goffman also gives two ways of actively denying the role of specialist in a total institution. The
first could be referred to as "accepting the role of an experimenter" who tries [DEL: ”zakomponovat
terapii do celé škály denních kontaktů pacienta s personálem” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: to locate
therapy in the full round of daily contacts that the patien :INS] t[INS: has with all levels of
staff :INS] "[INS: . :INS] In the second case according to Goffman[DEL: ”někdy” :DEL] it may "[INS:
occasionally :INS] " happen that the specialist [DEL: ”stane ,členem světa pacientů’” :DEL] [DEL: ,
”souhlasí s jejich požadavky na to, co by instituce měla dělat”, a ”formuluje otevřenou kritiku
zařízení.” :DEL] "[INS: becomes a ‘patients’ man’, agreeing with their claims as to what the
institution is doing to them :INS] "[INS: , :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: voicing open
criticism of the establishment. :INS] " (Goffman, 1991: 332-323.)

A hypothesis is readily available that both of the mentioned forms of active denial of the roles of
"controller" and "billboard for the public" can be a challenge to the established orders in the
hospital. However Goffman does not think in this direction. He puts both "experimenting" and
"active criticism from the perspective of the inmates' needs" on a long list of "escape
strategies". He believes that using them the specialist personnel deals with their personal
situation without substantially changing the operation of the whole "machine". Goffman takes this
view probably because he regards manipulative control over inmates via the[DEL: ”systému oddělení”
:DEL] "[INS: ward system :INS] " as a hardly changeable feature of the culture of coping with a
large clientele in residential facility. Even if respecting this assumption of Goffman, we still
may express the assumption that "experimenting" or "active criticism" can lead to certain changes
in the quality of services within the generally limited responsiveness of services that is inherent
to this culture.

Lipsky contemplates the possibility of changing quality in a rather similar way. He regards the
collision between quality of services and demand for them as an inseparable accompanying feature of
the process of providing public services. However, his pragmatic and reformatory [DEL: přístup
:DEL] [INS: approach :INS] is more open to contemplations on the possibilities of remedy than the
vigorously critical view of Goffman.

The fact that in the case of [INS: street-level burea :INS] u[INS: cracies :INS] "[INS: the demand
for services tends to increase to meet supply :INS] " is a source of permanent tension between the
quantity of clients and the quality of the services provided, according to Lipsky[INS: . :INS] He
actually believes that availability of public services [DEL: ”popohání poptávku, a ne naopak” :DEL]
[DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: ’pulls’ demand, not the other way around :INS] "[INS: . :INS] If public
services have additional resources available and they extend the offer, the extension is swallowed
by the existing "[INS: reservoir of demand for public services :INS] "[INS: . (Lipsky, 1980: 33
:INS] [INS: - :INS] [INS: 35.) :INS]

Lipsky maintains that the quality of the offered services is influenced by the fact that [INS:
street-level burea :INS] u[INS: cracies are :INS] "[INS: trapped in a cycle of mediocrity :INS]
"[INS: . :INS] If an [INS: agency :INS] improves services and its workers respond better to
citizens' needs, the demand for their services increases and tension arises between the capacity of
the agency and demand. With the absence of a price mechanisms that would under different
circumstances attenuate the increase in demand for the higher quality service, the workers respond
to the unbalance by limiting the quality of services and making their use complicated. These
limitations apply until indifference to the needs of [INS: clients :INS] reinstates a manageable
proportion between the capacity of the [INS: agency :INS] and demand. (Lipsky, 1980: 38.)

The "reserve demand" that can be activated by increasing the capacity or quality of public
services, exists among the existing clients of t[INS: he agency. :INS] The c[INS: lients :INS] of
whom the workers are in charge are informally divided into [DEL: ”aktivovanou a neaktivovanou
část”. :DEL] "[INS: active and inactive categories :INS] " for the sake of keeping workload within
acceptable limits[INS: . :INS] If new workers are recruited, they take a part in the inactivated
cases. [DEL: Agentura :DEL] The a[INS: gency :INS] preserves the number of registered clients[INS:
, :INS] although in fact it has established contact with more people and provided them with more
services. The time spent with one client remains unchanged. (Lipsky, 1980: 36.)

Lipsky maintains that for the above reasons and [DEL: ”za jinak stejných okolností” :DEL] "[INS: if
other conditions of work remain the same :INS] ", increasing public budgets allocated for wages
will not change the way of interaction between worker and client and that from a long-term
perspective "[INS: increased capacity results in reproducing the level of service quality at a
higher :INS] [DEL: ”vyústí nárůst kapacity v reprodukci původní úrovně kvality služeb ve větším
rozsahu” :DEL] [INS: volume :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980: 36-38). In the language of this chapter, thanks
to higher public spending there will be a higher number of personnel approaching clients in the
same way as before, and the goals and standards of the culture of coping with a large clientele
will not change substantially. However Lipsky, unlike Goffman, adds: "It will be this way until
other circumstances change." And he works out reflections on how to face the tendency of public
agency frontline workers towards "[INS: drifting into the old patterns :INS] "[INS: :INS] of work
with [INS: clients. :INS] He believes that changing the "culture of coping with a large clientele"
is possible if the following three circumstances are successfully achieved:

Firstly, it is necessary to act against the workers seeing only the expectations of their
colleagues from work as important. [DEL: Klienti :DEL] [INS: Clients :INS] should have an
opportunity to observe the methods of work of public agencies' workers in an established and
routine way, understand them well and become an influential authority for them. Lipsky adds that
exposing the bureaucrats' decision-making to the clients' attention means to strengthen [DEL:
”zaměření na klienta” :DEL] [DEL: i tam, kde jsou možnosti klientů ”porozumět záludnostem
rozhodování omezené”. :DEL] "[INS: a client orientation :INS] "[INS: :INS] even if the [INS:
clients :INS] are "[INS: limited in their understanding of the ramifications of decision making
:INS] "[INS: . :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 208.)

The second condition for changing quality according to Lipsky is that the universities – where
students can be inspired to deflect from the established practice – are delivering some of their
teaching [DEL: ”v praxi” :DEL] [DEL: a aby studenti ”získávali výcvik od učitelů, s nimiž tuto
praxi sdílejí”. :DEL] "[INS: in the field :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] that
students are "[INS: receiving training from teachers who shared an office practice with their
students :INS] "[INS: . :INS] This is important because this way the future specialists will find a
balance between experience with the existing working conditions and established practice on one
hand and theoretically justified alternatives to this practice on the other hand. (Lipsky, 1980:
209.)

The third important stimulus for changing quality in the culture of coping with a large clientele
is "cultivation of critical support and thoughtfully asking questions" and their inclusion in
"routine practice": [DEL: ”Součástí každého pracovního týdne by se měly stát příležitosti pro
diskusi o práci jedinců, sdílenou kritiku a hledání :DEL] "[INS: Bui :INS] l[INS: t into every week
of pra :INS] c[INS: tice should be opportunities to review individuals :INS] ’[INS: work, share
criticism, and seek a collective :INS] [DEL: kolektivních možností zdokonalit výkon.” :DEL] [INS:
capacity to improve performance.” :INS] (Lipsky, 1980: 209-210.)



Limits and possibilities of quantitative solution


If we accept Lipsky's and Goffman's view of public services and social work, we will come to the
conclusion that the "culture of coping with a large clientele" cannot be straightforwardly changed
by increasing the number of people who provide services [INS: to the specific public agencies :INS]
’[INS: clients. :INS] Should we want to strengthen the responsiveness of services to the needs and
situation of [DEL: klientů, :DEL] [INS: clients, :INS] we should consciously act against the
tendency towards "extended reproduction" of the established ways of coping with a large clientele,
i.e. application of the same ways by an increased number of workers. Goffman is on balance
sceptical about the possibility of achieving such goal. Lipsky finds it difficult to achieve,
although not hopeless.

Regardless of their doubts about the possibilities of transforming the "culture of coping with a
large clientele" into a "culture of responsiveness of services to the needs and situation of [INS:
clients :INS] "[INS: , :INS] both authors describe the circumstances thanks to which the increase
in the number of workers could contribute to a changed quality of services. Goffman's findings
suggest that even in the often totally rigid environment [DEL: ”totálních institucí” :DEL] [INS: of
:INS] "[INS: total institutions :INS] ", "experimenters" and "active opponents" occur who - as I
add - are likely to be capable of influencing the quality [DEL: přístupu :DEL] [INS: of approach
:INS] of personnel [DEL: k ”chovancům”. :DEL] [INS: to :INS] "[INS: inmates :INS] "[INS: . :INS]
Lipsky describes how [DEL: ”specialisté na tísňové situace” :DEL] "[INS: pressure specialists :INS]
" provide better quality services to the part of clients that is more vigorously calling for their
needs being served, so preserving the [DEL: ”představu toho, jak by služba měla vypadat v ideálním
případě”. :DEL] "[INS: concept of what service would be under ideal conditions :INS] "[INS: . :INS]
I believe that pressure specialists not only help preserve the [DEL: méně vstřícné praktiky :DEL]
[INS: less responsive routines :INS] of the majority of the personnel, but they can also play the
role of a "cultural reservoir" of better quality solutions.

We can understand the proposals of Lipsky as a description of the conditions in which the attempts
of "experimenters", "active critics" and emulators of "[INS: pressure specialists” :INS] can stand
out more distinctly. Their influence in the organisation can increase if three changes occur.
Firstly if the participation of clients in decision-making concerning services is strengthened.
Secondly if schools offer alternative methods of work with the client and co-operate in the
training of future specialists with organisations that can teach students how to use limited
resources. The third condition is that open, critical and supporting – rather than "reckoning" or
"threatening" discussion on work with clients becomes a common part of the everyday life of social
work service providers[INS: . :INS] I find particularly important Lipsky's requirement for seeking
balance between experience in coping with common working conditions and alternatives to established
practice. The aspiration is not that "lobby [DEL: klientů”, :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] "[INS: ,
:INS] "freakish advocates of alternatives" and "stale practitioners" throw overwhelming arguments
at one another. The aspiration is to look for and find a way of gradually introducing improvements
into the existing practice that will be a contribution for workers and clients alike[INS: . :INS]


chapter 4

NEUTRALITY OR FAVOURITISM



As noted at the beginning of Chapter 2, street-level bureaucrats cope with their working conditions
in three ways according to Lipsky (1980: 83–85): by simplification of complex goals, limiting
demand and treating clients unequally based on prejudice. With the third of the approaches is
associated the dilemma between a neutral approach, if possible free of prejudices, and
differentiating between clients by the characteristics attributed to them in a prejudiced manner.
This dilemma is dealt with in this fourth chapter.



Reasons for differentiation between clients


According to Lipsky (1980: 113), differentiation between categories of clients and providing
services of variable quality to members of these individual categories is a common characteristic
in the operation of street-level bureaucracies, obviously including social work service
organisations. This kind of differentiation becomes questionable under certain circumstances that I
will discuss later.

Lipsky (1980: 105–107) says that clients are differentiated between for four basic reasons. Firstly
because society expects social work services to flexibly respond to one-off situations and approach
people with respect to the individual circumstances of their lives. Social workers who want to be
up to this expectation will be receptive to distinctive needs of their clients (individuals or
groups) and will differentiate between them on a case-by-case basis[37].

Secondly, the helping workers may pay unusual attention to a certain group of clients because they
want to help their fellowman and contribute to an improvement in people's lives. Sometimes they can
do so from pure altruism, while sometimes the neighbour's well-being matters less, because they are
tempted by the possibility of deciding independently, concentrating on a specific category of
clients of their own free will and hence attending to work that gives them greater satisfaction.
Lipsky believes that if they have such a possibility, they stick to it relentlessly. It matters
more for them than satisfaction from help to others. If motivated like this, they perceive
appreciation of the help they provide to the selected category of people as an entitlement to
independent decision-making. Rather than a goal, working for one’s fellowman becomes an instrument
of their own independence.

Thirdly, differentiation between categories of clients makes it possible to manage resources. In
these terms, the selection of clients is regulated in two ways. Sometimes organisations are
required to differentiate between clients based on their legal entitlement to the use of public
services. If this is the case, they divide clients by the characteristics that either entitle the
clients to use resources or services, or rather the opposite, withdraw the entitlement from them.
However, the process of selecting clients based on resources management is not regulated just by
official rules. The discretion usually possessed by street-level bureaucrats within their
organisation's rules allows them to use the resources – that are usually not enough to serve all
clients – where it brings more benefit. It must be said that they can apply their own ideas of what
a "benefit" is.

The fourth reason for differentiation between clients is the fact that providing services of
different quality to different categories of clients helps social work service people cope with the
workload, ambiguity and psychological strain of their job. In this case differentiation takes place
for reasons connected with resolving the workers' dilemmas and problems rather than an attempt to
better use resources to the benefit of clients.

Put briefly, the reason for differentiation between clients from the perspective of frontline
workers can be an attempt at individualisation of their approach, a desire to help one’s fellowman,
a desire for discretion about one's own satisfaction from work, an attempt to manage resources, a
conviction that rules concerning the handling of resources must be observed or also the need to
cope with the difficulties and problems of life in the organisation.



Subordinating practice to prejudices about clients


Whether differentiation follows a primary purpose of one kind or another, frontline workers employ
their own understanding of clients (Lipsky, 1980: 107, 152) and formulate "their conceptions of the
clients" (Lipsky, 1980: 83, 152) for the purpose of differentiating between them. This means that
they define the characteristics by means of which they categorise clients, and they pay variable
attention to them as members of these categories. In doing so, they often pursue the prejudices
applied by broader society in its perception of clients (Lipsky, 1980: 109).

As a result, they subordinate the practices of simplification of goals and controlling demand
discussed in the second and third chapters to prejudices about clients (Lipsky, 1980: 85). The
discretion typical for helping work allows frontline workers to categorise clients using their own
terms. Given that the conception of clients on which they build this approach rests in many aspects
in common prejudices, they may see the categorising of clients and differentiating between them as
justified before broader society. Since the categorisation of clients tends to be a tool of
reducing goals and moderating workload, in the eyes of frontline workers common prejudices justify
these practices as well.

Lipsky believes that "one's own conception of clients" tends to be influenced by three types of
prejudice. These prejudices ensue from the following: firstly sympathy of workers with or their
antipathy towards some characteristics of clients, secondly "general evaluations" that inform
society on the "social worth" of clients, or thirdly, the assumption of workers that some clients
will respond better than others to the intervention provided. (Lipsky, 1980: 108–111.)

As an example, female workers of two district authority social assistance departments in the Czech
Republic differentiated between clients using sympathy and antipathy. Just as in their "everyday
world", they felt more sympathy with children than to adults in their office. Especially when
paying out facultative benefits, they had little hesitation before finding "single mothers with
children" and "families with more children" to be truly needy, rather than adult applicants without
children (Winkler, 2000: 117).

One example of differentiating between clients using the common understanding of "socially worthy
clients" was described in the United States where public opinion values the restoration of clients’
fitness for work. As a result, "employable adults" are more than anyone else regarded as clients of
"social worth" by the U.S. public. Agencies working with the blind in the U.S. therefore focus
their rehabilitation efforts mainly on the middle-aged and the young. They do this in spite of the
fact that most blind people in the U.S. are ageing, soon-to-be pensioners (Lipsky, 1980: 109).

The approach of American family therapists to poor clients in 1960s can be presented as an example
of differentiation by prejudice about the ability of clients to respond to the intervention offered
in a desirable way. Without checking their assumption, the family therapists preferred middle class
clients and refused to work with the poor whom they regarded as "psychologically 'inaccessible'"
from the perspective of their treatment (Cloward, Epstein, 1965; Lipsky, 1980: 111).

Based on their personal sympathies, understanding of the social worth of individual clients and
their expected response to the services provided, frontline workers create their "rule of
normality", by means of which they define the expected behaviour of clients. They set up this
anticipation for themselves using two aspects. Firstly defining how a "normal" relationship of a
client to social order should look like, and secondly building on the established understanding of
"normal" behaviour of a client in interaction with helping workers. They assess the quality of the
provided intervention based on how in their eyes the client deviates from the so defined rules of
"normality". (Lipsky, 1980: 112–114.)

Along these lines, the above-mentioned workers of the Czech departments of social assistance saw as
interrelated applicants’ entitlement for social assistance benefits and their "decency", assessing
decency using various criteria: "From civic integrity and good reputation in place of residence to
responsiveness and co-operation in agenda processing." Among those deviating from this standard
was, according to them, a "client misusing the system" whom they "identified" by his pointing to
the possibility of more favourable solutions, trying to win their favour, threatening to complain
or behaving rudely. Such symptoms aroused suspicion in the workers of an attempt to "misuse the
system". The workers made such applicants feel their suspicion and were displeased if regulations
would not allow them to deny benefits. (Winkler, 2000: 117–119.)

What Lipsky terms the "rule of normality" is referred to by Hasenfeld (1983: 192–193) as
"perceptions of a client’s moral character". Hasenfeld mentions that the quality of the services
provided may depend on how the workers assess the moral character of a client. A negative
assessment results in deficient respect of workers for the civil rights of the client, stirs up an
attempt to make the scope and quality of help conditional on the client showing regret or
repentance, and it may end up in a lack of attention or even ignorance regarding the wishes and
feelings of the client. A positive assessment of the client's moral character usually results in a
growing feeling of responsibility for resolving their situation, it is accompanied by displays of a
partnership approach and can be a motive for giving priority to the processing of the client's
problem[38].

Hasenfeld (1983: 192–193) maintains that assessing the client’s moral character lies in answering
four questions by "human organisations'" workers. The first question is: "Is the client 'morally
responsible for [his or her] difficulties', and are they therefore guilty for their situation, or
are they in fact the victims of circumstances they are unable to influence?" The second question
has to do with improvement potential: "Is change achievable in the client?" The third dimension of
the client’s moral character is characterised by the following question: "Has the client 'moral
capability of making decisions' for himself or herself?" The fourth question asks about how society
views the client: "What is the 'social worth' of the client?" The quoted author adds that answers
to these questions usually derive from established ideas characteristic for the "cultural and
normative context of the organisation" (Hasenfeld, 1983: 193). How compelling these ideas are
depends on how they are linked to the prejudices generally accepted throughout whole society.





Conflict with the requirement for neutrality


Prejudices and understanding of "normality" are not the primary reason for differentiation between
clients. They serve as criteria for determining differences between clients, the purpose of which
is to justify simplification of goals and the practice of maintaining workload within acceptable
limits. According to Lipsky (1980: 109, 113), this approach is not surprising or questionable,
neither for the public nor for the helping workers insofar as the clients are differentiated
between on the basis of prejudices also accepted by broader society. In other words, until
differentiation becomes a target of criticism for some of the directly concerned or upset groups of
citizens. This happens rarely, because the prejudices of social workers "respond to general
orientations towards clients’ worthiness or unworthiness" (Lipsky, 1980: 109), and differentiation
between clients can therefore be seen as a way of "institutionalising" prejudices that pervade the
whole of society (Lipsky, 1980: 115).

Thus the helping workers and the public often have an identical understanding of "normality" or
"moral character" of different categories of clients. Yet differentiation on the basis of
prejudices comes into conflict with the legitimate principles of social work functioning, the
reason being that "moral neutrality" is expected from social work service people in modern society.
Street-level bureaucrats "are expected to treat all people in common circumstances alike". (Lipsky,
1980: 85, 151.)

This expectation is deeply rooted in the "bureaucratic", "professional" and "civil" cultures alike.
It should be said that they are different and even antagonistic worlds in a number of aspects. A
"bureaucrat" places emphasis on officers deciding by impersonal, unambiguous and previously set
clear rules given in writing. A "professional" should use their own judgment to look for unknown
solutions to complicated and therefore unrepeatable cases. "Citizens" associate at their own
discretion to defend their joint interests and voice or implement rules by which bureaucrats and
professionals should proceed in the citizens' interests.

In spite of these differences the advocates of bureaucracy, professionalism and citizenship are
united in one requirement: "The characteristics of clients should not influence the quality of the
service provided to them by the helping worker!" Although the quality of service is defined from
different aspects in the contexts of bureaucracy, professionalism and citizenship, in either case
it is expected that the helping worker proceeds, regardless of the status of clients, by identical
rules. In every case he examines, the bureaucrat should proceed in the same way and using the same,
previously set criteria. The professional is called by the ethical code of his profession to
responsibility for making sure that each client receives the services required by their individual
situation. This means paying appropriate attention to all clients regardless of differences in
opinion, race, etc. Clients are citizens and as such they are bestowed with identical ("civil" and
"human") rights, according to the ideology of modern society. Every citizen including social work
service people should respect these "equal" rights of the clients.

"Unequal treatment" or "favouritism" (Lipsky, 1980: 151) to which prejudiced differentiation
between clients leads, is in conflict with all these requirements. Even though differences between
clients may seem obvious to many people and the stereotypes of their "un/worthiness" justified, a
public worker should "have an equal scale for everyone", in line with the ideals of modern
democratic society. If they do not feel obliged to it by the very allegiance to their office, they
are called to responsibility for equal approach by their professional community, local fellow
citizens or a civil association of which they are members. The requirement for an equal approach
descends on the social work service person from all sides. Even if they categorise clients by the
commonly accepted prejudices, they still feel that something is not right. However justified the
unequal attention to the needs of clients categorised in this manner may seem to them in the light
of the same prejudices, their conscience is not entirely clean. They know or at least suspect that
they do not act justly in terms of the bureaucrat's and professional's neutrality or in terms of
the equal rights of citizens.

If the expectation of a neutral approach to clients is almost "omnipresent", it can hardly be
ignored. Yet social work service people act against it in many situations. There are two
possibilities: either violating the neutrality requirement is advantageous for them, or the social
work service people manage to attenuate the urgency of the neutrality requirements. Two questions
therefore emerge: "What is the benefit of prejudiced differentiation that stifles qualms of
conscience in the eyes of the workers?" "Or is it perhaps somehow ensured that the qualms of
conscience do not emerge at all?"



Coping with the dilemma between an equal approach and prejudiced differentiation


Differentiation between clients takes two specific forms. A group of clients can be eliminated from
contact with the organisation, or the organisation does not dismiss clients, but attends more and
better to a part of them while the other part is receiving less attention. Social work service
people use both practices as instruments of coping with the dilemma between complexity and
simplification of goals and between quality of services and quantity of clients. To justify the
lesser attention or unwillingness shown to some clients, they appeal to the "none so deaf as those
who will not hear" approach (see the second chapter). To save time and energy, they provide poorer
quality services to a majority of clients and create specialised sites for problem cases that need
a more thorough treatment (see the third chapter). However, by doing so they come into conflict
with the neutrality requirement and expose themselves to the dilemma between neutrality
and favouritism.

This dilemma is difficult to escape because – as I mentioned earlier – prejudiced differentiation
between clients takes the workers into conflict with the requirement for impartiality of the
bureaucrat and the unbiased attitude of the professional as well as with the expectation of respect
to the equal rights of the client as citizen. Two options remain available. Firstly it is possible
to reject differentiation by prejudices and differentiate between clients solely with regard to
their distinctive situation or perhaps with regard to the frontline worker’s legislative
obligations. The second option is to persuade oneself that the prejudices based on which the
clients are differentiated between are true, and that applying them is therefore correct and
eventually good for society.

The first solution – rejecting a prejudiced approach – is difficult to achieve, it is less frequent
and results in failure. The second solution – convincing oneself that the prejudices are justified
and appealing to them – is much more frequent and its influence should not be underestimated in
social work service organisations (Lipsky, 1980: 114–115; Hasenfeld, 1983: 194).

According to Lipsky (1980: 115), the reason is that differentiation between clients results in
"institutionalisation" of the prejudiced attitudes "that permeate the society". Although there are
individuals among street-level bureaucrats who refuse to accept these institutionalised prejudices,
the need for coping with uncertainty of working situation and workload supports prejudiced
thinking. Indeed it acts as "a barrier to anomalous information that might challenge the routines
and orientations that have been developed over time". Attempts to refrain from prejudiced
differentiation between clients runs into the fact that a possible change "threatens the existence
of coping routines and orientations that serve to rationalise the work".

Under this condition, justification of the practices of prejudiced differentiation is based on the
principle of rejecting whatever fails to fit into an established picture of the client accepted in
the organisation. A non-standard piece of information that might cast doubt on confidence about the
correctness of a prejudice and its practical application "is not heard". This happens because it
might cast doubt not only on prejudices, but subsequently on the differentiation that they believe
is in place and justifies the simplification of goals and the burdening of a part of the clients
with "additional costs". To take seriously information that dents the established understanding of
differences between clients is difficult for frontline workers for two reasons. Firstly the
information casts doubts as to whether the ways of coping with the contradictions of work with
clients are "defendable". Secondly, by doing so the same information erodes the satisfaction drawn
by the workers from the feeling that they are acting "correctly". (Lipsky, 1980: 115.)

To avoid these pitfalls, street-level bureaucrats are "receptive to information that seems to
confirm the legitimacy of their differentiation of the client world and thus supports their
patterns of practice". They therefore tend "to seek information among peers" whom they can expect
to think similarly, taking the information that confirms common understanding of clients as
"important". In short, frontline workers seek empirical arguments that support the validity of
their views and prejudices among their own, in their own social environment. (Lipsky, 1980:
114–115.)

Social work service people typically hold the view that "experience provides the basis for
knowledge in assessing the client world" (Lipsky, 1980: 115). If the “experience” is interpreted
correctly, there is hardly anything to put against this. The problem is that helping workers often
handle their experience in a selective and biased manner. Lipsky maintains that their favourite way
of arguing is to support validity of a prejudice by a separate illustration. They say about the
expected characteristics of their clients: "I know it’s true because I once had a client who ..."
(Lipsky, 1980: 115.) If this is the way a frontline worker appeals to recognition of validity of a
prejudice viewed as justified by the public or colleagues, he or she knows that the surroundings
will say “yes”. The likelihood of encountering a negative response with respect to the credibility
of the separate illustration is small. If it is a generally accepted understanding, people around
have an equally trusting attitude to his or her prejudice as he or she himself or herself. For them
too it helps arrange the varied, ambiguous and contradictory reality around them into a tidy and
comprehensible picture on the basis of which it is possible to decide without great, tiring doubts.
Casting doubt on the clarity of the picture by a contradicting piece of information would make
people around too feel uneasy. And should someone still give an example to the contrary, nothing
happens: "The exception proves the rule!"

According to Lipsky, the justification leaning on generally accepted prejudices is used in the U.S.
by street-level bureaucrats to justify an unequal approach to the poor and black people. From the
conviction of many Americans that "poor people at some level are responsible for conditions in
which they find themselves" and that "receiving benefits labelled ’for the poor’ is shameful", it
is not far to accepting the idea that "public programs for poor people are […] costs to society,
not benefits". These prevailing attitudes to the poor make it possible to justify behaviour that
leads to their being neglected by the authorities. Prejudices about racially and ethnically
different clients are connected with attitudes to the poor in America. These make it easier for
public employees to place a large number of poor clients among the "less socially worthy", on the
basis of which lesser attention is paid to them. The fact that these ideas prevail in America
strengthens the conviction that such an approach is correct and makes us forget the sin against the
bureaucrat's loyalty, professional ethics or the idea of equal civil rights. (Lipsky, 1980:
181–182.)



The meaning of appealing to accepted prejudices


What has been said so far suggests that the primary purpose of appealing to generally accepted
prejudices is to justify varying treatment of varyingly assessed clients. Unequal assessment of
clients and varying treatment of them in fact serves simplification of goals and maintaining
workload within acceptable limits. Thus a single prejudice and the differentiation between clients
based on it play different roles in the context of different dilemmas: a prejudice may define the
reasons for which it is not necessary to deal with certain problems of some clients. If so, it
serves to justify simplification of goals. The same prejudice may also justify the provision of
better quality services only to a part of clients. If this is the case, it becomes an instrument of
limiting workload. If, on the basis of the same prejudice, information contrary to the prejudice is
rejected, it serves as an argument to the benefit of its own validity and an excuse for violating
the neutrality principle. It is therefore useful to view a differentiation practice in three ways –
from the perspective of the three dilemmas mentioned by Lipsky. I have tried to portray this
thought in table No. 1.


table No. 1

Meaning of the ways of differentiation between clients within different dilemmas





                                   PRACTICES OF UNEQUAL APPROACH

                         WAYS OF COPING WITH DILEMMAS BY FRONTLINE WORKERS

                  justification of simplified goals by appealing to circumstances

justification of controlling workload by differentiating quality of services to different parts of
                                             clientele

          justification of favouritism using prejudices about differences between clients

             coping with the dilemma between complex and simplified goals (Chapter 2)

     coping with the dilemma between the service quality and the number of clients (Chapter 3)

              coping with the dilemma between neutrality and favouritism (Chapter 4)

                             excluding "less socially worthy" clients

                       "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear!"

        excluding a part of clients by limiting information about entitlement and services

      justifying exclusion of a part of clients by prejudice about their smaller social worth

                    providing better services to "more socially worthy" clients

                            "At least for someone if not for everyone!"

              concentration of the more qualified personnel on a part of clients only

justifying varying quality of services by prejudice about smaller social worth of a part of clients

            greater attention to clients who will yield "better rating" if they change

                                "We only do what we’re asked for!"

"creaming": increasing success rate by selecting clients successful by accepted assessment criteria

    justifying varying quality of services by prejudice used for assessment in the organisation

               greater attention to clients expected to be "more receptive of help"

                       "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear!"

  economising on resources and more success by working with clients regarded as more receptive to
                                           intervention

  justifying exclusion of a part of clients by prejudice about their lower receptiveness to help

In the left column of table No. 1 are the four basic practices of differentiation between clients:
exclusion of those who are perceived as "less socially worthy" clients, provision of better
services to those who are perceived as "more socially worthy" part of clients, greater attention to
the clients who will yield a "better rating" for the frontline workers if they change, and greater
attention to clients who are expected to be "more receptive to help". Each of these practices has a
meaning for the workers who use it from the perspective of simplification of goals, coping with
workload and justification of unequal approach to clients. The three meanings usually complement
one another. As Lipsky puts it (1980: 155), if street-level bureaucrats are to be successful in
coping with the contradictions of their work, the ways of coping with workload, conception of goals
and understanding of clients "must fit together".

The idea that the effectiveness of the patterns of workload control, conception of goals and
prejudices about clients is given by their mutual interrelatedness, seems important to me. It
points to the fact that the resolutions of different dilemmas of work with the client are
connected. I therefore want to try and give a comprehensive interpretation of the meaning of
different practices of prejudiced differentiation. Since the examples given by literature usually
refer to just one of the dilemmas separately, I will try to work out and outline the connections to
the other dilemmas myself.


Exclusion of the "less socially worthy" clients


Taking aside the heading of table No. 1, its first line is dedicated to a way of prejudiced
differentiation that rests in "excluding 'less socially worthy' clients". Although literature does
not provide abundant examples of this approach, one has been recorded. Lipsky (1980: 102) gives the
example of a U.S. agency that got rid of a part of clients by failing to print and post posters
offering its services in Spanish. Lipsky notes that by this approach the agency managed to limit
demand for its services. The Hispanic part of potential clients simply did not learn about them or
was able to learn about them with a significant delay.

I believe that for the agency personnel, this approach at the same time posed a simplification of
goals. Other than the white and black people's problems, the Hispanic population in the United
States has some specific problems that require specific forms of intervention. Since the agency got
rid of Hispanic clients, its personnel did not have to deal with these problems – at least for a
time and not to a large extent. For example, only a small group focused on dealing with the
Hispanic population's problems, while the majority of personnel were able not to include them among
their goals.

Excluding a whole ethnic and cultural group from the clientele is a rather obvious misdemeanour
against the neutrality principle. It is reasonable to assume that the agency personnel as public
employees could afford this because poor Hispanic people have the reputation in the U.S. of
"problematic, less socially worthy" fellow citizens who "will not hear anyway".


Providing worse services to "less socially worthy" clients


The second line of table No. 1 refers to "providing better services to ‘more socially worthy’
clients". This version of prejudiced differentiation tends to be described in literature in its
more negative form – authors write about why "the less socially worthy" ones are served worse (see
for example Cloward, Epstein, 1965). An article on "institutionalised racism" by Dodson (1970) is
an example of such a discourse.

Dodson asks the question as to whether public agencies personnel discriminate against their black
clients because they hate them, or rather the opposite, whether they hate them because they
discriminate against them. He claims that the latter answer is correct. Providing worse services to
black people is an established approach that simplifies the personnel's work and saves effort
(Dodson, 1970: 91–92). Workers taking this path to provide "unshared privilege" to their white
kinsmen are in fact "people of good will who lead personal lives of piety". To calm their
consciences, they have no other way but "to develop rationalisations as to why they [white people]
are entitled to such advantages beyond those of the other race”. These rationalisations then become
a "racist dogma", "mythologies" hindering effective work of agencies in "black neighbourhoods".
(Dodson, 1970: 94–95.)

Dodson (1970: 95) gives a list of characteristics that accompany a black complexion according to
the mentioned dogmas and myths. They are: "low I.Q.", "low social class", "weak ego strength",
"lack of the father with whom to relate", "inability to forego immediate pleasures for long-range
goals", "matriarchal domination", "culture deprivation" and "lack of preschool stimulation".

As noted in the first chapter, the thought that the said characteristics accompany black complexion
becomes prejudice only if its validity is not verified again and again in every individual client
of black complexion. Dodson (1970: 95) believes that this condition of prejudiced judgment tends to
be met: workers usually do not doubt that poor black people "could not participate". On the other
hand the workers are willing to admit that some of them may "grow". "Translated into English"
according to Dobson, this statement means that there is a willingness for "being 'washed'” – being
transmuted into "reasonable facsimiles of the dominant group members” and becoming a "black
Anglo-Saxon". (Dodson, 1970: 89–90, 96.)

Thus the potential clients of the agencies in which the described processes take place are divided
into three categories according to Dodson: white people to whom standard services are provided.
Black people who do not show signs of willingness for "being washed" and who are provided no
services. The third category is the black people for whom "washing" is acceptable. The agency will
help the latter adopt the "manners, language and dress of the dominant group". Dodson says that
millions from the second generation of immigrants of various minorities have gone through this
process in the U.S. He adds that black people have a rather great disadvantage compared to them in
that "his colour prevents him from escaping his identity". (Dodson, 1970: 90.)


Greater attention to clients who will yield a "better rating" if they change


This way of differentiating between clients, called "creaming", is given in the third line of table
No. 1. The principle is that the social work service people focus their attention predominantly on
the clients who seem to be potentially most successful "in terms of bureaucratic success criteria”.
(Lipsky, 1980: 107.)

Lipsky says metaphorically that these clients are "skimmed off the top" by the workers. He notices
in particular that work with promising clients brings the frontline workers recognition in the
organisation and success in spite of their failing to manage work with all clients. (Lipsky, 1980:
107.) Thus he describes "creaming" as a technique of coping with the dilemma between the quality of
services and the quantity of clients. Lipsky says: "If all clients are equally worthy but all
cannot be served, increasing the rate of personal or agency success becomes a priority." (Lipsky,
1980: 107.) This sentence points to an important difference between how "creaming" is understood by
Lipsky and how it is understood by other authors.

The other authors use this term rather freely, labelling by it any selection of clients that is in
some way favourable for social work service people (see for example Dodson, 1970: 91; Howe, 1986:
32). In this free conception, all the four practices of prejudiced differentiation given in table
No. 1 could be regarded as "creaming". Lipsky however relates "skimming off the top" solely to a
situation where the workers select those among otherwise "equally worthy" clients who will help
them win recognition from the employer. Approaches based on rejecting "less worthy" clients or
preferring clients "more receptive of help" are not considered as "creaming" by Lipsky.

We can assume that "skimming off the top" is not just a way of coping with workload for frontline
workers. The possibility of simplification of goals is also connected with it: workers specialise
in promising clients and train them in resolving their problems while paying relatively less
attention to the problems of other clients. Even if they know that the assessment criteria
recognised by the department may be biased or they pursue the short-term interests of the
organisation, they still may appeal to them when justifying the misdemeanour against the neutrality
requirement.

The conduct of job counsellors sending "employable" clients to apply for vacancies is usually given
as an example of creaming off. While the chances are rather high for such clients to get a job even
without the help of the department, they take away the opportunity from people more difficult to
place. (Lipsky, 1980: 108; Hasenfeld, 1983: 6, 100.)

Another example of creaming off has to do with preferring children and their families and
disadvantaging elderly people and people with a handicap. Cypher (1980: 80–82) and Howe (1986:
5–19) note that the personnel of Departments of Social Services in Britain preferred work with
children and their families in the 1970s. The problems of childcare occupied a greater part of the
work of social workers even though these cases were less numerous than cases of elderly people and
people with a handicap. There was a hierarchy of cases and workers at the Departments of Social
Services, which at the time employed 75% of all social workers in Britain. At the top of the
hierarchy were cases of children dealt with by qualified and experienced personnel. At the opposite
end of the hierarchy were the cases of elderly people and people with a handicap attended by less
qualified social work assistants or volunteers. There was no department that would include in its
official strategy a plan to place a part of clients under the sustained attention of workers with
distinct professional expertise.

Cypher and Howe identically state that there are more reasons for this differentiation between
clients of Departments of Social Services. These include for example preferring more complicated,
less routine, less stigmatised and less controllable work with children by qualified personnel
(Cypher, 1980: 81; Howe, 1986: 25–32). The main reason however according to them is that the "moral
panic" breaking loose after 1970 in Britain around abused children caused the problem of violence
against children to become "the major concern of the practitioners and their employing departments"
(Cypher, 1980: 81; Howe, 1986: 128).

Repairing the credit of personal social services that was found to be failing by the press became
an important strategic issue (Howe, 1992) for the representatives of social services sector and its
frontline workers. The ability of departments to protect endangered children against the risk posed
by their parents began to be considered a success criterion. The panic around the abuse of children
deflected priorities, structure of clientele and practice to the benefit of children. The cases of
problem families began to be perceived as a matter of "risk-management" and were therefore
entrusted to workers with a higher professional competence (Cypher, 1980: 81). The prejudice about
a greater "risk potential" of children's cases for the department and the ensuing emphasis of
professionally more competent workers on the cases of problem families was gradually "accepted as
natural" by frontline workers (Howe, 1986: 128).

One can say that the social work service people may have legitimately simplified their work by
appealing to the prejudice according to which the children's cases were more complicated and
required a more professional approach. They perceived the cases of elderly people and people with a
handicap as less complicated, setting themselves less demanding goals in their work with these
cases and achieving them in a more routine way. By doing so they only did "what they we’re asked
for". The departments' goals were less complicated and the workload of social workers became better
manageable thanks to paying predominantly routine care to the less preferred categories of clients
(Cypher, 1980: 82; Howe, 1986: 27–28). Also, the workload became better manageable because the
time-consuming and professionally demanding attempt at "rehabilitation" of problem families was
much oftener than before replaced by official interventions such as "removal of a child"[39] due to
fears of another "failure" of the department. Such interventions were no longer used as "last
resort" instruments, becoming more often "a routine step to resolution" (Howe, 1986: 128; 1992:
491–492).


Greater attention to clients expected to be "more receptive of help"


Frontline workers sometimes differentiate clients on the basis of the prejudice that a part of them
will respond in a receptive way to their intervention or that the response of the other part of
clients to the intervention will be passive. Lipsky believes that unlike "creaming", the motivation
for this way of differentiation does not have much to do with success criteria within the
department. Instead it derives from the attempt of the workers to achieve satisfaction, which they
can get from people who co-operate well or at least respond to the provided help and are usually
more successful in using help and managing their difficulties. (Lipsky, 1980: 111.)

In this context Lipsky mentions that the personnel of organisations dealing with the family "would
rather be assigned to child abuse than child neglect cases". However repulsive a form of criminal
conduct child abuse is, the persons involved in it are thought to be much more likely to be
responsive to intervention than passive parents who neglect their children. (Lipsky, 1980: 155.) If
the workers prefer abuse cases without verifying the expected "receptiveness" of the persons
involved, a prejudice emerges that in the eyes of the workers justifies concentration of attention
on the "more receptive" clients.

The workers deal more thoroughly with the abuse cases, hoping to achieve better satisfaction from
work thanks to the response they expect from the persons involved in the cases of abuse. At the
same time they are getting rid of the burden posed by the uncertainty of neglect: in most cases it
is difficult to clearly establish as to whether neglect happens or the parents' behaviour cannot be
classified as neglect (Horne, 1999: 62). This uncertainty could be only compensated for by a
laborious, long-term observation of the case and adding more and more information. It is therefore
simpler to focus attention on the cases of proven abuse. Although these are not exactly crystal
clear either, the goals of work with them are more obvious.

The workers may justify for themselves the omitting of neglect cases by the idea that they dedicate
their time to the "more serious" issues of abuse instead of wasting energy on work with the
"hopeless cases" of indifferent and passive parents of neglected children. In addition, they may
find support for that idea in public opinion.



Coping with differences between expectation and result


Even simplified goals are sometimes difficult to achieve in spite of all attempts for controlling
workload. In this situation prejudiced differentiation helps frontline workers cope with the
psychological consequences of the differences between the expected results and what is in fact
achieved (Lipsky, 1980: 83). This happens in three ways. Differentiation makes it possible to
preserve the idea of work done well at least with respect to a small part of clients, it allows a
narrowing of the range of clients thought to deserve good quality services, and rids workers of the
feeling of responsibility for some failures of social work services (Lipsky, 1980: 151–156).

If it is impossible to work well with all clients, prejudiced differentiation between them makes it
possible for frontline workers to approach at least some responsively. They provide to a part what
they would like to provide to all clients. At least somewhere this is how they preserve the
possibility of acting in a way that is compatible with the "ideal conception of their own work". At
least in a part of clients they do not feel a marked inconsistency between what they think the
reality should be and what it is in fact. In spite of adverse working conditions, frontline workers
can live with the feeling that they are capable of doing their work well. (Lipsky, 1980: 151.)

If the workers are able to divide their clients into "victims" and "offenders", into those "capable
of change" and the "hopeless" ones, "more capable" and "less capable" in moral terms, or even "more
socially worthy" and "less socially worthy" (see above on "normality" and "moral character" of the
client), they can justify for themselves and for others who should and who should not be paid full
attention (Lipsky, 1980: 152). The ability of marking some clients as "offenders", "hopeless",
"incapable in moral terms" or "less social worthy" rids workers of the feeling of responsibility
for the fate of the worse judged part of clients and a substantial portion of unsuccessful work
(Lipsky, 152–153; Hasenfeld, 1983: 193).

Thanks to differentiation between clients, frontline workers can avoid the feeling that things are
not what they should be. This must be extremely important for them given that they operate in
conditions predestining them to frequent lack of success. To put it metaphorically, curing a hardly
manageable quantity of incurables who often do not even want to be cured, plus complying with all
those who claim the right to set the result without knowing what they actually want, is no easy
thing. It is little wonder then that social work service people try to justify before themselves a
simplification that makes their work clearer, and subsequently justify poor success.

The problem is that the prejudices and the differentiation meant to be a tool of coping with an
adverse working situation often transform into an end. A prejudice must be limitlessly trusted to
become a convincing justification. Prejudices control us instead of helping us control adverse
working conditions. Take for example the "curability of incurables". Are the so-called "socially
weaker" clients indeed "hopeless", or is "dooming them to failure" just our way of excusing our
inability to help them?


chapter 5

[DEL: JEDNOSTRANNÉ NEBO SYMETRICKÉ VZTAHY S KLIENTEM :DEL] [INS: ONE-SIDED OR SYMMETRIC
RELATIONSHIPS :INS]



The findings of research aimed at organisations culture suggest that social work service people
must often cope with a question difficult to resolve, as to whether they should direct [DEL:
klienty :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] in their own way or respect them as autonomous partners (Ohlin,
Piven, Pappenfort, 1965; Couse, 1971; Satyamurti, 1979; Fielding, 1984; Howe, 1991: 159–161; Laan,
1998a; Baldwin, 2000; Merton, 2000: 189–193, etc.). The dilemma hidden behind this question is
called a conflict between[DEL: ”kontrolou”, ”autoritou” nebo ”monologem” na jedné straně a ”péčí”,
”podporou”, ”pomocí” nebo ”dialogem” na druhé straně. ”Kontrola”, ”autorita” nebo ”monolog” :DEL]
"[INS: control :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: authority :INS] "[INS: :INS] or "[INS: monologue :INS]
"[INS: :INS] on one side [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: care :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS:
support :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: help :INS] "[INS: :INS] or "[INS: dialogue :INS] "[INS: :INS]
on the other[INS: . :INS] "[INS: Control :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: authority :INS] "[INS: :INS]
or "[INS: monologue :INS] " are taken as synonyms for [DEL: ”jednostranného ovlivňování” :DEL]
[DEL: klienta :DEL] "[INS: one-sided influence :INS] "[INS: upon :INS] the [INS: client :INS] by
the worker, while the terms [DEL: ”péče”, ”podpora”, ”pomoc” nebo ”dialog” symbolizují ”symetrický
vztah” :DEL] "[INS: care :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: support :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: help :INS]
"[INS: :INS] or "[INS: dialogue :INS] "[INS: :INS] symbolise a "[INS: symmetric relation :INS] "
between worker and [INS: client :INS] (Laan, 1998a: 229).

The habits that make it possible in normal working life to avoid the difficult choice between
"[DEL: ”jednostranným ovlivňováním” klienta a ”symetričností vztahu” :DEL] [INS: one-sided
influence :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: upon :INS] the [INS: client and :INS] a[INS: :INS] "[INS:
symmetric relation :INS] " with him or her may connect to four themes according to the findings of
the research conducted so far: the way of communicating with client, the way of defining the
client's problems, the way of ensuring influence on the client's conduct, i.e. authority, and
finally the role of workers in mediating a balance between the expectation of the social
environment and the client[INS: . :INS]



"Monologue" and "dialogue" with the [DEL: klientem :DEL] [INS: client :INS]


The contradictory ways of communicating with the [DEL: s klientem :DEL] [INS: client :INS] are
clearly defined by Laan. According to him, "monologue" is the first alternative. In this [DEL:
přístupu :DEL] [INS: approach :INS] the worker looks at the client and the client's situation as an
object, confident that his or her understanding of the client and the client's situation is
objectively valid, without assuming that the worker's interpretation could be a matter for
discussion (Laan, 1998a: 47–48, 194–199). "Dialogue" stands on the other side, according to Laan
(1998a: 226–231). In a dialogue, the worker regards his or her own conception of the situation as
equal with the client's understanding, taking both seriously and regarding both as a potential
matter for discussion. The worker understands the [DEL: Klienta :DEL] c[INS: lient :INS] as a
partner in communication and attempts mutual understanding.



The p[DEL: Princip “držitele problému“, “pomoc“ a “kontrola“ :DEL] [INS: rinciple of :INS] the[INS:
:INS] "[INS: problemholder :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: help :INS] "[INS: and :INS] "[INS: control
:INS] "


The ways of defining the problems [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: of clients :INS] and intervention goals
are dealt with by Úlehla[40]. From his explanation of the "[INS: principl :INS] e[INS: of :INS] the
[INS: problemholder :INS] ", a relation can be regarded as symmetric in which the worker [DEL:
”pomáhá” :DEL] "[INS: helps :INS] " to resolve a problem of which the client is a [DEL: ”držitelem”
:DEL] [DEL: je klient. :DEL] "[INS: holder :INS] "[INS: . :INS] If however the worker deals with a
problem of which he himself or she herself is the[DEL: ”držitelem” :DEL] [DEL: je on sám, :DEL]
"[INS: holder :INS] "[INS: , :INS] the [INS: client is :INS] [DEL: klienta ”kontroluje” :DEL] [INS:
under :INS] the [INS: wo :INS] r[INS: ker :INS] '[INS: s :INS] "[INS: control :INS] " and the
worker influences the client in a [INS: one-sided manner. :INS] (Úlehla, 1999: 28–31.) I will
answer the question as to who is the "[DEL: ”držitelem problému”, :DEL] [INS: problemholder :INS] "
using a table by Úlehla. I prefer to modify it for the needs of this text (see table No. 2).

Úlehla (1999: 28–31) builds on the assumption that the worker finds some [DEL: klienta” :DEL] "ways
o[INS: f :INS] the [INS: client” :INS] unacceptable. If they agree upon that with the client (see
the upper left corner of table No. 2), "nobody has a problem" and no intervention takes place.

It happens that the [DEL: klient :DEL] [INS: client :INS] finds some of his or her ways, which are
acceptable for the worker, to be problematic (see the upper right corner of table No. 2). In such a
case the client is the "[INS: problemholder :INS] " and the worker provides him or her with [DEL:
”pomoc” :DEL] "[INS: help :INS] " in resolving his or her own problem. Their relation is [DEL:
symetrický. :DEL] [INS: symmetric. :INS]

If the worker finds some ways [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: of client :INS] unacceptable and the [DEL:
klient :DEL] [INS: client :INS] thinks the opposite (see the bottom left corner of table No. 2),
the worker is the [DEL: ”držitelem problému” se stává :DEL] "[INS: problemholder :INS] ". If, in
order to resolve the worker's problem, the worker tries to change the client's behaviour, the
worker acts [DEL: jednostranně a vykonává ”kontrolu”. :DEL] [INS: in :INS] a [INS: one-sided manner
a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] exerts "[INS: control :INS] "[INS: . :INS]



table No. 2

[DEL: ”Pomoc” a ”kontrola” podle ”principu držitele problému” :DEL] "[INS: Help :INS] "[INS: and
:INS] "[INS: control :INS] "[INS: :INS] by the "[INS: principl :INS] e[INS: of problemholder :INS]
"


[DEL: způsoby a chování klienta jsou … :DEL] [DEL: :DEL]

[DEL: … pro klienta :DEL]


ways and[INS: :INS] behaviour of [INS: client :INS] [INS: :INS] are[INS: … :INS] [INS: :INS]

[INS: … :INS] for client[INS: :INS]

Problem-free

problematic

[DEL:   :DEL]

[DEL:   :DEL]

[DEL: … pro pracovníka :DEL]

[DEL: přijatelné :DEL]

[DEL: nikdo nemá problém, nedochází k intervenci :DEL]

[DEL: ”držitelem problému” je klient, pracovník mu poskytuje ”pomoc” při jeho řešení :DEL]


[INS:   :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

[INS: … :INS] for worker[INS: :INS]

acceptable[INS: :INS]

nobody has a problem, no intervention takes place [INS: :INS]

[INS: worker offers :INS] "[INS: help :INS] "[INS: to client who is  :INS] "[INS: problemholder
:INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: :INS]

[DEL: nepřijatelné :DEL]

[DEL: ”držitelem problému” je pracovník, který vykonává ”kontrolu” nad chováním klienta :DEL]

[DEL: ”držitelem problému” jsou oba, pracovník buď ”pomáhá” nebo vykonává ”kontrolu” :DEL]


unacceptable[INS: :INS]

[INS: client is under :INS] "[INS: control :INS] "[INS: of the worker who is  :INS] "[INS:
problemholder :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: :INS]

[INS: both client and worker are :INS] "[INS: problemholders :INS] "[INS: , worker  :INS] "[INS:
helps :INS] "[INS: or :INS] "[INS: controls :INS] "[INS: :INS]


source: Úlehla, 1999: 31 (reviewed, extended)


In his original table, [DEL:   :DEL]

Úlehla failed to include the possibility that the worker and the client agree upon rejecting a part
of the ways and behaviours [DEL: klienta. :DEL] [INS: of :INS] the [INS: client. :INS] In such a
case they both are "[DEL: ”držitelem problému” :DEL] [INS: problemholders :INS] " and the reasons
for the negative assessment of the client's behaviour need to be considered[INS: . :INS] If both
reject them for the same reasons or if the worker accepts in discussion the [DEL: klientovy :DEL]
[INS: client’s :INS] reasons for negative assessment, the [DEL: klientovi se dostává ”pomoci” :DEL]
[INS: client :INS] is given "help" in resolving the client's problem. If however the reasons for
which they assess the behaviour of client negatively are different, the worker is the "[INS:
problemholder :INS] ". The worker resolves the worker's own problem, hence exerting "control"[INS:
. :INS] "[INS: Help :INS] "[INS: to :INS] the [INS: client :INS] can then become a rather
unintended effect of the worker's action.

In summary, [DEL: ”kontrola” :DEL] "[INS: control :INS] " according to Úlehla is identical with an
attempt of the worker to change something the client does not want to change[DEL: klient :DEL] .
The client has not ordered [DEL: ”Kontrolu” si klient :DEL] "c[INS: ontrol :INS] ". [DEL: ”Pomoc”
:DEL] "[INS: Help :INS] " rests in supporting a change the [DEL: klient :DEL] [INS: client :INS]
has ordered or expects.

"Dialogue" is a prerequisite for help defined in this manner: the worker must understand the
definition of the problem [INS: by :INS] the [INS: client :INS] or agree upon it with the [DEL:
s klientem :DEL] [INS: client :INS] . In[DEL: ”kontrole” :DEL] "[INS: control :INS] ", the worker
is happy with "monologue", happy to judge the client's ways from the worker's own perspective.



[DEL: “Přidělená“ a “přirozená“ autorita :DEL] "[INS: Constituted :INS] "[INS: and :INS] "[INS:
inherent :INS] "[INS: authority :INS]


The third dimension of the dilemma between[DEL: ”jednostranným ovlivňováním” klienta a
”symetričností vztahu” s ním :DEL] "[INS: one-sided influence :INS] " on the c[INS: lient and :INS]
"[INS: symmetric relationship :INS] "[INS: with him or her :INS] has to do with the influence the
worker has on changes in the client's behaviour[INS: . :INS] These can be induced by the worker if
the worker "has authority".

Yelaja defines [DEL: ”Autorita” :DEL] [DEL: je klientem uznávaná :DEL] "a[INS: uthority :INS]
"[INS: :INS] as the worker's power recognised by the client to change the behaviour [INS: of :INS]
the [INS: client :INS] . In these terms, [DEL: ”Moc” :DEL] "p[INS: ower :INS] " is the ability to
cause a change in the client's behaviour that is in line with the worker's intentions. The [DEL:
”Autorita” :DEL] "a[INS: uthority :INS] " of worker lies in the conviction [DEL: klienta, :DEL]
[INS: of :INS] the [INS: client :INS] that if the worker wants to influence him or her, the attempt
is legitimate and therefore can be successful. (Yelaja, 1971: 232–233.) In this respect [DEL:
”autorita” :DEL] "[INS: authority :INS] " is the potential power of the worker. The worker "has" it
even if he or she currently does not use it.

We can understand the above-discussed "monologue" as a communication in which the worker only
counts on his or her own authority. "Dialogue" emerges if both worker and client recognise each
other's [DEL: autoritu :DEL] [INS: authority :INS] and both find it correct that they can mutually
influence each other.

A worker may apply two types of authority towards a client[INS: : :INS] "[INS: constituted
authority :INS] " of his or her office and the [DEL: ”přirozenou autoritu” :DEL] "[INS: inherent
authority :INS] " of himself or herself (Schweinitz, Schweinitz, 1971: 123; Yelaja, 1971: 233–235.)

[DEL: ”Přidělená autorita” :DEL] "[INS: Constituted authority :INS] " insists in recognition of the
influence given by the position of the worker in the organisation and the mandate delegated to the
organisation and consequently the worker by legislation or by a different kind of delegation.

The [DEL: ”Přirozená autorita” :DEL] "i[INS: nherent authority :INS] " of a worker is based on his
or her personal qualities. It is the [DEL: autorita :DEL] [INS: authority :INS] of a wise,
experienced, scholarly, responsive, consistent or devoted individual spontaneously accepted by
people who expect help.

The application of[INS: :INS] "[INS: constituted authority :INS] "[INS: :INS] tends to have a [INS:
one-sided chara :INS] c[INS: ter, :INS] while "[INS: inherent authority :INS] " depends on a
certain [DEL: symetrií vztahů pracovníka a klienta. :DEL] [INS: symmetry of relationships :INS]
between worker and [INS: client. :INS]

If the [DEL: klient uznává ”přidělenou autoritu”, :DEL] [INS: client :INS] recognises "[INS:
constituted authority :INS] "[INS: , :INS] it is usually the result of a [DEL: jednostranné :DEL]
[INS: one-sided :INS] superiority of the worker who thanks to his or her office has the possibility
to make resources accessible to the client (for example social assistance benefits, consultancy,
etc.) or bring about "punishment" (such as proposing to the court removal of a child from the
family, initiating restitution of court proceedings, etc.). The worker has superiority and the
[DEL: Klient :DEL] c[INS: lient :INS] tries to prevent a [DEL: jednostrannému :DEL] [INS: one-sided
:INS] decision through which the worker would use his or her superiority to the client's
disadvantage.

The client can achieve this in two ways. Either they are able to compromise or corrupt the worker,
or they must try to meet the worker's expectations. Little is known about the possibilities [DEL:
klientů :DEL] [INS: of :INS] social work [INS: clients :INS] balancing the superiority of the
worker with a compromising piece of information or corruption. It is generally thought however that
the chances [INS: of :INS] [DEL: klientů oslabit ”přidělenou” :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] for
weakening the "[INS: constituted :INS] " superiority of workers are small (Fielding, 1984: 33). It
follows that if the [DEL: klient :DEL] [INS: client :INS] wants the worker to decide on the
resources and "punishments" available to them to the benefit of client, the client usually must
recognise the worker's superiority and try to meet their expectations. Thanks to this the worker
has [DEL: autoritou, :DEL] [INS: authority :INS] that is literally[DEL: ”přidělena”. :DEL] "[INS:
constituted :INS] " to them[INS: . :INS] The worker himself or herself has come by the authority by
not committing demonstrable (!) misdemeanours against morals, regulations and the legislation. In
relation to a specific client however the worker need not create the authority of their office;
they can apply it in a [INS: one-sided manner. :INS]

"Inherent authority" has a different nature. The worker must aspire to it from the initial contact
with the client. As a result, symmetry enters the relation with the [INS: client :INS] . This is
nicely illustrated by a study of probation officers carried out in England in 1979. The probation
officers described adherence to the bargains they make with their clients[INS: . :INS] The author
of the study, [INS: Fielding (1984: 33–34) :INS] comments on their account[INS: : :INS] "[INS: […]
the officer does expect the client to keep his word, and so the client could reasonably expect the
officer to keep hers […] Consistency of response gives the client an impression of the :INS]
officer [INS: reliability which is vital to reciprocity.” :INS] The officers spoke about it
themselves during their interviews with the researcher[INS: : :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

“[INS: Mean what you say, your :INS] '[INS: yes :INS] '[INS: h :INS] a[INS: s got to be :INS]
'[INS: yes :INS] '[INS: and your :INS] '[INS: no :INS] '[INS: h :INS] a[INS: s got to be :INS]
'[INS: no :INS] '[INS: too! Otherwise it :INS] '[INS: s one-sided, you expect him to do certain
things, but when your part of the bargain comes (you rescind). You need the control to follow
through. The self control to do what you say. :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: (Fielding, 1984: 34.) :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

"[INS: If the rules are clear and you follow them (trust is achieved)… A lot of that has to do with
:INS] you keeping [INS: your commitments. Your side of the contract is that you don’t keep them
waiting half an hour before you see them, if you are late you apologise, you try to tell them why
:INS] [INS: […] There’s a lot of responsibility on your side. :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: (Fielding,
1984: 34.) :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

A worker not aspiring to "[INS: inherent authority :INS] "[INS: :INS] can rest their influence on
the [INS: client :INS] in nothing but "[INS: constituted authority :INS] "[INS: . :INS] They expect
that the client conforms to them in a [INS: one-sided manner :INS] in order to avoid punishment
[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] preserve the hope for gaining the resources available to the worker
from their official power[INS: . :INS] If the worker wants to achieve "[INS: inherent authority
:INS] "[INS: , :INS] they must be reliable and keep their obligations towards the client[INS: .
:INS] Thus the effort to gain "[INS: inherent authority :INS] "[INS: :INS] brings mutuality and
symmetry into the relation between worker and client[INS: . :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

"[INS: Agents of conformity :INS] "[INS: and :INS] "[INS: conspirative :INS] [INS: symmetry :INS]
"[INS: :INS]

[INS:   :INS]

The fourth dimension of the dilemma between "[INS: one-sided influence :INS] "[INS: and :INS]
"[INS: symmetric rel :INS] a[INS: tionship :INS] "[INS: :INS] between worker [INS: a :INS] nd[INS:
client :INS] is represented by the question as to what role the worker wants to play in mediating a
balance between the expectations of [INS: social environment and client. :INS] Literature dealing
with the question usually understands social environment as "[INS: community :INS] "[INS: . :INS]
Some authors stress the heterogeneity of "[INS: community :INS] "[INS: , :INS] which consists of a
large number of interest groups with heterogeneous and conflicting requirements for worker and
client alike [INS: (Ohlin, Piven, Pappenfort, 1965: 533–535). :INS] Others, while casting no doubt
on the fact of heterogeneity[INS: , :INS] stress that the client is exposed to some rather
unambiguous expectations that result from "[INS: values of :INS] [INS: […] community :INS] "[INS:
:INS] and their "[INS: basic rules :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: (Couse, 1971: 137). :INS]

Social workers essentially agree that the task of their organisations is to ensure balance between
the expectation [INS: ( :INS] morals[INS: , :INS] law[INS: , :INS] habits[INS: ) of :INS] the [INS:
community a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] the problematic conduct [INS: of :INS] the [INS: client. :INS]
Dilemmas emerge if the following question is asked[INS: : :INS] "How to achieve it?" The answer
depends on how the workers interpret for themselves the reasons for the client's difficulties[INS:
. :INS] Following their own terms of "the socially worthy client" (see the fourth chapter), they
may either regard the client as a "victim" of the pressure brought by the expectation of the [INS:
environment, :INS] or an "[INS: offender :INS] "[INS: :INS] of their own difficulties[INS: . :INS]
In the earlier case they find conformity to be the source of evil and they therefore instruct the
client in resisting the expectations [INS: of :INS] the [INS: community. :INS] In the latter case
they see a lack of conformity as the source of the difficulties and they therefore instruct the
client in conforming to the expectations [INS: of community :INS] . The different evaluations of
conformity cause the advocates of either view to deal with different dilemmas in their everyday
work.




How to avoid [DEL: umravňování obětí? :DEL] [INS: disciplination :INS] [INS: of victims? :INS]


If workers regard the [DEL: klienta za ”oběť” prostředí, :DEL] [INS: client :INS] as the "victim"
[INS: of his or her environment, :INS] they look for reasons for his or her difficulties in an
unjust social order. They believe that their task is to protect the [INS: client :INS] against
those expectations [DEL: obce, :DEL] [INS: of :INS] the [INS: community :INS] that disadvantage him
or her, and they aspire to a change of these expectations. They regard the protection of the [INS:
client :INS] against unwanted pressure [INS: of :INS] the [DEL: obce :DEL] [INS: community :INS] as
the client's[DEL: ”emancipaci”. :DEL] "[INS: emancipation :INS] "[INS: . :INS] They perceive the
strengthening of conformity as an attempt to subdue the [DEL: klienta :DEL] [INS: client :INS] to
the expectations of community and understand it as "[INS: disciplination :INS] "[INS: .[INS: [41]
:INS] :INS]

Workers who think this way grapple with the "[INS: dilemma of the agent of conformity :INS] "[INS:
. :INS] They are usually employees of an organisation that receives authorisation for its operation
from the [DEL: ”obce”. :DEL] "[INS: community :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Its representatives and
superiors usually expect that workers [DEL: budou umravňovat :DEL] [INS: will discipline :INS]
"non-conforming" [DEL: klienty. :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] ; in other words, to be [DEL:
přizpůsobivosti“. :DEL] "[INS: agents of conformity :INS] "[INS: . :INS] It is difficult for the
workers to refuse that role, although at the same time they would like to avoid it. If they do not
accept responsibility for[INS: the :INS] [DEL: umravňování klientů, :DEL] [INS: disciplination
:INS] [INS: of clients, :INS] they expose themselves to the risk of [INS: a :INS] negative rating
from the[INS: ir :INS] employer. If they accept the role [DEL: agenta přizpůsobivosti :DEL] [INS:
of [DEL: the :DEL] agent of conformity :INS] , they [DEL: be :DEL] come in[INS: to :INS] conflict
with their conviction[INS: s :INS] . They want to [DEL: pomoci :DEL] [INS: help clients :INS] face
"unjust pressure" and fear that [DEL: umravňováním klientů, :DEL] [INS: disciplination :INS] [INS:
of their clients :INS] whom they perceive as [DEL: oběti :DEL] [INS: victims :INS] of an unjust
environment will only deepen their difficulties.[DEL: :DEL]



Un[INS: certain :INS] [DEL: sure :DEL] results of conspiring co-operation with offenders


The second option is that the workers regard the [DEL: klienta za ”viníka”, :DEL] [INS: client
:INS] as[INS: an :INS] "[INS: offender :INS] " who himself or herself is responsible for his or her
problems. They look for reasons for the client's difficulties in problematic socialisation of the
client's personality[INS: . :INS] They believe that the client's ability to respect[INS: the :INS]
"values and basic rules of [INS: the :INS] community" is a prerequisite for improving the client's
personal situation. They therefore aspire [DEL: for :DEL] [INS: to :INS] [DEL: ”umravňování”
klienta, :DEL] [INS: disciplination :INS] [INS: of their clients, :INS] i.e. [DEL: for :DEL] [INS:
to :INS] remedy [DEL: of :DEL] "defects in their socialisation" and [DEL: for :DEL] [INS: to :INS]
strengthening [INS: their conformity. :INS] For them, the opposite of "disciplination" is "[INS:
solidifying :INS] "[INS: :INS] those habits [INS: of :INS] [INS: the :INS] [INS: client :INS]
judged negatively by the community.

Workers who think this way grapple with the "[INS: dilemma of conspirative symmetry :INS] "[INS: .
:INS] As employees of the organisation and agents of the community, they want to correct problem
habits of "non-conforming" clients[INS: . :INS] To do that however, they need to win their trust
and willingness [INS: to :INS] [DEL: for :DEL] co-operat[INS: e :INS] [DEL: ion :DEL] [DEL:
(”přirozenou autoritu”). Ve snaze o ”umravnění” :DEL] [INS: ( :INS] "[INS: inherent authority :INS]
"[INS: ). :INS] They therefore co-operate with clients in a conspiring manner in their effort
for[INS: the :INS] "[INS: disciplination :INS] " [DEL: klienta proto s klienty :DEL] [INS: of
clients :INS] , tolerating their "non-conforming" behaviour, concealing together with them
information on their "misdemeanours", etc. The problem is that they cannot be sure [DEL: as to
:DEL] whether these displays [DEL: ”konspirativní symetrie” :DEL] [INS: of :INS] "[INS:
conspirative :INS] [INS: symmetry :INS] " will make it possible for them to win the trust [DEL:
klienta a přirozenou autoritu :DEL] [INS: of :INS] [INS: the :INS] [INS: client and inherent
authority :INS] in the client's eyes. Tolerance of the [INS: client :INS] 's behaviour may "[INS:
solidify :INS] "[INS: :INS] his or her inability to respect[INS: the :INS] "[INS: values and basic
rules of community :INS] "[INS: . :INS] In an effort to remedy the "socialisation defects" [DEL:
klienta :DEL] [INS: of :INS] [INS: the :INS] [INS: client :INS] , the worker explains [INS: to
:INS] them the requirements [DEL: komunity, :DEL] [INS: of :INS] [INS: the :INS] [INS: community
:INS] on which the worker for the same reason casts doubt[DEL: s :DEL] in a conspiring way. If the
worker wants to introduce [INS: a :INS] balance between [DEL: komunitou a klientem, :DEL] [INS:
community and client, :INS] he or she must first conform to the habits of the [DEL: klienta. :DEL]
[INS: client. :INS] He or she creates [INS: a :INS] "conspirative symmetry" with the client without
being sure that by doing so they will support the client's [DEL: ”umravnění”. :DEL] "[INS:
disciplination :INS] "[INS: . :INS] The worker is not sure whether the price for the trust [DEL:
klienta nebude ”utvrzování” :DEL] [INS: of :INS] [INS: the :INS] [INS: client :INS] will be "[INS:
solidification :INS] " of their problematic, non-conforming habits.



"By dialogue to monologue", "by monologue to dialogue"


In his book about [INS: the :INS] legitimacy of social work, Laan (1998a: 40) describes how the
dilemma between monologue and dialogue influenced the culture of social work services in the
Netherlands in the last decades of the 20^th century. In[INS: the :INS] 1970s, many social workers
in the country identified with the idea of [DEL: emancipace klientů :DEL] [INS: emancipation of
clients :INS] through dialogue. In the language of this chapter, they wanted[INS: to :INS] help
their clients defy power, face [INS: the :INS] expectations of [INS: the :INS] majority [INS: that
are :INS] adverse for them, and voice and promote their own interests. They believed that mutual
respect and equal communication with the poor will ensure this. The 1980s however brought doubts.
The steadiness of modern society and in particular its critique by Foucault and Dutch sociologists
who follow his argumentation gave impulse [INS: to :INS] [DEL: for :DEL] a suspicion that
aspiration for [DEL: emancipaci :DEL] [INS: emancipation :INS] and equal communication "often
revert to the very opposite", resulting in "social disciplining" and strengthening "power
strategies of the state". The advocates of communicative partnership realised that aspirations
[DEL: for :DEL] [INS: to :INS] mutual understanding may become a tool of [DEL: jednostranné :DEL]
[INS: one-sided :INS] manipulation. As a result, the trust in dialogue and the accompanying
professional self-confidence of many social workers [DEL: vanished :DEL] to a considerable
extent[INS: vanished :INS] . (Laan, 1998a: 15–16.)

It can be said that the social workers in the Netherlands who perceived their poor clients as [DEL:
oběti jednostranné :DEL] [INS: victims of one-sided :INS] manipulation by the majority,
bureaucratic and market society, began to regard themselves – to their displeasure – as an
instrument of disciplination. As employees of public [DEL: agentur :DEL] [INS: agencies :INS] ,
they found themselves in conflict with the said dilemma of the agent of conformity.

Laan (1998a: 99–114) believes that one of the reasons for their baffled state of mind was a
simplistic understanding of the relation between monologue and dialogue. Initially (in 1960s and
1970s), they concentrated on the idea that monologue was an instrument of[INS: the :INS]
disciplinating forces of political power, bureaucracy and the market, regarding dialogue as an
instrument of emancipation of the poor. Although passionately endorsing dialogue (Laan, 1998a:
207), they were shocked after a time [INS: to :INS] [DEL: by :DEL] find[DEL: ing :DEL] out that
dialogue could be an instrument of [DEL: jednostranného působení :DEL] [INS: one-sided influence
:INS] (Laan, 1998a: 15–16). This is where they stopped, wrongly enough as Laan believes. It slipped
their attention that they had the possibility to use their power superiority (legally delegated
powers and[INS: the :INS] [DEL: autoritu :DEL] [INS: authority :INS] of their professional
competence) in a way that would help poor [DEL: klientům :DEL] [INS: clients :INS] employ their own
view of the situation in an equal manner.



[DEL:   :DEL]

table No. 3

Communication between worker and client from the perspective of the worker's goals and the way of
obtaining co-operation with the [DEL: klientem :DEL] [INS: client :INS]


[DEL: čtyři řešení dilematu mezi monologem a dialogem :DEL]

[DEL: způsob zajištění spolupráce s klientem :DEL]

four solutions of the dilemma between monologue and dialogue [INS: :INS]

                       way of obtaining co-operation with client[INS: :INS]

dialogue

monologue



worker's goals

mutual under-standing

"understanding by means of dialogue" (1960s and 1970s)

"understanding by means of monologue" (Laan)

[DEL: ovládnutí klienta :DEL]

[DEL: ”ovládnutí klienta pomocí dialogu” (80. léta) :DEL]

[DEL: ovládnutí klienta pomocí monologu :DEL]

control of the client [INS: :INS]

"control of the client by means of dialogue"[INS: ( :INS] 19[INS: 80 :INS] s)[INS: :INS]

"control of the  client by means of monologue"(1960s and 1970s)[INS: :INS]


source: Laan, 1998a: 110–111, modified


The mere fact that they had power over [DEL: the :DEL] clients did not prevent partnership in
itself, and monologue could under certain circumstances become a precondition for achieving
dialogue. Laan illustrates this concept using the graphics presented here in table No. 3, modified
for the needs of this discourse.

Table No. 3 [DEL: :DEL]

shows four possible solutions of the dilemma between dialogue and monologue. Using them, it is
possible to once again characterise the already described development in the understanding of
communication with the client among social workers in the Netherlands[INS: . :INS]

In 1960s and 1970s, social workers were captivated by aspirations for "understanding by means of
dialogue" (the upper left corner of the table No. 3), refusing "to seize control over clients by
means of monologue" (bottom right corner of the table No. 3). Laan (1998a: 206) comments on this
situation as follows: Back then, in many helping organisations the application of monologue was
refused. A strict standard was in place for open meetings, mutual acceptance of differing
approaches and the possibility to question points and ideas of anybody, under any circumstances. A
conviction prevailed that all parties to a conversation should have an equal possibility to provide
their explanations, recommendations, clarifications and justifications while being allowed to
confront and refute anybody's positions so that no prejudiced view could permanently avoid
criticism.

Adherence to these rules became a ritual in some organisations. [DEL: Jednostranné působení :DEL]
[INS: One-sided influence :INS] was disallowed so consistently that the very theme of power was
taboo. As an unintended consequence of that situation, the exercise of power went "clandestine" and
kept controlling communication "from underground". In these conditions "hidden power strategies
that cloak themselves by good intentions and limitless understanding" were found practical (Laan,
1998a: 206–207.) Their application, which [DEL: přístup, :DEL] rests in "controlling the client by
means of dialogue", [DEL: klienta :DEL] is shown in the bottom left corner in table No. 3. Laan
mentions "TBR facilities" as an example of an organisation the culture of which was based on that
approach (Laan, 1998a: 99).

TBR[42] are psychiatric facilities in the Netherlands to which some people sentenced to
imprisonment are placed due to their “being under restraint”. Although the inmates do not dwell in
such facilities from choice, the therapists and guards still take considerable efforts to stress
the voluntary nature of therapy. "Confession" is thought to be a precondition for therapy there. A
newcomer must say the "truth" about themselves – define themselves as sick people in need of help.
This happens in a process of forced communication that still shows voluntary attributes on the
outside. The therapist maintains an open exchange of views with the patient, which only applies to
the convict's personality characteristics. Both parties' views are presented for discussion without
reservations. However, the discussion – lead by the therapist – principally avoids an exchange of
views on the situation in which the patient has found himself or herself by being placed in the TBR
facility. As a result, "limited symmetry" arises. The mutual respect applies solely to the exchange
of views concerning the patient's personality rather than their view of being placed in the
hospital and the living conditions in it. This limitation provides room for the therapist to lead
the patient to accepting or at least declaring a preset "truth" about their personality. (Laan,
1998a:107–114.)

The study of TBR facilities was among those pointing to the fact that dialogue could be an
instrument of "hidden" control. When social workers realised this in the 1980s, their
self-confidence was shattered by finding that as employees of public agencies they could be
participating in "controlling clients by means of dialogue". (Laan, 1998a: 206–207.)

Laan (1998a: 111–114, 233) responded to the discovery that dialogue could serve manipulation by
noting that monologue too would not always necessarily result in client control[INS: , :INS]
because "understanding" was achievable through monologue (see the upper right corner of table No.
3). Laan believes that dialogue rests in a communication where the worker presents the reasons for
his or her action, which are subjected to open discussion. Sometimes this happens even in
situations where the worker to some extent proceeds in a one-sided manner, according to Laan[INS: .
:INS]

Thus for example the workers of some organisations are confronted with abuse, addiction displays,
mental disorders, etc. In these situations the client may be unable to maintain open discussion on
the reasons for the worker's approach. Although the worker decides [DEL: jednostranně, :DEL] [INS:
in :INS] a [INS: one-sided manner, :INS] they may present their justification for discussion either
beforehand (through agreement) or [DEL: dodatečně. :DEL] [INS: subseque :INS] n[INS: tly. :INS] A
client for example in whom there is the risk of a psychotic reaction may issue beforehand, based on
agreement and from choice, full powers for the social worker, defining when and how to act. (Laan,
1998a: 213–214.)

In distress, a depressive person or a person unable to act for some other reason can be "slightly
pushed in the desired direction" to arouse activity in them. Although not directly based on the
client's own ideas, this approach still does not necessarily block further dialogue. If the
monologue of the helping person results in the client developing or restoring his or her ability to
control the circumstances of his or her own life, it can be regarded as a precondition for future
dialogue. The effort to achieve dialogue can become an argument supporting [DEL: dodatečného
odůvodnění jednostranně :DEL] [INS: subsequent justification :INS] of using a [INS: one-sided
manner :INS] in such a case. According to Laan, social workers must now and then fight one thing or
another off the client, in which context they are rightfully regarded as agents of social control.
Many social workers want to have nothing to do with this. Those who clarify their working position
to the [DEL: klientovi :DEL] [INS: client :INS] and start fighting with them for a definition of
the situation will often discover to their astonishment that by doing so they have strengthened
mutual understanding and respect. (Laan, 1998a: 223–224.)



"Clients' infantility" or the worker as a "parent"


"I thought it is very like your behaviour with your own children. You want them to grow, you want
to protect them a little bit but not too much. And you want to care enough to control their more
dangerous behaviour, until they can control it for themselves." (Fielding, 1984: 50.)

The above statement of an English probation officer conveys the "parental analogy" to which, refer
the workers of a municipal department of social services in London (Satyamurti, 1979), personnel of
various offices of the British probation service (Fielding, 1984) or personnel of a Czech
half-way-house (Musil, Hubíková, Kubalčíková, Hamarová, 2001). Perceiving themselves as "parents"
and likening clients to "children" makes it possible for the workers to influence clients in a
one-sided manner even though they need to maintain symmetric relations with them. As "children",
clients lack experience, are unable to help themselves in a number of situations and will not
always think about the consequences of their acts. As such they need care and supervision. Whenever
baffled, they need the care of the "parents". They need benevolent direction whenever unable to
anticipate risks and acting irresponsibly.

A study of community care services (Musil, Hubíková, Kubalčíková, 2001: 31–39) suggests that
elderly people too may be given the role of "children" unable to fend for themselves and of a
somewhat diminished responsibility who need to be cared for by the "adult" worker and whose
"aberrations" must be benevolently supervised by them. The carers with whom the quoted researchers
spoke placed themselves in the role of "parents", seeing their clients, prevailingly pensioners, as
"children" of sorts. Like the above British officers, they stressed the "infantility" of the
elderly users of care services. They saw them from the perspective of "adult offspring" who care
for their decrepit, lonely and dependent parents, benevolently tolerating their infantile
confusion, freakishness and quarrelsomeness. Entirely along the lines of the "parental analogy",
they care for their "infantile parents" and help them avoid risks that already evade their
attention. The important thing is that the referring to the infantile lack of responsibility in
their ageing clients became a justification for the carers' neglect of the clients' views and
taking lightly their complaints. Just as parents do not take seriously their minor offspring, the
carers did not take seriously the ideas and complaints of their "infantile clients".

The "parental analogy" and the idea of "elderly people's infantility" are both based on defining
the client as both helpless and irresponsible, both baffled and of diminished responsibility. If
the workers define the client in this manner, it serves them to handle the tension between the
symmetry of personal relations and one-sided interventions in the life of the client. Literature
presents three different forms of this way of coping with the dilemma between one-sided and
symmetric relationships: firstly, justifying the utilisation of surveillance by claiming that it is
an instrument of care "by the parents of their children" (Fielding, 1984: 50–55), secondly
justifying one-sided behaviour of the worker by its analogy with the way parents usually deal with
their children (Satyamurti, 1979: 96–103; Musil, Hubíková, Kubalčíková, Hamarová, 2001), and
thirdly, questioning the demands of the client that makes it possible to maintain performance
within in bearable limits by referring to the "elderly people's infantility" (Baldwin, 2000: 40–41,
50–51; Musil, Hubíková, Kubalčíková, 2001: 31–39).


Surveillance as part of "parental" care for "children"


Fielding, from whose text all the quotations in the following five paragraphs are taken (Fielding,
1984: 49–52), claims that in the client's eyes the probation officer is a person able to obtain
advantages for the client and provide material benefits to him o her. The officer represents
clients in their dealing with other agencies and advises them in legal matters. Officers perceive
this as a sign of the vulnerability of clients who, unlike them, "are unable to manipulate the
system in the way […], to get what [they] want".

Since clients are "vulnerable" and unable to cope by themselves, the officers believe that they
"are in need of firm guidance". Therefore, in their own words, the probation officers regard
control "as part of my caring job and supportive job towards them", and they add: "As you would
with children. It's very like. If you don’t set boundaries for people and encourage them to keep to
their commitments then you don’t care about them. Just as you don’t really care about your children
if you don’t draw boundaries for them and help them to keep to things. […] You’re not afraid to
control people… because I know how much my child appreciates me controlling him."

Along these lines even punishment should not be understood as a display of impatience, intolerance
or anger. The parole officer regards it as "a lesson", "a learning experience" in the framework of
the "parental analogy". In their usual work, probation officers follow the idea that if clear rules
have been set for the clients, it brings them benefit. The client expects rules to be in place and
the parole officers believe that he or she would be baffled to see the officer responding otherwise
to a breach than by applying power and imposing punishment: "[…] a parent is sometimes very hard in
order to help their child […] We get in touch with a lot of youngsters… whose parents have given up
knowing when to control and they pay the children off to get out of the way. The children have no
framework and… that is a […] cruel thing." The officers stress that "listening sympathetically to
clients' everyday troubles" is important, although at the same time they find it important to "give
them the sort of dressing down their fathers probably should have given them".

Fielding claims that according to the parole officers the goal of the said approach is not to
develop dependence but help "to build up some self-respect": "[…] again what you get back to with
children, to create a situation where next time they can deal with the problem themselves." A small
part of the officers claim to be aware that their "parental analogy" thinking may take the clients
to looking for "dependence", weakening their focus on "responsibility for self". Sometimes the
client learns to see the agency as a place where they get care and goodwill ("in a parental
manner"). They may then be afraid to take things into their own hands and it may be more difficult
for them to satisfy their own needs.

Fielding describes the "parental analogy" as a way of delimiting the supportive role of supervision
and punishment which is characteristic for the culture of British probation services. He has
established that probation workers think of the meaning of the "parental analogy" from the
perspective of the dilemma between strengthening dependence and supporting the client's
independence, that is – in more general terms – from the perspective of the methodology of work
with client. Among the workers he has spoken with, Fielding does not mention any other reason for
using that analogy than clarifying an efficient approach to the correction of errors in the
socialisation of clients. Other authors on the other hand ask the question as to whether stressing
the client's infantility has some other meaning for social work service people than the
methodological one.


Frontline workers as "parents" with no option but punish their irresponsible childlike clients


In the period from 1970 to 1972, Satyamurti (1979: 96–103) examined the approach of workers at a
department of social services in London to the utilisation of their "constituted authority".
Concerning their regulatory decision-making, social workers stated that although they "had come to
accept it as a necessary part of the job", they still "disliked" this aspect of their bureaucratic
role and "felt reluctant to exercise" one-sided official decisions, mostly "being pressed" by their
superiors or other statutory bodies. They experienced this dilemma for example in connection with
decisions on involuntary transfers of children to institutional care or hospitalisations in a
mental hospital.

The idea prevailed at the department that "the degree to which a social worker could resist client
pressure to give financial help was an index of professional maturity, since, it was felt, a good
social worker should be able to offer some alternative to money". This pressure made the workers
refuse some applications for financial assistance even if they were sure that the family had
difficulties and actually needed money. Statutory decisions of that sort were particularly
unpleasant for the workers if by implementing them they supported the interests of one family
member against the interests of another.

In the said situation, it was important for the workers to be able to "handle more easily the
transactions that involved them in the exercise of control", thus reducing "the pain" they
experienced when somehow contributing to the clients’ hardship or when doing less to mitigate it
than was possible. The exercise of official authority, which according to the workers was often the
cause of (unnecessary) clients' hardship, was easier and less painful for them if two circumstances
arose: firstly if the workers managed to maintain a distance from the clients that prevented
establishment of tighter links, and secondly if the workers were able to believe that the
authoritative decision somehow satisfied the client’s expectations or contributed to managing their
situation.

The workers employed various practices to maintain a distance from clients. When visiting their
households, they refused every display of the client's hospitality except for drinking a cup of
tea. While themselves addressing clients by their first names, they would not let clients do the
same. They showed displeasure at displays of the clients' interest in the worker's own personal,
non-work matters. They would not let clients linger elsewhere within the department than in the
waiting room if not accompanied by the worker.

To gain the impression that their official interventions were justified in terms of contributing to
their clients’ benefit, they fostered the stereotype of the "irresponsible, disorganised, demanding
and dependent" client. To achieve this, they were "diminishing of the client’s status as adult and
as a citizen", "actively discouraging of independent behaviour by their clients" and "were often
behaving towards clients as parents towards children". In common conversations they termed the
clients "our inadequate clients" or "our problem mums". It even reached a point where "dependency
on the clients’ part was, for some social workers, the same thing as a good relationship with the
client, and they experienced it as a much needed confirmation that they were able to offer
something of value". If the client behaved in an adult way and tried to be self-sufficient, they
"experience this as uncomfortable and confusing". When the client attempted to act like a citizen –
writing to the newspapers or trying to get support from their councillor – the workers labelled
that approach as "manipulative". By doing so they tried to question the client's demands they
perceived as a "threat".

In the culture described by Satyamurti the workers were dealing with their own dilemmas rather than
the client's problems using "parental analogy". By questioning the clients' status as adult and
responsible persons, they reassured themselves in their belief that their clients were unable to
fend for themselves and were dependent. Thus they were able to perceive their official
interventions and decisions as justified by contributing to improvement of the unpleasant
situations of clients who would be helpless and vulnerable without the frontline worker’s support.

A similar use of the "parental analogy" was described in a study of a Czech half-way-house in 2001.
Musil, Hubíková, Kubalčíková and Hamarová (2001: 20–34) describe a design of intervention towards
former charges of children's homes based on a "motherly approach". Their findings are in many
aspects similar to those of Satyamurti.

As did the workers of the London department, the workers of the Czech half-way-house "questioned
the status of their major clients as adult persons", stressing their inability to fend for
themselves. Without reflecting specific characteristics of individual clients’ situations, they saw
the clients as inexperienced children "incapable of independent life". Unlike children growing up
in a family and "learning lots and lots of things during the long process until they're twenty",
“children” from the children's homes "don't know lots of things". It is therefore necessary "to
train them in normal living so that they can operate fending for themselves, just like a normal
twenty-year old".

The workers regarded themselves as a substitute for a normal family for the insufficiently mature
clients. They said that based on "[their] own experience from home" they would try to figure out
"what the kids might need". Maternity became a model of intervention for them. They referred to one
former half-way-house employee’s approach as their model of providing a "motherly background" to
the clients. "When they needed to be dressed down, she would dress them down, and when they needed
a cuddle, she would cuddle them". She had a pure "motherly approach". This was supposed to help the
workers illustrate for the clients how "the home of ours" works, because "they have got no family
model" and nothing to follow to find their bearings.

Within a "motherly approach" perceived in this way it seems obvious to combine a genuinely
experienced responsive communication with one-sided promotion of the workers' "motherly" views. The
workers found friendship, openness, trust and understanding to be important principles. They said
"whenever kids come home, they can have a chat with the parent about the problem they have". The
clients therefore "have my home phone number as well, and if they had something to sort out they
call me at any time, and it happens that they call me in the evening or when they just need to have
a chat and there's nobody around to chat with". Clients should be "trusted", there must be a
"friendly approach" towards them, one should be trying to realise "what they must have gone through
in their lives", thus gaining "a completely different view of them". Understanding is required too,
"because when I'm twenty or twenty five years older than them, they again see it completely
different".

If we understand these responsive features as a display of "motherly benevolence" of the workers,
it is little surprise that the workers did not take the views of their "children" seriously.
Instead, in the case of a disagreement, they were looking for a way of talking the clients into
accepting their own view: according to the workers' statement, the clients would want "friends to
stay overnight there, which really isn't possible in our facility, and so that's what they'd
definitely want. They'd like to smoke in the rooms, while we don't want them to smoke. They'd like
to walk everywhere in shoes, and we want them to take shoes off just like kids at home. When it's
explained to them they realise after a time that we mean it for their own good."

The workers often regarded differences of opinion between themselves and the clients as a display
of pubertal defiance rather than an entirely premeditated clients' attitude. They approached
arguments over the spending of the clients' savings and, in particular, complaints about the regime
in the facility "like when children at home complain about their parents": "[…] sure they don't
like to tidy up and to follow rules, just like kids at home […] They bitch about everyone, that's
for sure. Because parents are dumb and stupid, and we substitute the parents' position here, we're
dumb and stupid too. They come to see it once they later live alone you know, when something just
happens and something doesn't quite end up well they just come to see that we're not that dumb and
silly, that we could've been right in some way, and that's it. You just have to forgive them" and
"talk them out of it […], so that they simply come to see that yes, it's bullocks". It is like
"when they bitch about Dad for forbidding cinema or disco until eight in the morning, then one or
the other tries to explain to them why that's impossible. Simply get them to find out that that's
probably impossible really, that they can't do whatever they want to".

The workers were convinced that utilising a responsive means of communication in one-sided
persuasion of "immature" clients corresponded with their maternity experience. Since benevolence
and gradual direction served the timely socialisation of their own children, it had to be an
equally good means of the delayed socialisation of "children" at the half-way-house. Just like in
the case of the British parole officers, the "parental analogy" served the workers at the
half-way-house to justify the idea that close observation and one-sided persuasion were a logical
part of support of socialisation in allegedly or actually non-adult clients.

In addition the "motherly approach" was a framework in which even banning visitors to rooms and
handling dormitory furnishings, room inspections while clients were absent etc. were justifiable.
The reason for these limitations is to control the part of the clients' behaviour that might bring
about conflicts between the half-way-house and the surrounding community or reservations of
municipal authorities about operation of the facility. (For example the ban on visitors in rooms
came as a response of the personnel to discovering that a person subject to criminal prosecution
dwelt in the facility thanks to the clients' hospitality.) Under the logic of the "motherly
approach", one-sided bans of this kind are an unpopular but effective measure taken by "parents"
whose "children" are not yet able to think of the consequences of their unpremeditated steps.

Above, Satyamurti pointed to the fact that the social workers in London regarded the client’s
dependence to be synonymous with a good relation with the client and that they regarded displays of
the client's dependence to be recognition of the quality of their work. The study of the Czech
half-way-house established something similar. Its workers perceived contacts with former clients as
proof of a positive personal relation. What might be marked as a symptom of continuing dependence
of some clients was regarded by the workers as a desirable continuity of the relation between
"parents" and "children": "Well […] they have nobody else. She buys curtains, but she doesn't know
how to cut them, she doesn't know how to mend them, so she comes to me. Or I just go to her, so
simply this is like home to them. Run out of money, they come here. Anything, at all times. Simply
every week. […] you just can't leave them. That just can't be, they don't have anybody. And
sometimes even if you think they're good and will cope in life, they still need somebody. That
person, that is simply a friendship that will be there at all times, […] they don't have anybody,
which is why they really stick to this friendship."


"Infantility of elderly people" and polite silence of "adult children"


Baldwin (2000: 40–41, 50–51) describes how "care managers" from two departments of social services
in England refer to the modest expectations of elderly people, symptoms of old-age dementia and
other mental complaints to justify their belief "that service users are not really interested in
participating beyond an assurance that they will meet their needs" and "beyond giving information
and receiving a service". This view helps care managers decide in situations where there is not a
sufficiently wide range of services in the community to cover the clients' expectations. To make
sure that the elderly people do not even voice their requirements is easier for the managers than
to explain to the elderly people that their needs cannot be met. They try to show their
thoughtfulness when claiming that eliciting vain hopes in clients is no good for them.

On first sight it seems that within the culture described by Baldwin, the "parental analogy" is
turned upside down. The workers place themselves in the position of "adult children" who cautiously
take into consideration the displays of "their parent's infantility". However, the meaning of the
seemingly inverted analogy remains the same: an adult worker who is "in the picture", cares for his
or her childishly disoriented "parents". By referring to their incapacity and inability to fend for
themselves they justify overlooking the elderly people's points even before they manage to unfold.

This way of using references to "elderly people's infantility" is also found elsewhere. Musil,
Hubíková and Kubalčíková (2001: 31–39) encountered it during the study of community care services
in a Czech town. They found out that in communicating with clients (elderly people), the carers
built on the assumption that the clients should be taken with a pinch of salt, because they are
"sick", "confused", "peevish", "unrelenting", and they tend to have "that bad temper of theirs".
The carers perceive these qualities as a sign of the clients' dependence and reason for their own
benevolence. They face the problem of how to respect the clients while politely ignoring them:


"[…] they are old people and one takes them so. So they complain and you listen, that's what you
do."


"Well, […] like they can be telling you off but you can't tell them off. You just have to take it
and drop it, which is often hard but there's nothing you can do about it. They are old people,
that's what they are."


"[…] they are old people and I have to take them as such. And they see it as their problem and they
explain to me what happened as if it was a terrible catastrophe."


"[…] you know it's like, she tells you one thing this time and next time it's the other way round
[…] she says: 'That could wait,' and suddenly she could say: 'But I wanted it straight away.' So
how shall one know?"


The carers categorise their clients into "chronic complainers" who are difficult and "those who do
not complain and are happy". "Chronic complainers" with their complaints are those, according to
the carers, who are "almost self-sufficient". In other words, "whims" have usually those who are
almost entirely able to fend for themselves in the eyes of the carers and do not need care so much.
This view and the associated tendency to reject displays of clients' capability of managing their
own affairs resemble the above-mentioned aversion of the workers in London for displays of clients’
independence. They can also be regarded as a display of an attempt to question the reasonability of
proposals or clients' objections under any circumstances: a dependent client is grateful and
content, but his or her opinions are not to be taken seriously, because he or she is "confused". A
client showing discontentment complains for no reason because he or she is "almost self-sufficient"
anyway and they just come out with "silly things"[43]. Both decrepitude and relative
self-sufficiency are excuses for not respecting the views of clients and reasons for "polite
monologue" from the perspective of the carers:


"[…] I know upfront that we will definitely turn it down or that we simply won't accept it, but I
still have to sort of wrap it up smooth in a way, I can't simply say it to him […]" (carer)


"[…] I will recommend the carer to bite the bullet and apologise. If she doesn't apologise, it's up
to me to apologise […], but then I already direct it towards where the problem was. That in fact
the carer was right, and I sort of describe it to them in a decent way […]" (manager)


"Polite monologue" serves the carers and their manager in two ways. Firstly it helps prevent
demands of the clients upsetting the carers' work schedule, and secondly, it helps maintain
complaints and the processing of unpleasant demands "within" the organisation, thus reducing the
outlet of the clients’ complaints and proposals to the public:


"[…] we really kind of try to find agreement […] We don't misuse it, like that when they need us we
will dictate the rules […], instead we try to sensibly explain them that simply if I have to go
over there in the morning […], he's stiff, I have to wash him and give him breakfast. Then I have a
gentleman whose feet must be bandaged before he's able to get up from his bed. So I have to do
these two first, which is a must whatever happens, and only then can I go shopping, which is not so
urgent at all […] so it doesn't matter whether he gets it at quarter to eight or at half past nine,
you see?" (carer)


"[…] we say: ,Okay, that's fine, we're taking a note, from now on this operation is void, just say
when you want to restore it.' […] She says: 'Yeah, good,' but in five minutes she forgets it
anyway. But in the ruling it remains […], it's not made void there […], because that would involve
papers every week." (carer)


"[…] if the client wants […] I go to him and we have a talk […] I'm sort of trying not to give the
girls in to the client […], like apologise but at the same time sort of excuse the girl in the
sense that the work is really demanding psychologically and that it is not sunny every day as they
say […], that we sometimes simply loose our nerves you know, so I try to find some excuse for it
[…], like that the carer didn't have a good day, that she's certainly sorry for it […] So I try to
stand up for the girls to show the clients that they are no bad girls, that it's not that the carer
is bad you know, that unfortunately these things really happen sometimes, we're not robots, we're
people you know, and on that day it simply didn't work […]." (manager)


The desired effect of this polite effort is that "for example we haven't had a single complaint
here the whole time you know. It's more like trifles, minor things in fact, nothing official like
that he would go and complain officially, nothing like that."



The threat of court as a part of support


A solution to the dilemma between "constituted" and "inherent" authority is described by Fielding
(1984: 71–78). He gives the example of a student attending practical training in the probation
service. The student told clients at the very beginning of his training in the service that "he
would not use breach”, which means that he never would send them back to court for re-sentencing.
The response of the officers was clear: "That’s crazy. That’s insane. He’s breaching the contract
himself. What kind of example is that? What does he expect his client to do with that information?"

It was a response based on the conviction that "breach" should be used as a tool of client support.
The student was confident that "it was the relationship which was having an effect, not the
officer's power". The parole officers did not understand "why a person is going to trust you any
more because you say that". They believed that this would mean to "breach your part of the
contract" and "they’ll trust you less". To ask a client to meet the conditions of a court ruling
without enforcement from the outside means to the probation officers that "you put a lot of
responsibility on the client". In addition the absence of a sanction makes the impression that the
mutual obligations between the officer and the client are unclear.

The parole officers believed that "cognisance of the conditions represents consent to their
fairness. […] If you go through the conditions in advance then you are merely doing what you said
you would do […]". Under these circumstances the client knows the rules and the requirements to
keep up and has boundaries of acceptable behaviour clearly set out for them. Delimiting these is an
important element in the process of support for the parole officers. The officers therefore do not
use "breach" as a "weapon", but instead as "an important symbol" setting mutual obligations: "Not
used that often but we’ve got to have the power to do it. You’ve got to have the power to breach;
they expect it even if you use it very seldom." British statistics show that "breach" occurs in two
per cent of probation cases.







Is there "wise use of authority" in practice?


Authors who discuss the role of the worker in mediating a balance between the rule of the community
and the behaviour of the client state two contradictory opinions. Researchers who regard the client
as a "victim" of the social environment claim that in the organisation world the worker has no
chance of finding a compromise between the expectation that they would "discipline" clients and
their effort to support the clients' "emancipation" (Ohlin, Piven, Pappenfort, 1965). On the other
hand, those researchers who regard the client as the "offender" in the client's own difficulties,
view "disciplination" as an inseparable part of care, without which those habits of the client that
make the client's life in the community difficult would "solidify" (Couse, 1971).


The insoluble dilemma of the agent of conformity


Ohlin, Piven and Peppenfort (1965: 528–230, 236) claimed in 1960s that social caseworkers were
trained to work under the following terms: firstly, the client chooses the agency himself or
herself and asks for the provision of the service; secondly, the client is aware of what the
service involves; thirdly, the client is acceptable for the agency in terms of his or her
motivation and ability to receive the offered services.

Social work in the criminal field however does not take place under these conditions, according to
Ohlin and his colleagues. Clients are not sufficiently motivated, they are not capable of
co-operating in the intervention, and sometimes they want no care and refuse to accept that they
have a problem. Hence the worker must – usually against their own will – aspire to "converting a
relationship of control and authority" into which it is placed by the expectations of the agency as
well as the clients’ expectations, into a relation of "consent and treatment". The problem is that
the worker has not studied dealing with that task, according to the authors of the quoted study.

While expecting a "warm, neutral and non-judgemental relationship with his clients", the worker
comes to realise that the clients perceive them as a "participant in the punitive and condemning
system", that they feel "hostility" towards them and attempt "concealing facts and feelings". As a
probation officer the worker has the power to revoke court proceedings and finds it to be "an
initial obstacle" in the relation with the client. However, nobody has taught them how to deal with
it. Advice from older colleagues stresses protection of the community against the "offender" and
protection of agency against compromised prestige in the eyes of the public. Instead of helping to
solve it, such advice further escalates the dilemma. The worker realises that he or she would like
"to overcome hostility toward him as an authoritarian figure in order to establish conditions
requisite to treatment", and at the same time he or she should "satisfy the pressures of the
community […] for client conformity".

Being aware of no conception that would make it possible for him or her to integrate the role in
the field of control with the role in the field of care, the worker tries to "play" each of the two
roles separately. They usually do not succeed though. In school they were taught a
non-authoritarian and non-judgemental approach, but not how to practice "wise use of authority".
Their further career therefore aims towards one of two possibilities. Either they divert from
social work and identify with the performance of surveillance over clients who they believe show a
"lack of capacity to adjust to society", or they try to "reject what he regards as
‘anti-professional’ demands" and try to evade the expectations of the surroundings. The worker
becomes isolated, "blames both the profession and the agency for his predicament" and hopes to be
able to transfer to a penal institution, the culture of which will be more favourable for case
intervention.


"Controlled use of authority"


A few years after Ohlin and his colleagues presented the proposition that there are not suitable
conditions for the "wise use of authority" in justice, Couse (1971) came up with a case study of
"controlled use of authority" at a non-governmental agency in Ontario.

Couse states that the goal of the "socially conscious" citizens who had founded the agency was to
assume responsibility for the entry of released prisoners into the community and provide to them
"preparatory services in penal institutions prior to release as well as after-care services".
Authorisation to this operation is given by the community that has established the agency and
supports it. The goal of the workers of the agency is to provide to the released prisoners a
"maximum opportunity to learn […] to handle the demands and responsibilities of broader society".

The author quoted here stresses that if the workers want to ensure the improvement of the social
functioning of client, they must not isolate the client from "the values of the community" or
protect him or her from the experience with pressure of the community for respecting their "basic
rules". In terms of the "principle of problemholder": for the workers to mediate to clients
experience with the values and rules of life in the community, they must become "problemholders" to
an extent, drawing the attention of the clients to the unacceptability of the behaviour that they
originally found unproblematic.

Couse explains that if the clients used the services of the agency on a fully voluntary basis, a
number of them would avoid confrontation with the expectations of the community or "problems of the
worker" and soon bring contact with the worker to an end. It is therefore unrealistic to assume
that experience with the expectation of the community would be mediated if the workers had no
"constituted authority" and the client was not subject to the risk of sanction. The workers in
Ontario had this authority through a formal arrangement with the regional representative of the
state probation authority laying down the conditions of co-operation of the non-governmental agency
with the client and the duty to regularly inform the authority of adherence to them.

Within the so-defined "control" and "constituted authority", the client’s coping with the
conditions of life in the community depends on the "inherent authority" of the worker or – as Couse
puts it – the worker's ability to establish a "relationship of psychological authority" with the
client. This makes it possible to use the "constituted authority" and "control" to the benefit of
the client’s growth and achievement of the client's own expectations. Using his or her official
authority, the probation officer sets the terms of co-operation in a one-sided manner. No matter
how relevant these terms are under the worker’s constituted authority, they are accepted under the
influence of the worker's inherent authority by the client. Hence, a more symmetrical relation is
established between them. As part of that relation the client's wishes may become^ matter for
both-sided attention. This combination of "constituted" and "inherent" authority as well as
"control" and "care" are called "controlled use of authority" by Couse. It can be defined as a
relation in which the worker uses "constituted authority" and "control" in order to explain the
expectations of the community to the client, and in which symmetry based on "inherent authority"
and "care" opens room for voicing and discussing the client's conception of his or her own
situation.

Couse claims that the relation between "control" and "care" under the "controlled use of authority"
may vary depending on the client's personality. On the one hand there are clients who "express
little guilt", "whose behaviour has been influenced markedly by the sub-culture of prison" and the
conflict with the expectation of the community is "open and conscious" in them. In these clients
the role of using "constituted authority" and "control" is more significant than in those who
themselves are "seeking limits" and "continuing on from a relationship formed under parole
supervision to a completely voluntary relationship". Couse's findings suggest that "controlled" use
of authority is one that applies to both "constituted authority" and "control" as well as "inherent
authority" and "care" appropriately to the situation – on a case-to-case basis.



"Double bond", deductive and inductive thinking


The given examples of resolving the dilemma between one-sided and symmetric relationships have some
features in common. These can be expressed in a simplified way using the notions of "deductive
thinking" (drawing conclusions from conceptions adopted earlier) and "inductive thinking" (drawing
conclusions based on experience with a specific case).

"One-sided influence upon client" is based on deductive thinking of the social worker: a
problemholder is a worker who unilaterally assumes that only his or her authority exists without
accepting the client’s authority. He or she tries to influence the situation of the client,
deducing its picture from his or her established understanding of the situation (for example from
prejudices, legally defined categorisation of clients, a typology of clients defined by research,
everyday experience etc.). Similarly it can be said that the "symmetric relationships with client"
open room for the employment of inductive thinking: the client is recognised by the worker as the
problemholder, and his or her inherent authority finds utilisation when defining the situation. In
a dialogue-based definition of the problems to become subjects of the intervention the worker
compares his or her understanding with the specificities of the client's life and gives precision
to the understanding. Then the resulting picture can be more individual and may reflect the
individual features of the client's situation.

If asking the question as to whether work with a social work service client is based more on
deductive or inductive thinking, it can be stated that almost all the solutions of the dilemma
between "one-sided influence" and "symmetric relationships" presented here rest in a similar
combination of induction and deduction. Frontline workers avoid tension between one-sided and
symmetric relationships by maintaining a dialogue with clients and creating the picture of the
client's situation in an inductive way. However, they do this, within the framework of the rules
they have themselves set out beforehand in a one-sided and deductive manner.

In the TBR facilities, the worker maintains a "dialogue" with the client, the result of which –
forced "confession" – is known beforehand. Although the convict, a person "under restraint", may
present their definitions of their personal situation to the therapist, the precondition is that in
the end they accept the therapist's view. The carers are polite to the elderly people and show them
their attention, but they only do so to keep up "appearances" while disregarding the "confused
talk" of clients. The social workers in London and the English probation officers justify official
interventions in a legally defined situation of the client with the client's infantility, believing
that this way they will make it possible for the client to become mature, able to fend for
themselves and to achieve an equal position of an adult individual. In distress, a depressive
client can be "slightly pushed in the desired direction" to find determination and present his or
her feelings and problems. Parole workers in Canada present to clients "basic rules and values" of
the community in a one-sided manner, in which framework they maintain a dialogue with the clients
about the possibilities and ways of accepting them.

The function of dialogue differs in the individual instances. For example in the TBR facilities, at
the department of social services in London or in the Czech community services, the workers use
dialogue more as an instrument of promoting their ideas. In these cases their approach is "by
dialogue to monologue". In work with depressive clients or in the above examples of probation work,
dialogue is understood more as the outcome of previous pressure on the client. Hence the workers go
"by monologue to dialogue". Whatever the case, it seems that the workers at social work service
organisations commonly build on their own deductions subsequently extended by inductive procedures
to ensure the client's co-operation in solving his or her problems.

I believe that this way of combining inductive and deductive thinking makes it possible for the
workers of social work service organisations to cope with their "double bond" to society. Laan
(1998a: 225) describes it in the following way: as the employee of an agency, the social worker on
the one hand serves "the social facilities" that have given stimulus to his work and set up the
preconditions for it in society. On the other hand "he feels connected with people who have got
into a state of distress". Laan says that as an accompanying phenomenon of that equivocal
situation, there is a need to send "equivocal messages" to the client, showing them on one hand
that improvement of their situation is possible "solely within the society" in which they got into
trouble, and on the other hand "taking seriously" the client's view of their own situation and a
society in which they "cannot find their way".

When the worker mediates to the client findings about the "framework of the society" in which the
client has so far been failing and where the client can try to anchor themselves, the worker takes
the deductive approach: along the lines of his or her understanding of society, the worker explains
to the client why the surroundings have not accepted the client's way of life. For the client to
co-operate in searching for his or her own way to the social framework defined in this way,
inductive thinking is given room: the idea of solving a situation defined in a one-sided manner is
put together piece by piece in the process of confronting how the possibilities of the client are
seen by the worker and what the client thinks about them. So the client gets a message that makes
it possible for the worker to keep both sides of his or her "double bond". The message is: "This
society does not accept your way of life for such and such reasons. Therefore you got into trouble
in it. Yet there is no other option for you than to try and find your possibilities and make some
of your wishes come true. If you accept what I have told you about it, I can help you with it and
pay regard to you."[44]


chapter 6

PROCEDURAL OR SITUATIONAL APPROACH



The theme of this chapter is connected with what is called the "administrative approach".
Occasional critics of social services associate with this term the picture of a "bureaucrat" who
mistakes a human being for a "file" or "field" in form. Criticism of this sort of mistaking an
instrument of help to people for a goal of help is sometimes said in an unpremeditated way. Not
many bring their reservations to "files" and "fields" knowing that equal approach of clerical
workers to citizens will hardly work without them. And there are few of those who are able to say
without hesitation what should be the opposite of that condemned approach.

From the perspective of work with the client, complaints about the "administrative approach" point
to the issue of social work service people's sensitivity to the individual circumstances of a
client’s life. We have touched the issue already in the fourth chapter, in connection with the
dilemma between complex and simplified goals. We noticed the ways in which frontline workers
justify selection of clients and those of the clients' difficulties the workers will attend to.
Here, we will approach the same issue in different terms, asking the following question: "How do
frontline workers respond to the problems of their clients?"

They can essentially respond in two ways, either applying a predefined solution of the client’s
problem or "tailor" the solution to fit the individual circumstances of the client’s life. I will
refer to the earlier approach as "procedural" and the latter as "situational".

The interesting thing is that the dilemma between these two approaches does not attract the
attention of researchers because they would be troubled by a lack in sensitivity of clerical
workers to the specificities of individual cases. A lack of sensitivity tends to be the result of
what is called "ritualisation" – mistaking an established procedure meant to be the instrument of
help for the goal of work with a client. The habit of responding to a problem with a client with a
predefined approach is fertile soil for this sort of mistaking instrument for goal.

If officers only concentrate their attention on the implementation of predefined solutions, it
would be reasonable to expect that social work service researchers will note the impact of this
approach on the way workers treat the client. Instead, their attention is more attracted by the
endeavour of politicians and managers to promote a procedural approach in the activities of public
administration workers, and in particular impacts of that endeavour on the position of social
worker (see for example Clark, Newman, 1997; Harris, 2000). Readers learn many interesting things
about the effect of the proceduralisation of social services on the autonomy of social workers.
However, the displays of the ritualisation which usually accompany emphasis on predefined
procedures, and the effect of such displays on interaction between social worker and client, remain
beyond focus. The above authors mention work with the client on the margin. It seems that the
interests of social workers are what they have at heart.

They deal with the solution of the dilemma between procedural and situational approaches in this
context because it significantly influences the possibilities of professional treatment in
bureaucratic organisations. The very existence of "professionals"[45] has to do with the question
as to whether the social work service agency’s frontline worker is expected to process a problem of
the client using official manuals and procedures or to approach the solution as a specialist who
himself or herself, using their professional competence, sets the direction in which the given case
should be solved (see Scott, 1969).

Another reason for the interest of researchers in the dilemma is the politicians' and managers'
orders. Politicians and managers try to influence decision-making by frontline workers and hence
control the operation and budgets of social work service organisations. Endeavours for
straightforward control of social workers' decision-making are generally not given much hope for
success (Lipsky, 1991). Nevertheless, it is thought that the potential for influencing their
decision-making is greater if the problem-solving approaches are predetermined than if determining
the intervention approach is a matter of professional decision-making by frontline workers –
professionals (Billis, 1984: 232–236).

From this perspective, the dilemma between procedural and situational approaches came into the
limelight in connection with what is called the "crisis of the welfare state" and attempts to solve
its economic consequences (Lipsky, 1991; Clark, Newman, 1997, etc.). Apart from the problems of
public budgets, public accusations of the inability of the social service sector to appropriately
respond to current social problems became one of the reasons for the increased interest of
politicians and managers in proceduralisation. Howe (1992) for example describes an increased
tendency to place work with the family under an array of new regulations when the British media
raised the alarm around tragic cases of child abuse.

Both the above authors as well as other Anglo-Saxon authors (Fabricant, 1985; Harris, 1998, 2000,
etc.) point out that the proceduralisation brought about by political and economic reasons
restricts the "situational" and hence professional work of frontline workers in the social work
service organisations. It is worth noting that however serious this concern may be in the Czech
environment, apprehension of a restricted situational approach is not the topic of the day here.
Practice that follows the terms of the situational approach – and professional practice in this
respect – is relatively rare in Czech social work even where applying it would be appropriate.
Czech social workers can therefore hardly resist proceduralisation by referring to the fact that it
would restrict their complex approach to individual work with unique cases. If they wanted to
approach the life situations of individual clients in a complex way – and to be professionals –
they would face the following question: "How should a 'situational' approach be at all promoted in
a society where such an approach is unusual, let alone in political and economic conditions that do
not really favour such a change?" I believe that the main obstacle to promoting a "situational"
approach is the fact that most Czech social workers do not ask the said question by themselves.

I unfortunately do not have systematic data available, but even separate findings (see Musil,
Hubíková, Kubalčíková, Hamarová, 2001) suggest the hypothesis that although accustomed to
responding to the specific circumstances of individual cases, Czech social workers usually do so in
predetermined ways, in the short term and without attempting to look for the broader context of the
client’s acute difficulties. They do not respond to them until they confront the point stretched by
the development of the individual case. Hence although individual, their approach is neither
complex nor long-term. Rather than "situational", it could be labelled "partial" and "random".

It is not impossible that a similar situation exists in other countries or perhaps in some
specialised branches of social work – regardless of the level of professionalism prevailing in the
given country. It may therefore be useful if I define the dilemma between “procedural” and
"situational" approaches more precisely and demonstrate with examples what happens if the
expectations of both approaches collide.



Problem as "demand" or as part of an individual situation


In the "procedural" approach, the frontline worker perceives the client's problem as an impulse to
be responded to in a predefined way. It can be said that from this perspective the worker perceives
the client’s problem as a "demand" for a procedure to be delivered by the worker – to provide or
deny the provision of a service given by the law (such as financial assistance or a vacancy in a
home for elderly people) or to carry out prescribed intervention (such as to file a petition with a
court for removal of a child from a family).

The "situational" approach takes the worker to evaluate the client’s problem as part of the
client's life situation and propose a suitable solution based on the findings obtained in this way.

Billis (1984: 82–86, 232) and Howe (1986: 59–100) discuss the features of both approaches. Inspired
by their findings, I will now describe these features in more detail.


Procedural approach


If workers of an organisation are used to applying a procedural approach, they expect to be
addressed by somebody – a client or another entity – with a clear and anticipated requirement. A
client may for example present an application for social assistance benefits, a court passes over
the case of a juvenile offender on whom an alternative sentence has been imposed, neighbours report
that two minors have been left in a house without parental supervision for two days, a woman going
through a divorce comes to complain about feeling anxious and suffering from nightmares…

In a number of instances, these requirements need not be responded to in a procedural manner.
However, frontline workers thinking in procedural terms are not used to judging the suitability of
this approach. They understand the individual client’s “requirement” as an isolated problem and
therefore do not look for its connection with other complaints of the given client. They presume
that other clients will come with similar difficulties. Thus the workers who follow the procedural
view of helping work try to respond in a predetermined way to repeating types of problems, which
they deal with separately from other difficulties of clients[46]. They examine whether the client
can be provided with what he or she is asking for. For example, they ensure that the alternative
sentence hours are worked, place temporarily homeless children in institutions and propose to the
court measures to be taken, direct the client to the relevant authority, etc. In short, they
respond to the requirement by choosing or carrying out a measure that has been more or less
precisely known beforehand.

Under these circumstances the workers do not count much on having to decide on the very nature of
the intervention, on what the provided service will be like. They concentrate on deciding as to
whether or how the client receives a "product" known beforehand – whether for example they qualify
for social assistance benefits or a vacancy at a day-care centre, where and how a sentence will be
served, etc. The participants in the case know at least the framework of what the "product" is like
before the worker even begins to deal with the client's problem. The worker deals with the case as
a partial example of a problem for which there is an established solution in place. His or her
action is therefore mainly based on a routine. It is expected that a "product" known beforehand
will be provided to all recipients in a rather clear and generally identical way.

Although much is prescribed to the frontline workers, even with this approach they have relatively
large room for employing discretion (Billis, 1984: 232). This however does not apply to deciding on
the nature of the service being provided. Instead, independent discretion tends to be applied to
the conditions under which the applicants receive or do not receive a predetermined "product". The
workers know beforehand the criteria and rules using which they should place clients and their
problems into different categories and how they should respond to problems after categorising them
by the set criteria (Howe, 1986: 72). This does not mean however that they always observe the
predetermined means of classification and problem-solving to the letter. Although they find it
correct to stick to the set procedures, they sometimes observe them more and sometimes less.

The amount to which a procedure (the way of classifying a problem and the relevant "product") is
predetermined to the last detail is not always the same. Some procedures are defined very clearly
(for example granting some social benefits), while others are merely outlined (such as the duty to
carry out an examination in the client's place of residence for the court). The more vaguely
outlined the definition of the procedure is the greater opportunity there is to use partial
elements of a situational approach when delivering the procedure.

And procedures that are just outlined, i.e. not defined precisely, prevail. Between the problems to
be responded to by a strictly defined, predetermined approach, and problems the solving of which is
entirely open to a situational approach, a wide range of problems exist to which the workers may –
fully by their own discretion – respond in a more or less procedural manner. It can therefore be
said that in most cases that the amount to which workers apply a procedural manner is a matter of
their judgment. This judgment is usually ruled by the culture of the relevant workplace. The level
of proceduralisation is therefore determined not only by a relentless law, regulation or ruling as
it is commonly assumed. In fact it is also given by the habits of the specific workgroup that puts
the relevant law, regulation or ruling into practise.

This means that in one organisation the provisions of a single law can be implemented in a more
procedural manner than in another organisation. The workers of one organisation may stick to a
prescribed procedure "tooth and nail" in an attempt to resist the urging of too "intrusive"
clients. In an attempt to apply their qualifications or lead by love of one's neighbour, the
workers of another organisation may proceed in a situational manner when implementing the same law.
This reflection is shown in table No. 4.

The rules of classification of problems and response to them tend to be predetermined using direct
or indirect control (see Howe, 1986: 72).

With "indirect control", the worker learns about how to proceed in two ways. They are either
informed through official rules such as a job content regulation, binding methodology, etc., or
they learn how to proceed by learning the existing possibilities and relations. For example they
learn that only some of the services for elderly people in the community can be used or they
familiarise themselves with the established ways of communication with other organisations
(municipal offence commission, court, hospital, etc.). If direction is performed as part of
indirect control, those responsible for it check more or less thoroughly as to whether the workers
follow rules and binding coefficients, if they refrain from exceeding the defined mandate and
allocated resources, keep the prescribed records, etc.

table No. 4

Different amounts of proceduralisation in implementing the provisions of a single law in different
organisations


Department of social assistance in a town where a large factory has gone bankrupt

Department of social assistance where the manager has been replaced due to breaching the law and a
media scandal

Department of social assistance where workers have professional ambitions


elements of "procedural" approach increase towards the top end of the figure


------------------------------------

the workers do not manage to process applications from a large number of clients; in an attempt to
reduce their numbers, they promptly turn down applications that fail to meet legal requirements in
negligible details

------------------------------------









------------------------------------

the workers fear that they would be under focus; the law is "sacred" for them, and trying to comply
with it, they proceed precisely under its rules

------------------------------------








------------------------------------

the workers think that the determined approach makes them "accountants", that it prevents them from
applying their professional skills and harms clients; as a result they pay attention even to those
difficulties of clients the law does not order them to look for

------------------------------------

elements of a "situational" approach increase towards the bottom end of the figure


As a classical example of a procedural approach with rules given by indirect control, workers may
be in a situation where they think about the possibilities of solving a client’s problem "in the
way the established departmental resources implicitly suggest", perceiving the client "through the
filter of services already available" (Howe, 1986: 73). This means for example that no day-care
centre for pensioners has been established in the community due to a cost-saving policy of the
local authority. The social service department workers can only place clients in a home for elderly
people, and they therefore believe that their task is to examine applications for placement in the
home. The health condition criteria applicable to the allocation of vacancies in the home make it
impossible to be responsive to those seniors for whom placement in a day-care centre would be more
appropriate. Since these seniors do not meet the prescribed health condition criteria, the workers
believe that nothing can be done for them and they fail to pay thorough attention to their
situation. Howe (1986: 74) quotes a social worker who commented on a similar situation as follows:
"It’s just the case of letting things get worse before we can do something about it."

The above example nicely illustrates that shift towards procedural solutions does not result merely
from the very existence of direction and prescribed procedures. No regulation prevented the workers
of the department from also dealing with the situation of those who had so far not qualified for
being placed in a home for elderly people. They themselves perceived all their clients – however
diverse their situations were – as applicants for placement in the home for elderly people, fating
healthier applicants "to wait for things getting worse". Although the lack of the day-care centre
and the prescribed decision-making procedure had featured their approach to clients, it could not
order the workers to replace the instrument – the placement procedure – for the goal of their work.
The workers themselves concluded that "nothing else could be done". The promotion of a procedure as
an end in itself was the fruit of their own understanding of the situation.

"Direct control" may be the case if a worker decides on the classification of a problem or response
to it following an express recommendation or order from more influential participants in the
solution of the case.

This takes place for instance if the worker is bound by a duty to discuss the solution of some
types of problems with the so-called case commission – such as when the social worker is obliged to
deal with the development of a neglected child in a commission together with a doctor, a public
health officer and a superior officer of the worker. With this way of discussing the case, the
others may force them to file a motion for the removal of the child from the parents' care even
though the worker himself or herself perhaps finds individual advisory and casework with the whole
family to be more appropriate

Discussing the case with a "supervisor"[47] who is used to following procedural terms or, a duty to
present decisions for approval to superiors as is common in Czech organisations, may have a similar
effect as the case commission. In all these cases it can be assumed that the worker expects
"superintendents" (such as members of the case commission, supervisor who follows procedural terms
or an overseer) to place a particular emphasis on adherence to set procedures and on the worker
proceeding accordingly to this expectation.

Even "direct control" in itself needs not necessarily result in proceduralisation. Scott (1969:
97–122) clearly shows that the effect of "direct control" depends on the orientation of the
“supervisor”. Only some of the eleven supervisors he contacted during his study in 1959 focused on
respecting prescribed approaches. The others were oriented on "therapeutic supervision", assuming
that the ineffective approach of a worker was not the consequence of his or her deflection from
duties, but instead a display of overlooking important possibilities or a display of irrational
motives. Along these lines the therapeutically oriented supervisors believed that education rather
than admonishment is the route to improvement.

It can therefore be said that "direct control" increases the likelihood of a procedural approach
among workers if the actor of "direct control" (such as a superior) is procedure-oriented.

This however does not necessarily imply that the orientation of a "direct control" actor to
situational approach is a reliable guarantee of deflection of frontline workers from a procedural
approach. In fact they may respond only to some impulses from the "supervisor". It commonly happens
that they overlook some of the impulses, choosing only those they find important, comprehensible or
meaningful. Instructions from the actor of "direct control" that have been "sorted" in this manner
can be interpreted by them as "procedural" even if the actor tries to take the workers to a
situational solution. This is very likely for example in a situation where frontline workers are
accustomed to making reference to "orders from above" as a defence against the pressure of
persistent applicants[48].

Situational approach


In a "situational" approach, frontline workers regard the client’s problem to be a part of a
situation that involves other circumstances of the client’s life and needs to be examined and
evaluated as a comprehensive whole. It is not assumed that a predetermined solution might exist.
Every client's problems are considered to be unique (they have an "individual identity").

It is believed that the client's problem can be dealt with by taking into account its connections
with the other difficulties and possibilities of the client's situation[49]. The frontline worker
reveals the client’s difficulties, his or her possibilities and the connection between them. Based
on his or her assessment he or she plans goals to be achieved as well as methods to be used in
promoting the solution of the client’s problem[50]. The participants in the case therefore do not
know precisely what shape the solution will take in the end. It depends on the course of
communication between the worker and client on one hand and how the worker perceives the client's
situation on the other, as well as the worker's knowledge and skills given by their qualification,
approach to clients preferred by the workplace, the worker's experience, etc.

Howe (1986: 65–71) believes that the decision as to whether a situational approach will be applied
is made by managers. According to him, mangers allow frontline workers to determine the
interpretation of the client's problem or intervention approach only under certain circumstances:
firstly if problems are to be coped with, the solution of which cannot be planned in advance and
therefore no binding procedure can be set[51] (Howe, 1986: 65), and secondly, if the worker follows
a binding procedure in which there remains room for applying multiple methods of work with clients.
As an example, following a social worker's proposal, a court orders supervision over a family with
a neglected child. The social worker then provides advisory services to the family as part of
exercise of the court ruling initiated by him or her. (Howe, 1986: 67–71.) Howe holds the view that
in both cases the worker's opportunity to take situational approach depends on consent from the
manager or an alternative oversight actor.

I have no doubt that situational approach gets its way more often with problems the solution of
which is difficult to set by clear regulations. I equally have no doubt that there are cases in
which managers forced frontline workers to refrain from situational approach if their intervention
had gone beyond binding procedures. I also feel obliged to say that in the past three decades many
managers have dreamed about subordinating to binding procedures almost everything programmable in
the area of social work services (see e.g. Fabricant, 1985; Howe, 1992; Clarke, Newman, 1997;
Harris, 1998; Laan, 1998a: 138–139,174, and many others). Yet the idea that managers always have
the possibility to control and tolerate at their own discretion the application of a situational
approach by any frontline worker remains questionable for me.

Two propositions stand against each other here. On the one hand there is Howe with his opinion that
it is managers who allow frontline workers to proceed in a situational manner if it serves or does
not oppose the managers' interests. On the other hand there is the generally accepted finding of
Lipsky that street-level bureaucrats have more or less "discretion" in their work with clients
under all circumstances. Both propositions cannot apply. If there is discretion, workers can change
procedures regardless of how well they are predefined, and it is inconceivable that managers would
be able to consistently prevent them from doing so.

I personally lean towards Lipsky's arguments as I believe that lead by their findings, experience,
stereotypes, habits and interests, frontline workers can apply certain elements of a situational
approach in any procedure whatsoever. Whether they do so or not is solely up to them.

Paradoxically it is often frontline workers themselves whom routine procedures suit for a number of
reasons (see chapters two through four). As a result they take the opportunity to act in a
situational manner less frequently than they could, and they often play the game of the
eager-to-control managers. The question therefore is: "Under what circumstances do frontline
workers have a reason to follow situational terms even if the approach to solving the case is set,
and for what reasons they themselves try to avoid situational approach even if the client’s
situation is uncertain and the approach non-programmable?"

Scott (1969) and Howe (1986) show that a situational approach is promoted by those frontline
workers who want to gain the status of "professionals". Lipsky (1980) maintains that workers tend
to avoid a situational approach especially if they want to make the workload acceptable and cope
with the uncertainty of their working situation. Whether this is really the case and how precisely
it happens in practice should be established by further research.



Response of frontline workers to prescribed procedures and possibilities of situational approach


In the second part of this chapter, I will begin describing the findings of Knegt (1987) on general
features of handling cases with set procedures by frontline workers. I will proceed by giving two
examples of modification of procedures that took two opposite directions. In the first case,
frontline workers used reinterpretation of decreed approaches in order to simplify overlooking the
clients’ life circumstances (Lipsky, 1991; Brodkin, 1997). In the second case on the other hand,
they sought room for individual work with clients within procedures (Howe, 1986: 91–94).



Using an information monopoly to the benefit of "pitiable clients"


The utilisation of discretion in coping with the dilemma between adherence to procedures and
a situational approach to separate cases is described by Knegt, a sociologist of law from the
Netherlands. In his study of a Department of Social Services in the ficticious municipality of
"Waterstad", the author deals with the following question: "To what extent and in what way do local
officers respect the provisions of the legislation they are supposed to put into practice?" (Knegt,
1987.) In 1982, Knegt personally observed over a period of five months the everyday actions of
municipal authority personnel authorised by the General Law on Social Assistance ("Algemene
Bijstandswet") of 1965 to allocate financial means to those inhabitants of the municipality who
were unable to cover necessary living costs in another way. This assistance "should be attuned to
the circumstances and abilities of the client and to his 'shown sense of responsibility'". (Knegt,
1987: 119.)

Knegt (1987: 120–121) established that the task of the social worker was to gather the required
information on the life situation and selected personality characteristics of the applicant and
present a report to the manager who then decided on processing the application. The information
gathering process was to a large extent predetermined by a form completed by the applicant. It was
also prescribed as to what information should be contained in the report from the social worker for
the manager. In spite of these regulations, each of the six social workers at the authority under
scrutiny had a significant effect on the superior's decision-making. Each of them "exclusively
controls the flow of information from applicant or client to the organisation". This "monopoly […]
leaves him plenty of opportunity to selectively withhold or put forward information on the relevant
features of the client’s life situation".

The individual social workers carefully considered the consequences of how they informed the
manager, and they did so from three perspectives: from the perspective of their interests, from the
perspective of the client’s needs, and from the perspective of the risk that regulations would be
breached. If a social worker found that harmonising the three perspectives would be difficult, he
or she "tries to find another, more acceptable interpretation of the rule" and adapted their
communication to the manager to such a "workable" interpretation (Knegt, 1987: 124). The manager
obtained a report in which some of the required pieces of information were suppressed while others
were stressed. By shifting emphasis the social workers tried to make sure that the manager's
decision would not go against the worker's interests and that it would not prevent meeting the
client's needs and collide with regulations.

The social workers nevertheless did not take the same approach with all clients. A "moral code"
became common among them, using which they differentiated between "pitiable" and "cunning" clients.
The code included four rules: 1. The client must be "sincere […] has to give correct information,
if asked". 2. The obligations of both "parties" are to be reciprocal. Failing to respect the
principle by clients occurs if they are "claiming their rights" while being "uncooperative". 3. The
client must live "in a responsible way". An irresponsible client is one who cannot blame
"circumstances" but only himself or herself as culprits of their situation. 4. "The client must
have ‘earned’ his claim to assistance". Their merits are judged by what they have been doing so
far, whether and how they worked, whether they have applied for assistance before, etc. (Knegt,
1987: 122.)

If the needs of clients who failed to keep to the moral code in the eyes of the workers collided
with the regulations, the workers felt no dilemma. If however tension arose between the regulations
and the needs of "pitiable" clients, a dilemma emerged: "The social worker tends to stress the
extraordinary circumstances of the client while the team manager urges for compatibility with legal
criteria." On the one hand was a "professional orientation to the needs of the individual client",
while on the other remained the official duty "to decide cases according to general criteria".
(Knegt, 1987: 121.) To deal with the dilemma, the social workers used the above position of
"monopoly informer".

Confident that they promoted the meeting of relevant needs of applicants, they influenced
decision-making of the manager by stressing or suppressing some separate features of the "pitiable"
clients' situation. One of them for example reached the conclusion when processing one of the
applications that a client needed additional assistance in order to cover the costs of a new
four-room apartment. The problem was that the same applicant had already received the same social
benefit for a three-room apartment and there was little chance of receiving it again. The social
worker mentioned in the report that the new four-room apartment of the applicant was "twice as
large" as the previous one. He deliberately did not mention the number of rooms in the previous
apartment. Although the application was not processed routinely but instead forwarded for decision
to a higher tier (the municipal commission), the commission approved payout of the extra sum with
reference to the difference in size between the two apartments. Knegt (1987: 121) adds that had the
social worker mentioned the number of rooms in the old apartment, the difference in size would not
have been compelling and the application would probably have been turned down.

In his article Knegt does not mention what exactly made the social worker believe that the
applicant needed additional financial assistance. Neither has he revealed for what reasons
contributions were made in the Netherlands at the time of the study to fund four-room apartments
from social assistance resources. We can leave this aside though. The important thing for the theme
of this chapter is that he has described and illustrated the logic of coping with the dilemma
between a procedural and situational view of an application of a client of social assistance. There
are four findings I find crucial: firstly that according to Knegt, the emergence of a dilemma is
preceded by selection of clients according to a certain moral stereotype, secondly that the
applications of clients turned down on moral grounds are dealt with in a procedural manner, thirdly
that adapting a procedure to a situational solution pertains solely to the problems of clients
appraised in moral terms, and fourthly that the technology of coping with the dilemma is based on
redefining the rule and adapting information to a new conception of the rule by the worker.

Hopefully the reader will excuse my pedantry and allow me to once again to point out that the
technology of coping with the dilemma does not rest exclusively in manipulating a piece of
information. In the particular case the social worker had to start by finding such a modification
of the given rule that would be acceptable for the other participants of application processing. He
therefore started by formulating a rule according to which "it is not necessary to specify the
number of rooms; instead it is sufficient to mention the relative difference in sizes of the
apartments". Only then did he carry out the corresponding manipulation of information that made it
possible for him to individually deal with the client's situation.



How to meet quotas when there is nobody to meet them with?


Focusing attention on decision-making criteria set by procedures tends to result in overlooking a
number of circumstances of clients’ lives. Frontline workers sometimes modify predetermined
approaches in a way that even magnifies such reduced sensibility. An example of this way of dealing
with the dilemma between loyalty to procedures and individualised help is the American programme of
"transfer" of passive welfare benefits recipients to the process of active job integration. After
its launch, the programme was staffed by employees of routinely operating income maintenance
departments with personnel with low qualifications. Politicians and managers addressed them with a
request to ensure the transfer of people depending on welfare benefits to employment in a
situational manner, on a case-by-case basis. The politicians had economising on welfare
expenditures in mind. What the low-qualified personnel of the welfare departments had primarily in
mind was coping with the unusually difficult task in a way that was usual for them. By their
solution they significantly strengthened the unperceptive effect of the new programme's procedures
set by the managers.

Lipsky (1991) outlines how proceduralisation of the culture of American welfare departments took
place in the past and what happened when politicians decided to "reverse the points". Brodkin
(1997) shows independently of Lipsky how the workers tried to cope with the difficulties brought by
these events.

In his study from 1991 Lipsky shows how the managers of the Department of Public Welfare in
Massachusetts dealt with the politicians' requirement for reducing the number of welfare benefit
recipients in the late 1970s and the early 1980s.

The department management initially chose a just procedural strategy. They tried to make the
workers be "tougher", turning down applications that would arouse the slightest of doubts, wanted
them to try and initiate more frequent reviews of already approved applications, and to be stricter
about adherence to various procedures, in particular if the applicants were to present
documentation. (Lipsky, 1991: 218.) They chose this strategy because they believed that qualified
social workers process applications to the benefit of clients and that too much discretion makes it
possible for them to side with clients more than was reasonable. In order to put an end to this,
the managers decided to "deprofessionalise" the personnel. They ceased to recruit graduates of
social work schools and demanded accountancy skills from new candidates. (Lipsky, 1991: 221.) It
can be said that they wanted to reduce situational solutions, believing that this was a
prerequisite for successful savings. They believed that proceduralists were, unlike professionals
who used to follow situational terms, able to better serve in unveiling the applicants'
"half-truths" and "lies".

This "anti-situational" strategy was abandoned in 1983 for political reasons. Governor Dukakis took
office after a four-year pause, favouring opponents of conservative solutions and advocates of
social rights. Dukakis' commissioner for public welfare Atkins declared that the right way of
reducing the number of welfare benefits recipients meant "to help people who wanted to leave the
roll get off welfare". Following this, the Department of Public Welfare announced a new programme.
The goal was to win people for "transferring" from the welfare benefits programme to the programme
preparing for future job by offering them favourable conditions for preparation and transfer to the
labour market. (Lipsky, 1991: 222.)

The role of the social worker changed dramatically at the Department of Public Welfare in
Massachusetts. Now the former accountants had to persuade the welfare benefits recipients to
voluntarily transfer to the new job integration programme. Most clients were black mothers. It was
necessary to tug them into discussing things they had not come to the department for. They had come
for welfare benefits and the workers persuaded them to familiarise themselves with the new
programme, assuring them that it was favourable to "transfer" and try to gradually give up welfare
benefits. (Lipsky, 1991: 223.)

Instead of strictly applying an established, prevailingly accounting procedure, it was necessary to
individually discuss with every single person their situation and offer an appropriate solution.
The department had to transform the professionally decimated staff which until recently had been
forced to fight "misuse" of welfare benefits into a labour force for which helping the clients was
a priority. Responsiveness of workers to clients became the slogan of the day. Workers able to
listen and understand what the individual clients thought were welcomed. (Lipsky, 1991: 223–224.)
Professionally oriented situationalists began to be seen as able to assess the welfare benefits
recipients' situation and to offer them support in childminding, compensation of travelling costs,
health care provision, appropriate educational services and a realistic plan of transfer to an
acceptable job that would increase the willingness of clients to give up benefits.

Lipsky does not describe how the frontline workers responded to the situation, but we can form a
picture thanks to a study of a similar programme by Brodkin (1997).

The idea promoted by Dukakis in 1983 was enacted at federal level in 1988 under the title "Job
Opportunities and Basic Skills" or "JOBS" in short. Brodkin (1997: 3, 7–8) mentions that the
legislation gave the states a considerable level of independence in implementing the federal
reform. It was expected that state agencies and their caseworkers would use the newly obtained
powers to increase the employment rate of public assistance clients. The states became obliged to
define the rights of public assistance clients for employment-related services and to provide
schooling, training for jobs and other support services (transport, childcare, health care, etc.)
to welfare benefit recipients. Clients capable of doing so were obliged by the legislation to
become involved in education, training and job seeking programmes. The states were given the right
to withdraw benefits from those clients who would not be up the requirements of the programmes.

Funding proved to be important for the further implementation of the programme. The federation
subsequently covered (reimbursed) to the states the expenses of the above services insofar as they
were meeting set quotas. There were two types of quota: firstly quotas for participation of clients
in programmes – in 1995 the U.S. Federation subsequently covered expenses if half of parents
depending on welfare benefits participated in the JOBS activities, and secondly quotas were set for
the provision of JOBS services to specified groups of public assistance clients. The reimbursement
of expenses was made conditional on expending 55% of the JOBS expenses on services for long-term
benefits recipients, parents under 24 years of age without school-leaving examination and parents
of young children.

Between 1991 and 1993, Brodkin (1997: 6) conducted an in-depth study into the implementation of the
JOBS programme in Chicago, Illinois. She asked what direction the programme will take once "routine
interactions between frontline workers and their clients" occur during its implementation.

She established that the Illinois politicians resisted increasing public expenditures on the JOBS
services even at the expense of threatened meeting of the above quotas, i.e. the risk that a part
of the federal funds would be inaccessible. Wanting to draw the federal funding in full, the
management of the public welfare department followed the policy "to minimise program costs while
maximising federal reimbursement". A gap opened up in the original idea of a flexible,
individualised solution of the individual clients' situation. The managers' strategies were
operationalised by the "slot model". Every worker was allotted a prescribed number of vacancies in
education and training programmes, preschool facilities, etc. Metaphorically, the allotted
vacancies served as "slots". If the worker inserted a "slot", the system of services – similarly as
a slot machine – responded and served the client. If for example "slots" for preschool facilities
ran out, a young mother had a vacancy left in a training programme, but her child did not get to
crèche and the mother's participation in the training was compromised. This way the management
ensured the participation of clients prescribed by the quotas while making sure that they would not
be offered costly services. The most remarkable result was that the clients’ interest in secondary
education greatly exceeded the number of costly vacancies in schools, while the vacancies in the
programme of independent job searching were much more abundant than the clients needed. (Brodkin,
1997: 8–10.)

Thus the situational solution of a number of cases was restrained by limiting the range of services
available to each worker.

Similarly as Lipsky above, Brodkin (1997: 10–11) also stresses that the departments of public
welfare in Illinois were "deprofessionalised". Although the JOBS programme required that the
clients be given comprehensively designed social services, the latter were to be provided by
personnel lacking sufficient qualifications. As in Massachusetts, most workers transferred to the
JOBS programme directly from the counters of income maintenance departments. This showed itself in
a lack of willingness to change the accustomed "accounting" practices and focus on employment of
clients as an important goal.

The goal of frontline workers was "meeting caseload quotas". They followed the principle that those
"who met the numbers" and "provided the paperwork necessary to document case processing for federal
reimbursement" were given sovereignty in other matters. Instead of dealing individually with the
clients' situation, they began to play the "numbers game". To meet quotas, they became accustomed –
as one of them put it – "to put clients into components they don’t belong in". To put it simply,
they allotted the available services to those clients who not only had not asked for them, but were
not even entitled to them under the JOBS rules. Asked whether their superiors objected, they
answered: "When we talk about quality, they tell us, 'You are crazy. We’re talking about
quantity.'" (Brodkin, 1997: 11.)

In her study, Brodkin (1997: 12–18, 31) circumstantially discusses the way in which the JOBS
frontline workers dealt with the tension between the "slot model" and the expectations of both
clients and policy-makers that the welfare benefits recipients would receive individual support in
seeking and finding jobs. The most difficult task for them was to assign clients to the available
services and meet the set quotas while keeping within the limited programme resources, i.e. to cope
with the lack of "slots".

To manage it, the "caseworkers" claimed that their task was not to provide the services asked by
the participants. According to them, their main task was to ensure "transfer" of clients from the
welfare benefits programme to JOBS and to meet quotas. Clients who relentlessly tried to demand
services were perceived by them as "troublesome". When the clients insisted on their demands, the
caseworker temporarily placed them in the relatively available "independent job search" column (see
below). By doing so the caseworker contributed to meeting quotas while holding up a bit the
ambitions of the "troublesome client".

The lack of resources was followed by the fact that the caseworkers had a reason not to try and get
information about the needs of the clients. An identified need could be causing difficulties – the
client could require a service that was impossible to provide. This happened most frequently when
clients – quite logically given the content of the programme – required job opportunities. When
asking whether the caseworker had "a list of any jobs" available, the client was told: "I wish."
"That’s life," responded a caseworker to a woman with experience "in moving in and out of low-wage
and temporary jobs" pleading to be offered a more lasting one. Another time a caseworker said in a
similar situation: "[…] it’s beyond my control". Frontline workers therefore preferred not to
identify the clients' needs. Instead they "tended to define client needs to fit available slots",
forcing them to accept what they had to offer. To make it easier, they reminded clients of their
right to take away welfare benefits from those who "refused to co-operate". Brodkin adds: "What
constitutes satisfactory co-operation is […] matter of caseworker discretion, e.g., a recipient who
rejects a proffered training slot as inappropriate to her needs or interests could be regarded as
uncooperative, rather then asserting a right to suitable training."

The cheapest thing to do was to place the client in the "independent job search" column. As already
mentioned, this category presented the most abundant "slots". The difficulty was that it was a
category of services reserved for "job-ready" clients, and these were not in excess. The job-ready
quotas therefore needed to be cared for in a different way. Under official criteria, people with a
school-leaving examination or a lower, precisely defined level of literacy were considered to be
"job-ready". In fact however, the slots of "independent job search" were routinely used even for
people who did not meet these criteria. Brodkin once asked whether it perhaps would be better to
send a poorly literate client to a "literacy programme" first. "I didn’t even think of it,”
answered the caseworker concerned who had placed the woman in the "job search" column. The author
had had many similar responses.

Meeting quotas by placing clients of all kinds in the "independent job search" column was limited
by a federal instruction according to which a client had to give that activity a maximum of eight
weeks a year. Complying with the rule while meeting quotas would mean creating more costly
vacancies in schooling and training programmes, which was not feasible given the financial
restrictions imposed by the Illinois politicians. A solution was found anyway: the department
defined a new category of services entitled "job readiness". Asking how it differs from
"independent job search", Brodkin was answered: "Not much, except it can go on and on forever."
Clients placed in that column spend four hours three times a week in a classroom with the
caseworker; for the rest of the time they were obliged to "be engaged in independent search",
contacting twenty employers per month. This way, the federal requirement was met for the activity
to take at least twenty hours per week, and it could be reported as falling within the JOBS
programme.

Establishing the new column was also advantageous because caseworkers were able to place clients
who had left the "independent job search" category without success in another column for some time
and – as they themselves put it – "forget about them for a while". The number of participants in
the programme remained unchanged and quotas kept being met. In addition, the frontline workers were
able to abandon "troublesome" clients in this category to avoid being burdened with their
relentlessness, without these "hard to serve" clients losing their welfare benefits.

It is hard to imagine a neater way of ignoring, for state funds, the individual life circumstances
and needs of clients under the brand of official slogans about "individual needs" and "paths to
self-sufficiency", and creating ever more sophisticated ways of "meeting quotas" in a clearly
administrative manner instead of solving their situation.



How to overcome Billy's aversion to a family – fostering as the department's priority and the
reason for the child's depression


Insensitivity of intervention to the fate of an individual can be the result of stubborn promotion
of a certain type of solution by the department. In fact even a service that is highly
individualised in its nature can be used insensitively. It suffices if its application ceases to be
considered as an instrument and becomes a goal, which is how the management of an English
department of social services used fostering. Howe (1986: 91–94) describes how the local social
workers managed to cope with the situation. For them, the clients' needs were the primary guideline
rather than the department's priorities.

The social worker whose case was recorded by Howe noted that the official policy of the local
department was "very pro fostering" at the time she was given the case of Billy. Where children
were concerned, major steps were not allowed to be decided without the consent of the district
manager, and if the solution was not placement in a foster family, this had to be justified before
the department manager's deputy. Fostering had to be the "first choice" under all circumstances. A
decision was not made by comparing equivalent alternatives – instead it was necessary to challenge
placement in a foster family, a solution seen almost as natural.

Under these circumstances the social worker was charged with the eleven-year old Billy. Placed in a
temporary foster care at the time, he had gone through all sorts of things as one of four children
of a single mother. He had unsuccessfully waited for adoption in an institution's crèche. He had
lived several years with his mother and stepfather. The mother had left the family several times
and for a brief period Billy had been officially placed into the care of his stepfather.
Subsequently he had been placed in a children's home and provided with psychotherapeutic care.
Before placement in temporary foster care, he had gone through an unsuccessful attempt at placement
in a foster family.

The three years spent with the mother and stepfather had been accompanied by the consequences of
alcohol abuse by both parents. The mother would repeatedly disappear for longer or shorter periods
of time. Billy and his sister Kelly had been looked after by their sister Mary, not much older than
the two of them. From this period, Billy had taken the concept of mother as a violent wrongdoer.
After placement in the children's home Billy had been visited by his grandfather who had
unfortunately died.

When attempts to place Billy, Kelly and Mary in a single foster family had failed Billy had been
placed separately. He had gone to a foster home of six related and one adopted child. Three months
after his coming to the family, the foster father had died and the family blamed Billy: "Billy
arrives, father dies." Both the other adopted boy and Billy had begun to lose self-control. Billy
had behaved in a destructive way and fallen into a deep depression just like his widowed foster
mother, who had sought psychiatric care. At her request Billy had to leave the family and was
placed in temporary foster care. In this way he had come into contact with the social worker whose
response to the policy of the department's management is at the core of this joyless story.

The worker soon realised that the short-term foster care had not been a very positive experience
for Billy. The boy had been very restless and kept being mischievous. Although given systematic
advice, the foster parents had been managing Billy with great difficulty. The mother had cared for
him, but the father would reproach him and be aggressive to the boy. After four months they had
rejected Billy.

Another attempt at placement in a foster family seemed too much of a risk to Billy. But the social
worker wanted to avoid conflict with the central commission of the department and organised another
attempt at contact between Billy and new foster parents as well as another attempt at contact with
adoption candidates. The potential foster parents rejected Billy after two meetings, and the
adoption candidates did the same thing after several more meetings. This meant another two
rejections for Billy.

Gradually the social worker became firmly convinced that the boy was not fit for adoption by a
family. His experience with his mother and foster parents resulted in his responding by depression
and disorderly conduct to contact with any family. In her own words the worker "couldn’t imagine a
family coping with […] the more disturbed side of him". She decided that it would be suitable to
work with Billy for some time and prepare him for entry to a family. She believed that the boy
needed to get a clear idea about what his original family meant for him – his sisters and
especially the violent mother, at the moment serving a prison sentence. The worker therefore began
to look for a vacancy in a home with a therapeutic community.

She wanted to protect Billy against another hasty placement and decided to put her proposals
through before the central commission, but without success. The management realised that another
temporary placement in a foster family would mean stress for the boy and promoted a more lasting
alternative, placing Billy under the care of a single male applicant for adoption. Knowing the man
concerned, the worker did not regard him as a person capable of caring for Billy and coping with
Billy's difficulties and behaviour. The commission interpreted her position as prejudiced towards
the single foster father and ordered her to place Billy with this potential adoptive father
regardless of her opinion.

The worker found herself in a deadlock: "I was told if I didn’t do it then someone else would."
There was a risk that the case would be forwarded elsewhere. She obeyed the order and justified the
step to herself as follows: "I felt at the time that what I was doing was wrong for Billy and I
shouldn’t, but, well, if it was going to happen I could perhaps protect him a little bit because he
knows me and I would actually stick with him rather than someone else handle it."

The potential adoptive father was very manipulative, according to the worker. He had bought a lot
of things for Billy. This was alluring for the boy, but he revealed to the worker that "he hated
it". In her words Billy had gone through perhaps the worst month of his life with the man. The
worker proposed a compromise: she persuaded the manager of her district that it would be better for
Billy to go to a home where the adoption applicant would be able to visit him. Their relationship
would be allowed to develop gradually and the situation would be assessed after six months. When
Billy showed aversion to staying in the adoptive father's house, the central commission accepted
the worker's proposal. They did not omit to note however "that I was making the wrong decision".

Still difficult to cope with, Billy gained "security and relief" in the home according to the
worker. As she had expected, the adoptive father visited him very little. The home personnel
confirmed that the man had not had a positive influence on Billy.

The social worker concluded her story by saying: Billy's "really ’naughty’ behaviour … acting out,
just being able to express his anger and things. I see him once every week or two and we talk
around his family, his mother and he feels potentially very violent and it’s to do with having
internalised this myth about her rather than the reality. I’m trying to make her a real person …
she’s not a monster […]." So far Howe.

The social worker did not deal with the dilemma between procedural obedience and concerns about the
child's mind by openly challenging the pro fostering strategy of the department's management. She
herself mentioned that she "wasn’t in a position to question it". Instead she accepted a decision
she believed would surely hurt Billy, in order to maintain contact with the boy and be able to
follow him in the future. Thanks to this she was able to influence Billy's situation. She used what
she had learned about the boy's relationship with the potential adoptive father in formulating a
compromise solution that on the surface did not question the decision of the central commission,
but in fact made it void in the near future.

As with the JOBS programme, acceptance of set procedures created room for their reinterpretation.
This time however the modification of the prescribed approach took an opposite direction. In
meeting the JOBS programme quotas, the redefining of the "binding" classification of clients
resulted in a magnified insensibility to entire categories of people. Billy's social worker managed
to redefine the decision on "placing into foster care" into a decision on commencing a long-term
process of creating the relationship between the foster father and Billy. In this way she made
possible a more sensitive, individualised work with the particular client.


chapter 7

MATERIAL OR IMMATERIAL HELP



Hagen (1987) deals with the consequences of institutional "separation" between the processing of
applications for welfare benefits on one hand and more widely approached, rehabilitative social
work on the other. He wants to prove that in spite of the separation of welfare departments and
personal social service agencies that occurred in the U.S. in 1972[52], income maintenance workers
still provide "social services" to their clients.

By means of survey[53] results, Hagen demonstrates that the workers of welfare departments in the
state of New York deal with more than just eligibility determination. Although regarding the latter
as the core of their work, they also provide, however unsystematically, advisory services, refer
clients to other services or assist them in their contact with public service departments. The
questioned workers declared that among other things they provided their clients with information
and advice regarding household maintenance and economy, childcare and transport, referred them to
employment services, housing, healthcare, education, care services, legal and family advisory,
helped them file and follow up their complaints, etc. (Hagen, 1987: 265–268.)

Hagen summarises his findings by stating "service provision survived the mandated separation
between services and income maintenance" (Hagen, 1987: 270). In fact, according to Hagen, services
concentrating on socialisation, rehabilitation and therapy were separated from income maintenance
(Hagen, 1987: 271). In other words, Hagen established that rather than the intended separation of
"financial assistance" and "personal social services", "material" and "immaterial" help were
separated.

"Material" and "immaterial" help are distinguished by Laan (1998a: 23–37), who points out that
frontline workers are sometimes forced by circumstances to make a difficult choice between them.
Laan analyses the subject in the specific context of the Netherlands. I will therefore try to
separate the issue of "material" and "immaterial" help from his discourse and present it in a
concise way.



"Care" and "cure"


The difference between "material" and "immaterial" help according to Laan (1998a: 33) can be
clarified using a metaphor from the medical discourse. While "material help" is close to "care" in
its nature, "immaterial help" is similar to "cure". In social work however, the terms "care" and
"cure" relate to something different than in medicine.

"Material help" sets itself less ambitious goals. It wants to provide momentary care to the client
and ensure that the client's current needs are met. The instruments suitable for achieving this
goal are those activities Hagen claims were performed by income maintenance workers in the state of
New York in the mid-1980s. These are according to Laan (1998a: 25–28): financial assistance, social
and legal consultancy and information provision, consultancy for debtors, household management
advisory, help in using other services, provision of help in the completion of forms, intercession
or representation before other organisations, etc. If these activities result in an improved
ability of clients to cope with difficulties independently and on their own, this is usually not
the result of an intentional action of the frontline worker. More often, this is an unintended
effect of "first aid".

"Immaterial help" has a more long-term, process of “developmental” nature, its objective being to
improve the client’s ability to manage or improve their life situation on their own. Various forms
of psychosocial help are the instrument of achieving this goal, from emotional guidance to
psychological support of social functioning; to help in strengthening the ability to cope with
tasks, roles or problems; to educational work; to community work and social action. "Learning"
through which the client can gain new abilities is the essence of all these approaches. (Laan,
1998a: 23–33.) Although the instruments of material help can be used to achieve this goal, this is
neither obvious nor common in a number of organisations.

Laan emphasises that social workers are often unable to effectively help their clients unless they
see a connection between their material and immaterial problems or if they are unable to connect
material and immaterial help. He also maintains that the nature of that "connection" is unclear and
that this mistiness is an inherent characteristic of actual social work. (Laan, 1998a: 17.)

I personally believe that what Laan terms "inherent mistiness" is a display of two facts. Firstly
the connections between the material and immaterial aspects of the client’s life are varying,
differing from case to case. It is therefore difficult to formulate generally valid schemes that
would be usable as a "tool" or guidance for recognising these aspects. For the same reason it is
difficult to programme joint dealing with material and immaterial problems of a specific
individual, squeezing them in approaches clearly known in advance. I further believe that the
second reason for the "substantial mistiness" ensues from the already mentioned first reason: the
connections between the material and immaterial factors of coping with a situation by client are
variable and unpredictable, and when they are dealt with jointly, it often happens intuitively or
unwittingly. As I already suggested, if they are coped with at once, this is in many cases an
unintended, unconscious effect of applying an instrument.

A worker may for example help a client whose mental complaints prevent him from the systematic
management of money, i.e. from managing a current debt. They together set up a payment schedule and
the worker checks adherence to the schedule by the client. Although the client is unable to devise
and apply any such thing himself, at some point the schedule ends up in the hands of his or her
child who learns to use it and helps the father the next time. The father becomes accustomed to
turning to the child for help, however reluctantly at first. The social worker may support this
unintended effect of his or her advice in the future. In addition, in this way the child gains a
skill that helps him or her avoid becoming client of a social assistance department in the future.

According to Laan, a question would arise in the said case as to whether the applied technique of
payment schedule could be clearly defined as an instrument of "material" or "immaterial" help
(Laan, 1998a: 27). It is certain that applying it would in the said case bring an effect of both
kinds – it would help meet the client's current needs and contribute to his family learning to
manage resources.

Two assertions are relevant for our further contemplation: firstly that effective help depends on
connecting material and immaterial help – "care" and "cure", and secondly, that instruments of
material and immaterial help may intentionally or unintentionally contribute both to momentary
saturation of needs and long-term learning by the client. According to Laan, a conclusion is to be
drawn from these claims: that a clear-cut choice between material and immaterial help is "illusory"
(Laan, 1998a: 27). For Laan, it is realistic to use varying combinations of both and to follow
either by an endeavour for "an optimum mixture" of one with the other in individual cases, or to
make one of two errors: either concentrate too much on material problems although the client
suffers from immaterial difficulties as well, "narrowing help down to the income dimension", or
incorrectly concentrate just on immaterial problems – such as relationships – even though material
difficulties may be the cause of the conflict between the client and his or her surroundings,
"narrowing help down to the psychological dimension". (Laan, 1998a: 28.)



Two forms of a single dilemma


Laan's contemplation of the "illusory" separation of material and immaterial help and the
"realistic" threat of narrowing help down either to an income, or a psychological dimension might
confuse us if we do not pay attention. It might tempt us to draw the conclusion that social work
service people struggle solely with the dilemma between narrowing help down to an income or a
psychological dimension. This would be oversimplifying the subject.

In fact Laan (1998a: 39–41) believes that when examining interpersonal relations, it is useful to
take both the perspective of an external observer and the perspective of the participant of the
observed events. We realise how "illusory" the disconnection of material and immaterial help is
once we look at the relation of the worker with the client from the perspective of an external
observer. It is useful however to extend this realisation by answering the question as to how the
potential separation of material and immaterial help is perceived by the participating frontline
workers of an organisation (and potentially other, even indirect participants of the same
relationship – clients, managers, legislators, etc.).

For me the answer is rather clear. Frontline workers may look at the question in two ways.
Instructed by Laan outsider’s view of or by their own reflective experience, they may regard
material and immaterial help to be two sides of the same coin. If this is the case, they may fear
that they will inappropriately take one or the other direction, and the dilemma between narrowing
help down to an income or a psychological dimension arises before them. However, the workers may
also build on ideas that are entirely illusory from an outside perspective, believing that material
help can be provided without immaterial help and vice versa. If so, the workers may be dealing with
the dilemma as to whether they should provide exclusively "material" or exclusively "immaterial"
help to clients.

Therefore the nature of the dilemmas dealt with by frontline workers depends on whether the
respective organisation builds on the idea that "material" and "immaterial" help are separable (see
Hagen above), or the idea that in practice the earlier is inseparable from the latter. Laan offers
empirical examples of both. Before mentioning them, I will briefly explain the circumstances under
which the dilemma of "material" and "immaterial" help or indeed between narrowing help down to an
income or a psychological dimension came into prominence in the Netherlands in the 1980s. Laan
(1998a: 13–34) mentions three reasons for this: the unclear design of social work in Dutch society,
an influx of poor clients at a time of economic depression and criticism of individualisation of
social problems in the process of personal social service provision.

In 1980s, social workers in the Netherlands began to feel tension between a conception of social
work common until that time that did not limit itself to dealing with material problems, and a fear
that social work was threatened with extinction, because it offered a "product" that was not very
clear to society and clients. There was a peril that if social work fails to appeal to society with
a comprehensible definition of its task, it would be affected by the cost reduction measures that
were on the rise at the time. It seemed that identifying social work with well definable "material"
help would help solve the problem. These thoughts were supported by a growing demand for material
help by citizens who faced economic difficulties more often as a result of economic depression.

The apprehension of the unclear task of social work and the arrival of clients with material
problems were accompanied by doubts among social workers concerning the sense of their own work,
the reason being that critically tuned sociologists contested immaterial help that had long been
regarded by social workers as an instrument of emancipation of the poor (see the fifth chapter
about this). They came with an assertion that in fact it was an instrument meant to distract
attention from the consequences of the inequality in power economics. Immaterial help was said to
disguise these consequences by transferring them to the level of psychological problems of an
individual. From this perspective, an attempt to offer clients understanding and an opportunity to
learn new skills, especially communication skills, might have appeared to be disguising political
and economic imbalance. Instead of openly naming and solving the social consequences of hegemony of
one group over others, social work was said to teach clients to cope with the personal consequences
of social imbalance by training individual skills and overcoming conflicts in personal
relationships. Social workers felt uneasy about the thought that by concentrating on "immaterial"
values such as dialogue and mutual understanding, they might have unsuspectingly contributed to
disciplination and discrimination of their clients.

According to Laan the social workers dealt with the consequences of these circumstances in three
ways: firstly by resigning with regard to immaterial help, secondly by identifying features of
material help with the quality criteria of any help, and thirdly by radically rejecting the
narrowing of help down to an income dimension. The important thing is that the first and second
reactions ("resigning with regard to immaterial help" and "identifying features of material help
with quality criteria") stem from the "illusory" idea that material and immaterial help can be
separated. The third response ("radical rejection of narrowing help down to an income dimension")
is based on an idea that material and immaterial help should go hand in hand.



"Material help", solidarity with the poor and the "new objectivity”


Laan describes two examples in which social workers in the Netherlands found it possible to
separate "care" from "cure", and therefore in their eyes the circumstances as described above
stirred the dilemma between providing either "material" or "immaterial" help. In both cases they
decided to provide purely material help. The same decision however did not have the same meaning
for them.


Resigning with regard to immaterial help


The first example refers to workers at the Department of Social Assistance in West-Utrecht (Laan,
1998a: 23–24, 34–37, 55) who faced a growing influx of clients with material problems in the 1980s.
As a result, organisational and capacity-related problems of everyday operation arose before them.
In addition they faced the decision as to whether to concentrate on limited and manageable material
help to the poor, for the sake of which they would resign on the politicising work using which they
had wanted to attempt for emancipation of the poor.

Except for a few of them, the workers were convinced that "they did not have the right to abandon
clients in an emergency". They therefore gave up the possibility to accompany the clients in the
long run and decided to give preference to their material interests. From then on they would deal
with what they used to regard as mere symptoms of social problems. Thus they reached a separation
of material and immaterial help, perceiving this solution as a "necessary evil".

In a situation where economic depression increasingly restrained them through growing workload,
they concentrated on problems that immediately resulted in poverty and groups that had least
chances and were most vulnerable. They decided so being aware that there was a shift in their work
from politicising and structural work to "first aid" (from "cure" to "care"). This meant for them
resigning from the possibility to moderate the risk that clients would end up in the vicious circle
of dependence on benefits where financial assistance becomes vain. They believed this risk could be
faced by activating clients to political and social action using the methods of group work, but
being pressed by the circumstances they gave up on this.

I personally believe that the attitude of the West-Utrecht workers can be understood if we perceive
it as a display of resignation forced by circumstances from "politicising" immaterial help that was
motivated and rationalised (see the first chapter about this) by solidarity with the materially
disadvantaged.


Deleting immaterial help from the services on offer


At a department in Groningen (Laan, 1998a: 53–55), workers also limited themselves to material help
and the reduction too had been immediately preceded by a mass influx of poor clients. This was
accompanied by unmanageable working situations, depression and aggression. In 1986 an interview was
published in the press with Joope Van der Meché, a social worker of the Groningen department. Among
other things Van der Meché announced that at their department "immaterial help […] will be deleted
from the services on offer".

As opposed to what happened in West-Utrecht, this departure from "cure" to "care" was not a display
of solidarity with the disadvantaged. Joope Van der Meché said in the interview that eight years
earlier the opinion "that immaterial and material help should not be separated from each other" had
been nearer to his point. After the mid-1980s experience however he was looking for a "new
approach" with his colleagues. In a situation where it was "necessary that we managed the whole
large group of clients daily streaming into the building", they began to perceive material and
immaterial help as two parallel types of service. They concluded that, "by removing immaterial help
the quality of material assistance may increase."

Joope Van der Meché stressed in the interview that in spite of this changed opinion he was not an
"apostate", because he still had "a very nice job" and wanted to "provide better services" to
clients. Laan's explanation does not tell us what the workers of the Groningen department thought
the "nice job" and "better services" were. All we know is that Joope Van der Meché mentioned these
two values as the anchors of his "faith". We also know that in 1988, two years after the described
change, a report was published in the local press that the social department in Groningen "is among
the best nationwide" and that it excelled among 21 departments in the Netherlands especially in
"providing information to clients".

From the position of an external observer, Laan (1998a: 54–55) comments on this development as a
practical illustration of culmination of a process against which the social workers' section of the
"Inclusive Association" of unified social workers, administrators of social benefits and services
from municipalities and socio-cultural workers warned in 1984: "[…] in recent years social workers
have been confronted with a growing number of the unemployed as well as such clients who find
themselves in a difficult financial situation as a result of the national cost reduction policy of
the present government. Social departments that increasingly resemble social help factories have
ever less features of customer-oriented organisations […] Personal support to customer is provided
ever less." The decision to "delete immaterial help" and hence "provide better services", "provide
information to clients" and preserve "nice job" resulted according to Laan in the Groningen
department becoming "an assistance factory" (Laan, 1998a: 54).

We can only guess as to the meaning of the "better services" and "nice job" mottos to the workers
themselves. It is certain that unlike West-Utrecht, the removal of "cure" was not taken as a
"necessary evil" in Groningen. It seems to have been understood as an opportunity for "betterment"
and presentation of clear results of the department before the public. For Joope Van der Meché and
his colleagues, the notions of "deleting immaterial help", "better services" and "nice job" were
not inherently inconsistent. Their mutual interconnectedness had some positive meaning for them.
Our understanding in terms of what kind of a meaning it was can be helped by Laan's mentioning that
in Groningen the motto of "controlling the production process" went hand in hand with the removal
of immaterial help (Laan, 1998a: 53). The so-called "new objectivity" ideology, which according to
its protagonists was to solve the problem of social work presentation before the public, associated
the departure from immaterial help in the second half of 1980s with the same motto.

One of the representatives of "new objectivity", chairman of the aforementioned "Inclusive
Association" Van der Ploeg published an article in 1987 entitled "Product Betterment" (see Laan,
1998a: 138–139). In it the author contests the tendency of the social service field to conceive of
things too broadly. According to him, this broadness is "instigated by idealism" and is not
suitable at all "if we want to consider a better product" and "better quality". Van der Ploeg
believes that "rational approaches" should be emphasised and one should talk about "procedures,
tasks, responsibility, infrastructures, organisational structures, management, production, etc."
This "new", "matter-of-fact way of thinking" should better serve those clients who do not look for
"discussion groups to find out together that they have a problem". They are looking for "a suitable
product" and do not want to hear "about the abilities to understand a problem". They demand "a
clear answer", "recommendation", "advice", "a specific attitude of help”. If social work wants to
meet this expectation, it is thought it must be "a perfectly functioning system" ready to "supply a
completely finished product ready for consumption and nearly free of anything around it", a system
that "mediates clarity instead of any subconscious stories, analyses and diagnoses". This can be
achieved according to Ploeg if social work focuses "on tasks" and if management becomes responsible
for defining the product and hires professionally qualified personnel to supply the product set by
managers.

The analogy between the solution of the Groningen department personnel and the position of the "new
objectivity" ideology seems clear. Joope Van der Meché believes that "betterment of services" will
take place thanks to "deleting immaterial help". Van der Ploeg maintains that the quality of
services can be improved and clients satisfied if social workers avoid bothering them with
"subconscious stories, analyses and diagnoses". Joope Van der Meché speaks about "controlling the
production process", Van der Ploeg about "finished products", "production" and a "perfectly
functioning system". It is also not without interest that Van der Ploeg stresses "advice and
recommendations" and the department in Groningen became famous for "providing information".

Although Van der Ploeg does not speak about "nice job" in his article, Laan (1998a: 137) points out
that "new objectivity" and its protagonist appeared on stage in mid-1980s when "social work had to
define a strategy of its survival", and to do so, "it had to lose the image of 'imprecision',
'non-specificity' and 'softness'". I therefore dare to express my supposition that when Joope Van
der Meché said in the quoted interview: "I still believe that I have a nice job", he had the
"survival issue" in mind and its solution by "precise" and "specific" material help.

I believe that the core of the "new objectivity" ideology and the basic principle of the positions
of Joope Van der Meché and Van der Ploeg is the identification of some features of material help
with the quality criteria of any social support. Both Meché and Ploeg found the possibility to
define a clear product beforehand and to subordinate its provision to clear procedures that can be
promptly processed to be the main benefits of material help. In short, what both the "new
objectivity" ideology and the Groningen department appreciated in material help was the fact that
it could be imprinted with a procedural nature. This makes material help an effective instrument of
coping with large numbers of clients and makes it possible to present social work as a process of
planned organisation, and exactly this is highly valued in the Netherlands society that credits
"rationality free of any imprecision", according to Laan (1998a: 137). We can therefore think that
it was an attempt to promote the desirable image of "rationality" and "precision" in the work of
the Groningen department that lead its workers to "delete" immaterial help and to abandon the
original position that had placed emphasis on connecting "care" and "cure".

However not everybody abandoned the position. The following example shows what may happen if a
social worker thinks that effective support for clients cannot go without connecting material and
immaterial help.



Rejection of narrowing help down to the income dimension


Some social workers in the Netherlands considered both material and immaterial help to be part of
good intervention, from which perspective they rejected narrowing help down to the income
dimension. This is how debtors' advisor Gread Janssen responded to the developments in the second
half of the 1980s (Laan, 1998a: 21–22).

Unlike his colleagues, Janssen, a worker of the above-mentioned West-Utrecht department, did not
give up on immaterial help. Instead he preferred to abandon his advisory for debtors. He explained
his decision by saying that he was unable "to deliver the goals of social work" at the department.
Janssen was convinced that in social work "the process of client learning must be in the centre of
attention, otherwise one is an accountant instead of a social worker." In addition to "providing
information and advisory", this must be "a lengthy process in which we intensively deal with the
person".

In 1985 Janssen was gradually finding out that his workload and the hopeless financial situation of
his clients made it impossible for him to provide effective help to clients. He himself noted that
when dealing with financial problems he was gradually finding himself "under such strong time
pressure that it is no longer possible to mediate to the client as to how they should manage their
households". He commented on the impact of the debtors' financial situation as follows: "If people
are at the very bottom and live on social benefits, then it is late for any remedy. Banks are
relentless […] The reducing incomes of our clientele bring a turning point […] in terms of
methodology. It is nonsense to mediate abilities if one has nothing left."

Janssen realised that under the existing conditions he was not able to do for his clients what he
considered essential: "How shall I act in my work with the family system, how can I emotionally
accompany its members in their farewell with all those things they feel happy about, how can I
implant in them certain abilities that are necessary for them to go further once the pressure
somewhat abates? I am no longer able to answer these questions."

A clear conclusion ensued from that for Janssen: "I probably had to give my job up in order to be
able to pursue it again. I can better employ my abilities in representing the interests of the
group I now belong to, the group of social assistance recipients."

For Janssen, social work ends where the working condition limits worker solely to dealing with the
momentary financial situation of client, or in short, when social work is narrowed down to the
income dimension and learning new skills makes no sense. Laan (1998a: 33–34) points out that this
happens in two ways, according to Janssen.

Narrowing help to the income dimension occurs firstly in work with clients who have a low income
and cannot win subsistence without extreme efforts. This factor prevents client learning, in which
situation work with the client limits itself to providing "first aid". Janssen clearly rejects this
and promotes immaterial help to these people. If the worker lacks the conditions for providing this
type of help, social work can no longer be done according to Janssen.

Secondly, attempting a "cure" encounters obstacles if the client’s income is so small that "there
is nothing left to manage" given the client's debts. Janssen believes that the high level of
marginalisation of these clients was due to a "conglomerate of social factors" which the worker
cannot influence from the position he or she possesses. However, he or she can try to influence it
as a citizen. Janssen did this when he left the department and decided to represent the rights of
the poor as a member of the group of social assistance benefits recipients.

Janssen's story is a nice illustration of an individual's dependence on the culture of his or her
organisation. Janssen stayed alone with his opinions in West-Utrecht. He did not find allies and
left. There were departments however at the time in the Netherlands where he would have found his
kinsmen and could have stayed. Laan (1998a: 55) mentions the example of the social department in
Drachten, which unlike the departments in West-Utrecht and Groningen "kept sailing against the
tide". Only a "core" made up of a tenth of clients requested material and immaterial help to be
provided in parallel in Drachten. These clients however were given forty per cent of the total
time. There were people at the department who wanted to begin dealing with the organisational
changes brought by the conditions in the 1980s by providing appropriate help to the "core" with
"connected", i.e. both material and immaterial problems.


chapter 8

TO INTERVENE OR NOT TO INTERVENE



Laan writes that in 1988 the public in the Netherlands became alarmed by the approach of the
children's institution "De Bolderkar" in Vlaardingen, the personnel of which initiated the removal
of a large number of children from their parents. They found it irresponsible if a child who "shows
by playing with its puppet that it has been abused" and "is then entirely confused and cries", was
sent home "to be then […] again pawed by the father". They complained that it took very long
(sometimes even weeks) before they made the local youth authority intervene. Their approach aroused
a wave of criticism, labelling them as manipulative towards the parents who became victims of an
investigation they had not been informed of and to which they had not given their consent. The
personnel of the institution were reproached for "a lack of professional conscientiousness", which
meant that in trying to prevent the slightest possible and perhaps fictitious danger, they readily
intervened where it was not legitimate. (Laan, 1998a: 123–125.)

The dilemma of social workers hidden behind this controversy was clearly identified by professor
Baartman, a member of the commission that investigated the "De Bolderkar" affair: "It is a disaster
if a child is illegitimately removed from the home. It is also disastrous if the child is not
provided legitimate protection." Baartman wanted to point out the fact that the "everyday struggle
of the helpers" with issues of "how to avoid both faults in the best possible way" tend to receive
insufficient attention in public debates. (Laan, 1998a: 125.) In other words, Baartman clearly
pointed to the fact that the dilemma between intervention and non-intervention arises for social
work service people not only when their approach comes before court or disciplinary proceedings. It
is a common part of their work.



Unreasonable intervention, unreasonable non-intervention


Laan (1998a: 119–122) says that social workers commonly walk on an imaginary "beam" from which they
can easily fall down. To keep on, they must avoid two faults in dealing with the case entrusted to
them. They must not act "on the basis of a false alarm", which results in "unreasonable
intervention". On the other hand, neither can they allow themselves "negligence" and "unreasonable
non-intervention".

To keep on the "beam" is not easy, because the effort made by the worker to avoid one fault results
in an increased likelihood of the other fault. The only way of reliable elimination of the risk
that they are caught by false alarm and intervene unreasonably, is not to intervene at all. And the
only guaranteed way of avoiding negligence is to intervene even if it may be unreasonable. The more
social workers try to eliminate the risk that something might happen to any of the children placed
under their care, the more likely it is that they will remove some of the children illegitimately.
The more they want to avoid the illegitimate removal of a child from parents who have not done
anything bad to him or her, the more likely it is that a child remains in hands that hurt it.

A social worker may hit a similar dilemma anywhere: the more a social assistance department worker
tries to prevent the misuse of benefits, the more likely it is that she will deny the benefit to
somebody who is eligible and truly needs the money. And the other way round, the more she
endeavours to provide for those who really need it, the more likely it is that a cunning sluggard
gets the money. The more a worker in an asylum for problem drinkers relies on the responsibility of
alcohol abusers under treatment, the more likely it is that alcohol will be smuggled into the
facility. And the more he or she will take measures to avoid smuggling, the less the abstaining
drinkers will rely on their own responsibility … etcetera.

Laan (1998a: 120) maintains that the hope for the worker to keep on the "beam" is preserved if he
or she judges every individual case in a wise and conscientious manner. In this way they might
proceed in an organisation where both intervention and non-intervention are regarded as equal
solutions and it is therefore possible to discuss the consequences of both faults in time. This
condition however is often not met, because tolerance for one of the faults and cautiousness about
the other may exist in different organisations.

The way this is regarded in some organisations is that unreasonable intervention arouses an excited
response, while neglecting intervention that would have been appropriate remains unnoticed. In the
Netherlands of the 1980s, workers of organisations where much emphasis was placed on emancipation
of clients were attracted to this attitude. A conviction prevailed there that a lack of
self-restraint undermined the client’s right to decide about himself or herself. (Laan, 1998a:
232.) Let us take the example of an employee of a family counselling centre where the client's
right to self-determination is respected.

The advisor suspects that a client who visited the centre together with her husband shortly before
divorce may be threatened by her aggressive spouse. If the advisor leaves this aspect of the case
to develop spontaneously and the woman concerned is physically injured, he can be almost certain
that colleagues will not blame him for neglecting his duties and that the public will not even
notice the non-intervention. The advisor will suppress his qualms with a feeling that he did not
want to panic and risk irritating the husband by unreasonable intervention. If however the same
advisor helped the woman prevent the husband's attack by hiding her together with her children at a
secret place, it is not impossible that the man would make a fuss and the advisor with the whole
centre would face an accusation of violating the rights of a legitimate husband. At such a moment
the colleagues will find it hard to resist the feeling that their colleague has been unfair to the
husband, who is a client of the bureau just like his wife and that he has neglected the husband's
right to know what is going on and where his wife and children are. Should it turn out that by his
intervention the advisor has violated an agreement made earlier with the married couple, the others
would judge it as serious misconduct.

Hasenfeld (1983: 197) points out that in some organisations the matter is seen differently. They
automatically "assume deviancy rather then normalcy" in the client. From this perspective, it is
necessary to intervene nearly every time. This attitude reduces the risk that nobody in the
organisation will respond to the client’s problems and needs. This may work for a social work
service organisation if it has for example problems with advocating its existence or obtaining
resources. Laan (1998a: 124) mentions that the tendency to perceive all cases as tending to
"deviation" is more frequent in organisations that build on an active movement ideology. He places
in this category for example the above-mentioned approach of the workers at the "De Bolderkar"
children's centre who he believes were influenced by the women's movement ideology when blaming the
parents.

Laan (1998a: 121–122) believes that "negligence is judged less strictly in social work than
unreasonable intervention" and that there is a stronger tendency to prevent precipitate
intervention. He points out however, that from the 1970s, helping workers have been "more
frequently called to account" for non-intervention as a result of an increasing public awareness of
the situation of abused people, in particular children.

Although the dilemma as to whether to intervene or not to intervene is a routine part of social
work, it is mostly discussed in literature once a social worker appears before a court or a
disciplinary commission. The following examples will therefore be "court-room reports". The first
one is about disciplinary proceedings, the result of which was influenced by the evaluators'
benevolence for negligence and their pressure towards avoiding unreasonable intervention. The
second example will introduce us to the very opposite situation in which an American court punished
negligence. Through the third example I will attempt to show what numerous social workers
experience. The public never learns about these frontline workers’ dilemmas between unreasonable
intervention and unreasonable non-intervention. The reason is that their cases never come before a
court.



Benevolence for negligence and cautiousness towards unreasonable intervention


Laan (1998a: 120–121) describes the case of a social worker reprimanded in 1977 by the
superintendent commission of the Association of Social Workers in the Netherlands (NVMW) for
helping a client conceal the address of the place where she wanted to escape torment from her
husband. The complainant was the husband who had been a client of the social worker together with
his wife in 1976.

Great tension existed between the married couple. The wife of the complainant had escaped from the
family's household several times, both with her children and without them, and had a history of
repeated suicide attempts. The social worker agreed with the couple that a gradual "cooling down"
of their relationship was desirable and that he would later speak with either of them separately
about who should leave the apartment during the "cooling down" period. This decision was important
because everybody found it obvious that the children would stay at home with one of the parents
after the parents' divorce.

At the time the agreement was meant to apply, the accused social worker was contacted by telephone
by the general practitioner of the couple who insisted that "something has to be done immediately".
Shortly after that the client contacted the social worker as well, telling him that she wanted to
leave the household for good. In contravention of the agreement the accused worker decided to help
find a refuge for the client and accompanied her and her children at her express wish to the refuge
address in a car the client herself drove. In the evening he called the husband, but refused to
disclose the wife's current address, in spite of the husband asking him to do so. The social worker
was convinced that he was not allowed to do it, because the complainant's wife did not wish it and
had emphatically asked him not do so when he was leaving.

Hence the worker had not regarded the doctor's urging and the wife's decision to be a "false alarm"
and had intervened energetically. What did the superintendent commission say?

The inquiry commission assessed his approach as "inadmissible". They found him at fault in that by
providing support to the wife and concealing her address he had violated previous agreements with
the husband and his wife. In contravention of his profession's principles, he had undertaken to
keep silent instead of preserving openness towards both partners. By doing so he had become "part
of the family system dynamics" and acted as a participant in an intra-family conflict in a way that
was partial towards one of the partners.

The commission justified this view by the text of article 14 of the association's standards.
According to the article, a worker is obliged to act in everything that relates to support "with
the client participating in it or after agreement with the client. Only if the client is obviously
unable to state his or her will or if somebody else's interests or interests of society are
seriously put at risk, it is acceptable to act outside the above framework."

Laan identifies the commission's decision as a result of its one-sided and excessive cautiousness
towards the fault of unreasonable intervention, but he does not explain this view in any more
detail. (Laan, 1998a: 120.)

I personally believe that the commission could regard for example the children's interest in
preventing their mother being threatened as "somebody else's interest seriously put at risk", set
out in the above fourteenth article. The immediate risk for the mother confirmed by the
practitioner's appeal could also be interpreted by the commission as the "interest of society put
at risk" regarding the citizens' security. Had it done so, it could have found the accused worker's
approach legitimate. In other words, the commission could have interpreted the intervention of the
accused worker in various ways: as an illegitimate violation of the agreement with the married
couple, as a legitimate attempt to defend the interest of the children "seriously put at risk", or
as protection of the interest of society in keeping general standards of citizens’ safety
"seriously put at risk". In either case the evaluation could have been justified by the text of the
fourteenth article of the association's standards.

One can argue in the following way: The fact that the commission had considered just one of the
available interpretations or in fact that some of the interpretations had not even come to its
members' minds was probably the result of its being prejudiced. The commission had sought the
attributes of unreasonable intervention in a one-sided manner and was therefore unable to
appreciate that the worker had had reason to fear that by neglecting security he could miss the
opportunity to protect children or their mother against violence and its consequences. The
commission justified its final position "de iure" by referring to article fourteen while in fact it
referred to just one of its interpretations. As a result of prejudice among some of its members,
the commission a priori eliminated some of the available alternatives of evaluating the approach of
the accused worker.



Protection of a "third person" and duty to intervene


In an article aptly entitled "Do social workers have a duty to warn?" Kopels and Kagle (1993)
present a case in which a court decided that the helping worker was obliged to intervene.

According to the said article Prosenjit Poddar killed Tatiana Tarasoff in October 1969. Her parents
established and proved before the court that two months before the murder Poddar had disclosed to
his therapist, a man named Moore, his intention to kill an unnamed girl, and that he had only been
waiting for her to return from abroad. It was clear that Moore could have easily have deduced that
the girl concerned could only be Tatiana, Poddar's later victim. Her parents also proved that Moore
had asked the guard of the University of California dormitory where both Poddar and Tarasoff were
accommodated, to detain Poddar. The guard found Poddar in an orderly state, and when he promised
not to meet Tatiana, the guard let him go. Moore was an employee of the University of California
hospital and his superior decided that no further steps would be taken towards Poddar. Moore was
allowed to delete his records on the case. As soon as Tatiana returned, Poddar killed her.

The parents of Tatiana sued the University of California representatives based on a presumption
that the university hospital could have saved Tatiana had it warned her in time. The case was heard
twice, for the first time in 1974 and for the second in 1976.

In 1974 the court decided as follows: "When a doctor or a psychotherapist, in the exercise of his
professional skill and knowledge, determines, or should determine, that a warning is essential to
avert danger arising from the medical or psychological condition of his patient, he incurs a legal
obligation to give that warning." Kopels and Kagle (1993: 102) state that by its decision the court
had instituted what later spread and became known as the "duty to warn".

The verdict of the court stirred up a legal controversy and the case was therefore heard for a
second time. Kopels and Kagle (1993: 102) argue that the second verdict of the court "radically
changed the existing law" by instituting a "duty to protect". The reason was that in 1976 the court
decided that "when a therapist determines, or pursuant to the standards of his profession should
determine, that his patient presents a serious danger of violence to another, he incurs an
obligation to use reasonable care to protect the intended victim against such danger". Depending on
the nature of the case, he "could warn the intended victim or others likely to apprise the victim
of the danger, to notify the police, or to take whatever steps are reasonably necessary under the
circumstances".

A duty of this kind had not existed in the U.S. before. The law does not impose a duty to check the
behaviour of other persons or to warn those who are threatened by such behaviour. The court however
set an exception from that rule for the case that a "special relationship" exists between the
individuals. In the "Tarasoff" case the court concluded that the relationship between therapist and
his or her patient is "special". (Kopels, Kagle, 1993: 102.)

The court also pronounced on some issues Laan would incorporate under the title of the "everyday
struggle of the helping ones with deliberations on how to avoid false alarms or negligence".

The defence pointed to the problem of the "false alarm" when objecting that the duty to provide
protection is not practicable, because "therapists cannot accurately predict whether or when a
patient will resort to violence". The court accepted that the therapist may find it difficult to
establish as to whether an impending danger is realistic, but stated that once the therapist
establishes using the appropriate skills, knowledge and care common in his or her field in dealing
with analogical cases that a patient poses a threat, his or her duty is to provide appropriate care
in protecting the potential victim from danger. (Kopels, Kagle, 1993: 102–103.)

The defender appealed to client rights when objecting that by warning the patient he may disrupt
the relationship of trust with the patient. Once again the court accepted that in the "Tarasoff"
case a violation of data protection "could be seriously disruptive to the therapist-patient
relationship". At the same time the court concluded that the protection of confidentiality of
communication between therapist and patient ceases to be a priority when breaching confidentiality
is a fundamental prerequisite for averting danger from other persons. In the judge's words, "The
protective privilege ends where public peril begins." (Kopels, Kagle, 1993: 103.)

The court obviously built on the position that it is better to assume "deviancy" with a certain
risk of mistake than to do passive stocktaking of its fatal consequences when it is finished.

Its verdict installed the following question, and not only in California: "To which professions
would liability be applied?" Although a number of "Tarasoff-type" cases have been dealt with in
California since 1976, none of them has been instituted against a social worker. The authors of the
quoted article point out that had it been so, it would have been important to bear in mind that
different courts repeatedly and independently of one another concluded that a "special relationship
exists between a helping professional and his or her client and that this relationship gives rise
to an exception to the general rule, that an individual owes no duty to control the conduct of
another" (Kopels, Kagle, 1993: 103–109). By 1991 seventeen states of the U.S. had enacted
responsibility of helping professions experts. In twelve of them the responsibility applied to
social workers. In the other cases this was not clearly identifiable from the wording of the law.
(Kopels, Kagle, 1993: 119–121.)

Kopels and Kagle (1993: 112) quote Bowers who established that the court verdict in the "Tarasoff
case" helped many social workers solve a difficult dilemma, the reason being that some of them had
breached the data protection rules before in an attempt to protect a third person, and were aware
of the controversial nature of their decision. The "Tarasoff" case gave them legal justification
for their step.

The authors of the quoted study point out that the "Tarasoff case" confronts helping workers with
the issue of "evaluating their clients' potential for violence" and takes them to add a perspective
to their view of the clients' situation. Trying to establish the risk the client poses to other
people and attempting to ensure their protection, they "must rely on their professional judgement,
skill, and knowledge". (Kopels a Kagle, 1993: 113–114, 118.) Difficulties may arise before the
helping workers when getting and using information on the risk of client violence. They can cope
with them using some practices, whether the duty "to warn" or "to protect" third persons is enacted
or not.

For example, in the interest of clients’ rights protection, "informing clients of the limits of
confidentiality" is a suitable thing. As has already been said, confidentiality in California ends
"where public peril begins". This approach however may reduce the client's willingness to speak
about violence. On the contrary, open communication may be aided if the worker shows that any
information concerning a threat of violence will be taken seriously. Some aggressive clients may
then express a wish that the worker help them strengthen their personal self-control. Sometimes
hospitalisation may help. If it takes place based on an agreement with the client and it is not a
result of manipulation, hospitalisation makes it possible to preserve confidentiality of
information from the hospitalised person without exposing any third person to risk from his or her.
Yet another option is "obtaining informed consent for actions intended to prevent violence" from
the client. (Kopels and Kagle, 1993: 103, 112–118.) This way of obtaining authorisation for
intervention is recommended by Laan (1998a: 232–233) and could be termed "preliminary legitimising"
along the lines of Laan's opinions. In addition Laan speaks about "subsequent legitimising", which
would be the case if we warned somebody against the attack of a currently "insane" client and tried
to get consent subsequently, as soon as the client was capable of reasoned discussion.



In a wise and conscientious manner


As I mentioned before, Laan believes that both "false alarm" and "negligence" can be avoided if the
worker evaluates every individual case in a wise and conscientious manner. I dare to say that the
social worker from the following case of Sheila and her son David had this approach. I am
presenting the case to demonstrate that neither by a "wise" nor by a "conscientious" approach will
the social worker reach a personally pleasing and unambiguous decision. Rather the opposite.
Questions remain open long after effective decisions have been made and the feeling that things are
not what they should be remains. The circumstances of the case often develop differently than the
worker would wish. The benefit of the wise and conscientious approach is that the intervention does
not come before better possibilities are exploited, that it can be designed so as to avoid burying
the remaining chances by the intervention, and that delaying does not have tragic consequences or
consequences that cannot be undone. If dealing with sad situations, we cannot expect joyful
results. What matters is to avoid rubbing salt in the wounds as a result of hastiness or the
opposite, dilatoriness.

The case described below is taken from an author named Horne (1999: 53–60). It is rather common,
and not unusually dramatic from the perspective of social work. I have re-narrated Horne's detailed
description into a personal narration of a social worker and altered the text in places for the
sake of fluency, yet without disrupting the message. A worker at a British family care centre, for
us the main protagonist of the case, tells the following story:


Defenceless and irresponsible


I began to deal with the situation of the nineteen-year-old Sheila and David when the boy was three
months old. Back then they both lived together with David's father Peter and as usual I imagined
that I would work with the whole family and provide support and care to them. The parents were
unable to care for David in a way that would not arouse attention. It struck the general
practitioner that the boy had a number of minor complaints (sores in the mouth, eye infection and
very sore buttocks). However neither Sheila nor Peter tried to seek medical help. In their
apartment, a nurse noticed empty solvent cans under the bed and many cigarette butts on the floor.

I wanted to help the young parents improve their parenting skills. I was long unsuccessful trying
to establish contact with them. I succeeded after many attempts when Sheila came to the department
to apply for financial assistance. I presumed that once co-operation was successfully established
with the parents, the work would go rather smoothly. Soon Sheila came to say that Peter had
attacked her and she had left with David to live with her relatives. This made the situation more
complicated given the additional housing problem. Yet Sheila claimed to feel better this way. She
said that the relatives had children as well: they advised her and helped her with David. Peter,
who sniffed volatile substances and was aggressive, did not harass her any more. She put the blame
for failing to attend the practitioner on Peter again, claiming he had been prohibiting her from
leaving the apartment.

It was necessary to carry out a housing needs assessment, yet Sheila failed to participate in
several agreed meetings. She was not at home and left David alone at the relatives. The owner of
the house where Sheila stayed with David revealed to me that Sheila beat David when he would not
stop crying. She had seen her unexcitedly beating David on his buttocks in such situations. On one
occasion she had covered his face with a towel. Sheila denied the towel incident but confirmed that
David was beaten on his buttocks. It was obvious that she had begun to feel uncomfortable about my
concern. She had thought that once Peter cleared that stage the authorities would leave her alone.

She moved to her husband's relatives, explaining that the relatives where she had lived after
leaving Peter had excessively restricted her. She had not been allowed to do what she had thought
was appropriate. They had disliked her leaving the child at home and going away. I arranged at the
department that clerks would provide an apartment for Sheila if she indicated in the application
that she was homeless. She promised to do it but did not. I became convinced that she was afraid of
standing on her own two feet and feared that she would not cope with an independent household. She
found herself a new partner for a short time and lived with him at three different places over a
period of six weeks. I began to be sceptical. I tried to work with her as an equal partner, which
however seemed to be an impracticable task for the young mother. Under these circumstances,
arranged everything so as to ensure that all she needed to do was get in the car and drive to the
department for housing and the family care centre. Yet even this did not help solve her housing.

The general practitioner complained that Sheila still did not attend him with David. Yet I knew
that David still had a number of minor complaints and diseases. The nurse had several times tried
to establish contact with Sheila, without success. She had managed to meet them shortly before a
meeting at the family care centre. She had found that David was loosing weight. At the meeting
where the practitioner, the nurse, a social worker, another worker from the centre and Sheila with
David were present, we concluded that Sheila was not buying suitable food for David and was failing
to feed him at suitable times of the day. Sheila herself did not speak much, making plain that she
did not feel comfortable about the meeting. She told me that I was not doing anything for her and
that other social workers helped their clients.

We decided to weigh David once a week, give Sheila suitable kitchen utensils and bought foodstuffs
for her. Only this way would she have no chance to claim that she was unable to properly feed
David. I still wanted the child to stay at home and to be cared for by the mother. My goal was to
solve the problems of the short-term crisis I felt around the child and I still wanted to get its
mother to make a sensible effort. I also felt that I needed advice from a paediatrician to check up
on the weight loss.

Sheila moved to her mother. On the one hand I was not very happy to see her with David in a dirty
household where the conditions were not suitable for a child. On the other hand I felt that now she
really wanted to stand on her own two feet. Should she have difficulties, especially should David
begin to cry, her mother would be there to whom she could turn for help. Her brothers and sisters
were there too. The problem was that Sheila's mother was expecting her ninth baby and court
proceedings were in progress concerning measures to be taken on Sheila's seven siblings (including
the unborn one) to prevent the consequences of the mother's negligence. Much of Sheila's behaviour
to her child – her inability to cope with a number of things, her ignorance of many matters
regarding parenthood, routine, stability, managing money, seeking medical help – was apparent in
her mother's behaviour. It was obvious that mother was a model to her and that she did a number of
things just like her mother.

Earlier Sheila had been saying that should she get her own apartment, it would be only for her and
David and there would be peace and quiet. I managed to get a rented apartment. Sheila got the keys
and money to buy some furniture. We promised her support in coping with childcare. I hoped that she
would start working sensibly after moving in – we would assess her parenting skills and I would try
to help her become a "good enough" parent. She got the apartment but never moved in. There was a
malfunctioning boiler and she decided she was not able to live in such an apartment. In reality she
had a fear that she was not able to cope alone. She could have had her dreamt-up privacy with
David, but she lacked self-confidence, she was not sure, she feared to stay alone for the
challenge. In spite of all my respect for her, just like any girl of her age struggling with
herself, I was afraid to leave her alone. She would have to try really hard. In terms of managing
money, she was defenceless and irresponsible.

It was clear that Sheila was not coping. There was no other choice than to transfer her case to the
"child protection" column. This meant placing David in the register of "children at risk" and
organising a "case conference". We discussed it with my manager and colleagues. This was not a
clear-cut endangered child case. David had no bruises and was not sexually abused. On the other
hand there were many parental aspects his mother was not coping with: healthcare, family economy,
suitable nutrition, appropriate clothing, keeping the child clean (still sore buttocks), keeping a
clean home, and housing. Sheila was closely bonded with David and she liked him. But there were so
many deficiencies. She needed long-term and intensive help, but she would not co-operate.

The case conference included David in the register, due to "negligence" and "physical abuse". The
conference was not willing to tolerate "beating on his buttocks" and refused to ignore the
information that Sheila had covered David's face with a towel, although Sheila denied the incident
once again. Inclusion in the register meant that should Sheila keep failing to co-operate,
proceedings would be initiated on placement of the child in alternative care. The commission
recommended that Sheila and David be placed in a facility for young parents where the long-expected
assessment of parental skills could possibly take place and Sheila would be given the needed
support.

I had gone through the report for the participants with Sheila already before the conference. She
had said nothing about the reservations on her. She had objected just once, saying she did not like
what I had written about the house of her mother - that it was dirty. I realised the extent to
which the conference was a frustrating and pressurising event. Two men sat there from the child
protection department, a general practitioner, a nurse, me and my colleague, a lawyer, and the
nineteen-year-old girl with a baby and very little confidence. When we decided to send Sheila to
the facility for young parents, the paediatrician stated that he did not think a nineteen-year-old
person would be capable of change. I still thought that we had to give her an opportunity to
realise why some features of what she was doing were not acceptable to us. We were not able to say
with certainty that she was unable to change. Although the chances of success were minimal, the
argument that this was a reason for cancelling the measures agreed upon by the commission was
unacceptable for me. The fact is that as social workers we tend to forget how difficult change is.
For anyone, not just for the people we work with. What we in fact want from them is to delete the
past nineteen years of their lives.


Wise help, conscientious behaviour


The criteria of "wise help" are defined by Laan (1998a: 228–232). "Wise" according to him is the
approach of a worker who applies an "open concept of rationality" in their work with the client,
tries to conduct a "dialogical" interview with the client and is able to avoid both unreasonable
intervention and unreasonable non-intervention.

According to Laan, the "open concept of rationality" lies in the worker not mixing three categories
of assumption on which both the worker and the client build in formulating their (differing)
opinions on the client's situation. The client and the worker may differ in what they assume,
firstly on the truthfulness of facts, secondly on the rightfulness of the norms according to which
one should act, and thirdly, on the sincerity with which both of them present their views. The key
thing is that the worker does not contest for example the norms of client behaviour if he or she
wants to question the truthfulness of his or her facts. Similarly they should not be trying to
question the norms of his or her behaviour by contesting the sincerity of the client’s means of
expression, and vice versa. If for example the client tries to document that he or she has
presented an application to a different department in time, the worker should not freeze his or her
attempt by saying: "You have an extra illegal income anyway," or: "You are not credible anyway."
This type of argument is informally called "sidestepping the point" or "demagogy" in more
sophisticated language. A social worker should avoid demagogy, whether aloud or to himself or
herself.

Under the "open concept of rationality", discussion on the assumptions regarding evaluation of the
client’s situation should be maintained separately at each of the above three levels. If the time
of submitting an application is talked about, arguments on the client's approach in this matter
should be given. If the talk is about whether it is correct not to mention concealed and untaxed
income in an application, let this be the subject. If the discussion is about whether the client
usually tries to "beautify" their account or say "half-truths", this should not be mixed with the
issue as to whether they presented their application on Monday or Wednesday. If talking about the
effect of concealing income and manipulating separate facts on eligibility of the application, the
subject should be observed. The truthfulness of facts, rightfulness of the norms of behaviour,
sincerity of expression and mutual connections between these types of assumption for evaluating the
situation should be discussed separately.

An interview is dialogical according to Laan if the above assumptions of both the client and the
worker on the truthfulness of facts, rightfulness of norms and sincerity of expression are taken
seriously by the other party, which does not mean however that they are accepted "without
discussion". (See the fifth chapter on this.)

"Conscientiousness" is defined by Laan as a consistently individualising view of the client’s
situation led by a responsible effort to understand how the worker intervenes in the situation
(Laan, 1998a: 227–228). If we accept Laan's definition, the "responsible effort to understand how
the worker intervenes in the situation" (Laan, 1998a: 126), we may say that in work with every
specific case the helping worker must sincerely ask himself or herself three questions: firstly,
how does he or she actually act (i.e. "what he or she does" and "with what intentions"), secondly
if they could have or should have done something differently, and thirdly, what circumstances of
their decision-making have they taken into account themselves on their own will and what
circumstances were they forced to take into account.

Horne has not described Sheila's and David's case with the intention to evaluate as the what extent
the social worker's conduct is "wise" and "conscientious". I therefore cannot carry out a thorough
analysis of her approach in terms of these two aspects. I believe however that even after cursory
reading of the whole story one can say that the worker tried to proceed according to the principles
expressed by Laan. She took Sheila's approach to her situation seriously. She cautiously
differentiated Sheila's interpretation and her own perception of the reasons for leaving Peter and
failing to move into an apartment of her own. She unveiled the moment in which the general
practitioner "sidestepped" from factual to normative discussion and "objectivised" his moral doubts
about the proposed approach by his claim about the "lack of capacity to change of the nineteen-year
old" personality. Even so she seriously dealt with the practitioner's argument. She tried to look
for and use improvement potential in Sheila and accepted official intervention only when the
situation seemed almost hopeless. And she formulated the official intervention in such a way as to
preserve hope for Sheila's independent life with David. Together with her colleagues, she carefully
weighed her intentions as well as less obvious circumstances that made David a child "for the
register".

Yet the case brought her more trouble than pleasure. She could "merely" be satisfied with her
trying to help Sheila in a "wise" and "conscientious" manner. But she certainly did not think that
the purpose of social work was to live an easy-going life and to show magnificent results.


CONCLUSION – AN ALTERNATIVE TO AVOIDING DILEMMAS



The authors of the research quoted in this study as well as authors of other research[54] almost
unanimously present findings showing that the culture of social work service organisations "offers"
their frontline workers "guidelines" for avoiding importunate dilemmas. Case studies show that the
patterns of practice and rationalisations that act as these "guidelines" are created by frontline
workers themselves and that ordinary, commonly applied patterns of interaction with clients are the
result of their attempt to avoid the psychological consequences of difficult to solve expectation
conflicts.

Before we give in to the tendency to generalise these findings, we should ask whether other ways of
coping with expectation conflicts and dilemmas of work with clients are known. Does the culture of
social work service organisations include coping with stressful choices between incompatible
options that are not based on "avoiding" them? However rare they are, empirical examples of such
strategies do exist.

In his article on social work under quasi-market conditions, Laan (1998b) described a solution by
which professional social workers responded to the contract between their agency and the
Municipality of The Hague.

The contract was signed in 1992. In order to be paid for services rendered, the social work
organisation obliged itself to remove "obstacles to taking a steady job" and to motivate the
long-term unemployed with psychosocial problems "to take up paid work or other ‘socially useful
activities’". The clients’ welfare benefits paid by the Municipal Services would be reduced if they
did not co-operate. The social work organisation obliged itself to provide help to 400 clients
annually "while guaranteeing a success rate of 60%". As Laan suggests, working under this contract,
social workers were confronted with the tendency to be seen as technicians "carrying out goals
established elsewhere", who "no longer need to think for themselves", seeking "the most efficient
means to achieve the given goals".

Social workers rejected this view and decided that their primary task is "to counsel clients who
have come up against a dead-end in their social functioning" and that "activating clients can only
be seen as a guideline [...] not as an absolute output criterion". In accordance with this view
social workers refused to accept the pressure of a guaranteed success rate and preferred to offer
help "based on the wishes and needs of the clients" and to protect workers by viewing the contract
as "an obligation to perform to the best of their abilities rather than to guarantee any result".
Social workers feared they might come into a position in which they would have to decide whether or
not the Municipality should apply sanctions against clients who refused to accept counselling. They
decide not to "make such a threat part of the counselling", because their "primary loyalty lies
with [...] clients, with their wishes and their needs."

This decision led social workers to negotiation with the other side of the contract. Gradually,
they were able to change the Municipal Department’s concept of a "positive output" of the service
rendered by the social work organisation. Initially, the concept was strict: a client who "exists
on the labour market" had been seen as positive output. Later, the Municipal Service accepted the
following view of: "Once a client has finally plucked up the courage to tell someone his troubles,
the good help must come quickly. This step is often a bigger victory for a client than going on a
training course or finding a job."

Achieving this change in the terms of the contract, social workers were able to bridge the
expectation conflict between the original definition of their task and their view of the needs of
unemployed clients with psychosocial problems. Social workers were successful in changing directly
the unsuitable working conditions established originally by the contract. Attaining this, they
cancelled the circumstance which could provoke their dilemma. Their view of the task became the
same as the interpretation of their task by the Municipal Department.

If we compare the examples of avoiding dilemmas described in the individual chapters of this study
with the story described by Laan, we may say that we have empirical descriptions of two types of
strategy. One is based on avoiding the experienced dilemmas brought by conglomerate working
conditions, while the other lies in an attempt to change uncertain working conditions and thus
prevent the respective dilemmas from emerging and being experienced at all. My task is not to
evaluate the contribution of both strategies or to stress the desirability of one of them. I would
like to draw a picture of social workers’ repertoire of the ways of coping with their difficult
working conditions, to make this picture more comprehensive and to compare the basic principles of
both strategies (see table No. 5).


table No. 5

Comparison of the strategies of coping with the dilemmas of work with clients


comparison aspects

                                 strategy for coping with dilemma

avoiding dilemmas

Changing conditions

response to uncertain working conditions

perceived as natural

must be removed

response to dilemma

perceived as natural

its emergence ought to be prevented

way of coping with the dilemma

apply routinely a pattern of interaction with client that makes it possible to avoid a stressful
choice

achieve a change of conditions through partnership negotiation or by means of protest or direct
action

response to ethical problems associated with coping with the dilemma

secondary justification, rationalisation of the action pattern used

remove reasons for non-respecting of the original ethical principles of the group


The actors in both strategies perceive their working conditions as contradictory and are confronted
with an expectation conflict to which they are not morally indifferent. From these perspectives
their situations are similar. However, their response to the dilemma they are confronted with is
different.

The actors in the "strategy of avoiding dilemmas" perceive contradictory working conditions and the
associated expectation conflicts as a given thing. In order to cope with this "given thing", they
try to create and employ such a pattern of interaction with clients as will make it possible for
them to avoid impending and stressful decision-making. If a secondary dilemma emerges before them
connected with the perceived problematic nature of the practices of avoiding the original dilemma,
they try to subsequently justify the use of such practices.

Social workers as actors in the "strategy of changing conditions" believe that the uncertain
working conditions should be removed and that the emergence of an anticipated dilemma possibly
aroused in them by these conditions ought to be prevented in this way. The social workers try to
remove reasons for non-respecting the original ethical principles of the group, to create
conditions so as to be able to act in accordance with such principles and not to be forced to
observe rules that would have arisen as a subsequent response to the imminent dilemma.

The available case studies present both types of instrument used by social workers in their attempt
to remove a dilemma by changing contradictory working conditions. Laan (1998b) describes the use of
negotiation and partnership, Morissey (1990) presents an attempt of civil rights movement members
to use protest and what is called "direct action". A comparison of the findings of both authors
leads to the supposition that partnership and negotiation may be successful as an instrument of
changing contradictory working conditions. The case study of the protest describes failure of the
attempt at change. Morrisey describes an attempt of the protest actors to subsequently justify
usefulness of the chosen approach by stressing other than the original, and less ambitious, goals
that in fact have been achieved. (Morrisey, 1990.) Nevertheless, findings on this issue are few and
they do not allow for any generalisations.

Whether partnership and negotiation, or protest and direct action become the instruments of change,
the preconditions for using the "strategy of changing uncertain working conditions" are
professional and ethical self-confidence, determination to enter the space of political
negotiations and ability to effectively operate in that space. It is possible that a lack in such
characteristics among social workers and a lack in patterns of participative behaviour in the
culture of social work service organisations may be an important reason for the lack of examples of
the "strategy of changing uncertain working conditions" in the findings of social work service
practice research.

The question is however as to whether the lack of such examples in the literature may be regarded
as an indicator of their absence in social work service organisations' practice.


BIBLIOGRAPHY


BALDWIN, M.: Care Management and Community Care. Social Work Discretion and the Construction of
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INDEX



A

additional costs of service, 32, 33, 50

approach to clients

administrative, 76, 78, 89

complex, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 77, 98

individualising, 19, 24, 29, 45, 46, 48, 74, 76, 77, 82, 84, 85, 91, 93, 101, 105, 108

neutral, 18, 45, 48, 49, 72

one-sided, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75

prejudiced, 13, 15, 18, 21, 31, 33, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56

procedural, 76, 78, 79, 80, 86, 98

rehabilitative, 19, 25, 55, 92, 93, 106, 110

responsive, 8, 11, 29, 33, 43, 56, 86

selective, 12, 20, 45, 51, 53, 76, 85

simplifying, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 51, 52, 54, 56, 74, 83, 94

situational, 21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 43, 45, 48, 62, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90, 93,
105, 108, 109

symmetric, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 73, 74, 107, 108, 109

technical, 35, 36, 38, 110

unresponsive, 10, 32, 33, 39, 40, 42, 68, 69, 80

authority, 32, 57, 59

constituted, 59, 60, 62, 66, 72, 73

inherent, 59, 60, 61, 73, 74

B

Baldwin M., 57, 65, 69

Bartlett H.M., 16

Billis D., 77, 78, 79

blaming the victims, 12, 20, 21, 23, 24, 52, 53, 56, 72

Blau P.M., 110

Brock T., 25

Brodkin E.Z., 83, 85, 86, 87, 88

C

Clark J., 29, 76, 77, 82

client, 5

Cloward R., 28, 47, 52

conceptions of clients, 36, 46

complainer, 70

decent client, 47

childlike client, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69

model of delinguent's personality in situation, 24

model of personality deficit, 21, 23, 24, 25, 36, 37, 107

offenders and victims, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62, 72

perceptions of client’s moral character, 47, 48, 56

racist, 53

receptive to help, 51, 52, 54, 55

rules of clinet's normality, 36, 37, 47, 48, 56

conceptions of goals, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 54

conceptions of job, 15, 20, 96, 97

conscientious behaviour, 101, 105, 108, 109





control of clients, 22, 36, 37, 38, 41, 57, 58, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 72, 73, 104

control of workers, 54, 56, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 97

direct, 79, 81

indirect, 79, 80

coping strategies, 6, 7, 12, 15, 17, 33, 39, 40, 41, 49, 111

avoiding dilemmas, 5, 6, 7, 8, 111

changing conditions, 111, 112

limiting quality, 8, 10, 15, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 40, 42, 45, 49, 87, 96

street-level policies, 5, 7

their psychological importance, 15, 16, 45, 55

Couse A.K., 57, 60, 72, 73, 74

creaming off, 51, 53, 54, 55

culture, 9, 14

and dilemmas, 5, 7, 15, 16, 17, 40

cycle of mediocracy trap, 42

Cypher J.R., 54, 55

D

deprofessionalisation, 86, 87

dialogue, 57, 58, 59

open concept of rationality, 108

direct action, 111, 112

disciplination, 61, 62, 72, 95

discretion, 5, 7, 9, 18, 32, 35, 45, 46, 48, 79, 82, 83, 86, 88

doctrine of psychiatry, 37, 40

Dodson D.W., 52, 53

double bond, 74, 75

E

emancipation, 61, 62, 72, 95, 101

Epstein I., 28, 47, 52

expectation conflict, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 31, 35, 57, 61, 72, 88, 110, 111

expert, 34

F

Fabricant M., 77, 82

Fielding N., 57, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66, 71

Fleck-Henderson A., 10, 11

G

Goffman E., 7, 12, 13, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

Gordon, 57

Greenwood E., 77

H

Hagen J.L., 92, 94

Hamarová E., 64, 65, 67, 77

Harknett K., 25

Harris J., 76, 77, 82

Hasenfeld Y., 5, 18, 19, 47, 49, 54, 56, 101, 110

help, 16, 29, 57, 58

care, 92

connections between material and immaterial, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99

cure, 92

immaterial, 13, 92, 93

material, 13, 92, 95, 96, 98

narrowing it down to the income dimension, 93, 98

narrowing it down to the psychological dimension, 94

Horne M., 55, 105, 109

Howe D., 9, 23, 53, 54, 55, 57, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 89, 91

Hubíková O., 64, 65, 67, 69, 77

Ch

Cháb M., 29

I

institutionalised racism, 52

J

Janssen G., 98, 99

K

Kagle J.D., 103, 104, 105

Klimeš L., 7

Knegt R., 83, 84, 85

Kopels S., 103, 104, 105

Kubalčíková K., 64, 65, 67, 69, 77

L

Laan G., 13, 29, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 75, 82, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104,
105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112

Lipsky M., 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32,
33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 77, 83, 85, 86, 87

M

Malkinson R., 110

managerialism, 29

Matoušek O., 21, 22, 23, 82

medicalisation, 21, 22, 23

Meché J., 96, 97, 98

Merton R.K., 57

monologue, 57, 58, 59, 64, 70

moral sensitivity, 9, 10, 11, 12

Morrissey M.H., 110, 112

Musil L., 5, 16, 17, 64, 65, 67, 69, 77, 82, 110

N

Navrátil P., 9, 16, 82

O

Ohlin L.E., 57, 60, 72, 73

Otto H.-U., 23, 24

P

Pappenfort D.M., 57, 60, 72

parental analogy, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69

Payne M., 9, 82

perspective

of an external observer, 94

of the participant, 94

Piven H., 57, 60, 72

Ploeg V.d., 97, 98

political action, 14

power, 59

of managers, 29

of social workers, 29

preferences, 15

prejudice, 13

pressure specialists, 33, 40, 43

principle of the problemholder, 57, 58, 73

profession, 76

professional, 48, 76, 77

R

rationalisations, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 27, 39, 53, 110

rules of behaviour, 15

S

Satyamurti C., 57, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

Savaya R., 110

Scott W.R., 77, 81, 83

service ideal, 11, 15, 20, 33

Schmidt L.A., 25, 26, 27, 28

Schweinitz E., 59

Schweinitz K., 59

social action, 13, 93, 96

social work, 16

and helping jobs, 16

social work golas, 16

social work service organisations, 17

as street-level bureacracies, 17

social work services, 16

stereotype, 13, 15

street-level bureaucracies, 7

street-level bureaucrats, 5, 11, 13, 18

and frontline workers, 5

T

tinkering-services model, 34

medical version, 34, 35

total institution, 34, 35

its ward system, 36, 37, 38

the role of professionals, 38, 39, 41

U

Úlehla I., 57, 58

unreasonable intervention, 100, 101, 102, 103, 108

false alarm, 100, 102, 104, 105

unreasonable non-intervention, 100, 101

negligence, 100, 101, 104, 105

use of authority

controlled, 73, 74

wise, 72, 73

V

Varecký L., 29, 30

W

Winkler J., 28, 46, 47

wise help, 101, 105, 108, 109

working conditions, 9

uncertain, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 39, 63, 72, 73, 98, 99, 111

Y

Yelaja S.A., 59

________________________________

[INS: [INS: [1] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] I use the term "[INS: client :INS] "[INS: :INS] for the
people to whom [INS: frontline workers :INS] directly provide with their services by organising
social work services[INS: . :INS]

[2] As "street-level bureaucrats", Lipsky brands [DEL: ”pracovníky veřejných služeb, které jejich
zaměstnání přivádí do přímého kontaktu s občany a kteří při výkonu své práce ve velké míře
uplatňují nezávislý úsudek” :DEL] [DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: public service workers who interact directly
with citizen in the course of their jobs, and who have substantial discretion in the execution of
their work :INS] "[INS: . :INS] Next to teachers, police officers, judges, non-commercial lawyers,
medics and other public employees, he places "social workers" in the same category[INS: . :INS]
(Lipsky, 1980: 3-4, 27)[INS: :INS]

[3] The term "frontline worker" as a synonym for the term "[INS: street-level bureaucrat :INS]
"[INS: (see Hasenfeld, 1983: 156 :INS] ).

[4] Lipsky (1980: xii, 27, 40) characterises the working conditions of street-level bureaucrats
most frequently with the adjectives "inadequate", "ambiguous", "vague", "conflicting", "diffuse".
He summarily refers to circumstances of such a nature as "uncertainties and work pressures" that
street-level bureaucrats try to cope with using their policies (Lipsky, 1980: xii).

[5] "Street-level bureaucracies" are [DEL: agentury :DEL] [INS: agencies :INS] funded from public
budgets and employing [DEL: ”významný podíl“ :DEL] "[INS: a significant num :INS] b[INS: er :INS]
of street-level bureaucrats [INS: in proportion :INS] to [INS: thei :INS] r[INS: workforce :INS]
"[INS: :INS] (Lipsky, 1991: 3).

[INS: [INS: [6] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] By the term[INS: :INS] "[INS: working conditions :INS]
",[INS: Lipsky :INS] means firstly some characteristics of the activities of [INS: street-level
bureaucrats (discretion, :INS] uncertainty of conditions for decision-making[INS: , :INS]
characteristics [INS: of clients, :INS] job stress[INS: , :INS] difficulty in measuring
performance, etc[INS: .), :INS] secondly resources [INS: ( :INS] capacity[INS: , :INS] demand,
etc[INS: .) :INS] ,[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] thirdly the characteristic features of the culture
of [INS: street-level burea :INS] u[INS: cracies ( :INS] uncertain objectives, laws[INS: , :INS]
regulations[INS: , :INS] accustomed rules[INS: , stereotyp :INS] es[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: prejudices
:INS] about clients and the expectations arising from them[INS: ). ( :INS] See in particular [INS:
Lipsky :INS] [INS: , 1980: 27–70, 140–157.) :INS]

[7] Receptiveness to [DEL: konfliktům očekávání, které jsou důsledkem nesourodých pracovních
podmínek :DEL] [INS: expectation conflicts :INS] arising from the equivocal working conditions of
social workers is influenced by the theoretically justified approaches recognised by the
professional community. If social workers embrace them while training for their profession, they
are forced to cope with conflicts in practical situations between the theoretically justified
expectations of these approaches and the expectations that arise from everyday experience of the
personnel of the employing organisation. It is hence reasonable to assume that in practice, the
selection and method of employing theoretically justified approaches is part of the process of
coping with the dilemmas involved in the work with client. For example Payne (1991: 47–51), Howe
(1991) and Navrátil (2002) dealt with the employment of theoretically justified approaches in
practice.

[8] Although the term "dilemma" relates to choosing between two options, [DEL: konflikty očekávání
:DEL] [INS: expectation conflicts :INS] and deciding on them may relate even to a higher number of
expectations. The complexity of working situations and the comprehensive way in which they are
perceived bring organisations’ workers to more or less stratified [DEL: konflikty očekávání,
jejichž :DEL] [INS: expectation conflicts. :INS] These can result not only in "dilemmas", but also
"trilemmas" to "polylemmas". However, Lipsky speaks just about "dilemmas". I believe that he does
so for three reasons. Firstly, the usual language does not provide a summary denomination for a
whole aggregate of situations that relate to deciding between various numbers of incompatible
options. Secondly, it is simpler for him to reduce complicated complexes of thoughts to
"binominals", and thirdly, he works with a tacit hypothesis that coping with "dilemmas" is governed
by similar rules as coping with more stratified decision-making situations. If we accept this
assumption, we may understand the "dilemma" as an agent within an aggregate of which the agent is a
sectional element, and demonstrate with it what also holds true for coping with more stratified
decision-making situations.

[9] This entity can be a formal superior or an officially established commission, but equally the
collective of co-workers or an experienced colleague respected as a model competent employee,
etc.

[INS: [INS: [10] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] For the notions of  "[INS: authority :INS] "[INS: and
:INS] "[INS: power :INS] "[INS: :INS] see Chapter 5[INS: . :INS]

[INS: [INS: [11] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] Although [INS: Lipsky :INS] [INS: :INS] does not state
that [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] "commonly employ approaches that weaken the importunate
nature of dilemmas"[INS: , :INS] a reflection on his text leads to the conclusion that he allows
for that assumption[INS: . :INS] This is obvious at the moment he says that he will "[INS: study
the routines and subjective responses street-level bureaucrats develop in order to cope with the
diff :INS] i[INS: culties and ambi :INS] g[INS: uities of their jobs :INS] "[INS: . :INS] He
follows up this statement by describing the typology of the ways in which [INS: street-level
bureaucrats :INS] commonly [INS: ( :INS] "[INS: in ever :INS] y[INS: d :INS] a[INS: y life :INS]
"[INS: ) :INS] cope with the tension between their idea of work with the client and the problematic
working conditions[INS: . :INS] This typology describes three types of "[INS: habitual patterns
:INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: symbolic constructs :INS] ",[INS: :INS] the purpose of
which is "[INS: to limit :INS] "[INS: , :INS] "[INS: to reduce :INS] "[INS: :INS] or "[INS: to make
more acceptable :INS] "[INS: :INS] three types of "[INS: gap :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS: – :INS]
between demand and resources on one hand, between resources and goals on the other hand and finally
between goals and that which is achievable[INS: . :INS] These "[INS: habitual patterns :INS] "[INS:
a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: symbolic constructs :INS] "[INS: :INS] are, according to Lipsky, a
common part of [INS: street-level bureaucrats :INS] ' practice[INS: , :INS] as he believes that
knowing them allows to us to understand "[INS: much of the pattern :INS] e[INS: d behavio :INS]
u[INS: r of street-level bureaucrats and many of their characteristic subjective orientations :INS]
"[INS: . (Lipsky, 1980: 82–83.)    :INS]

[12] This reflection of Lipsky makes it possible to distinguish between the notions of "stereotype"
and "prejudice". Along these lines, a "stereotype" can be regarded as a stable idea that the
presence of a specific "symptom" – an observable characteristic in a specific category of clients –
is accompanied by the presence of other characteristics in the same category of clients. If a
worker identifies a "symptom" in a specific client, the worker has two options. Firstly, if he or
she finds it necessary to check if the symptom is actually accompanied in the client by the other
characteristics anticipated by the stereotype, the stereotype remains a "stereotype". If, secondly,
the worker assumes automatically that the other anticipated characteristics of the specific client
are present based on knowing the symptom without checking the validity of the stereotype behaviour
in that particular case, he or she perceives the client "in a prejudiced manner". The stereotype
the validity of which has not been confirmed has become "prejudice" (i.e. "[INS: prejudiced :INS]
stereotype"), because it has been used in a [INS: prejudiced manner. :INS]

[13] By the term "the culture of an organisation", I refer to "cultural bonds", i.e. fellowship
relations relying on the collective consciousness of an organisation's personnel. By this
"collective consciousness" I mean the joint ideas of the organisation's workers about values, goals
and methods of work with clients, about clients and other relevant entities and about the conduct
that should exist in mutual interactions among staff members and in interactions with other
entities. Collective consciousness construed in this way allows the staff in the organisation to
interpret in a mutually comprehensible way working events, ways of behaviour and responses of
clients or other relevant entities to everything the staff members regard as worth attention in
their work[DEL: (viz Geertz, 2000: 13–42) :DEL] . Bonds based on collective consciousness rest in
the fact that people in the organisation can expect that their co-workers will respond to the
working life events in a way that is comprehensible for them. Thus they can mutually predict each
other's reactions and complement one another by their actions or at least ensure they do not stand
in the other's way.

[14] By the term "preferences", I refer to the values, interests, goals and ideas on work with
clients the workers in the organisation collectively regard as important.

[15] By the term "stereotype", I refer here to stabilised, routinely employed concepts. These may
be, but do not have to be, "[INS: prejudiced :INS] " (see page 13, note No. [DEL: 10). :DEL] [INS:
12). :INS]

[16] By the term "rules of behaviour", I refer to stabilised and collectively recognised ideas of
the workers in the organisation about how to act in interaction with the other workers in the
organisation, clients or other entities.



[17] Apart from social workers, the operation of helping service complexes can be participated in
for example by psychologists, physicians and psychiatrists, lawyers, educators and tutors,
counsellors of various focus, attendants, carers or personal assistants, and under certain
circumstances also priests, judges, investigators or police.

[18] The same complex of helping services could be analogically regarded as "medicine services" or
"psychology services", etc.

[19] These can be for example health barriers, psychiatric, psychological, economic, qualification,
spiritual, value system, hygienic, relation, organisational and perhaps some other barriers.

[20] Most helping professions preferably (although not always exclusively) deal with one of the
individual barriers to coping with a life situation by people. It is usual that the helping
specialist focuses on the compensation or remedy of one of the individual barriers to coping with
life by an individual or group. The approach of social workers differs from this focus on the
individual dimensions of the client's situation. The client's situation as a whole should be the
object of their intervention.

[INS: [INS: [21] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] A "[INS: Social work service agency :INS] "[INS: :INS] is
an employing organisation that provides social work services and employs workers of helping jobs
for this purpose[INS: . :INS]

[INS: [INS: [22] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] A "[INS: Social work service team :INS] "[INS: :INS] is a
group of workers from helping jobs who do not co-operate exclusively with employees of a specific,
formally defined formation (agency or its part) in providing their services; instead they proceed
jointly with workers of other parts of their agency or employees of other agencies in the interest
of achieving a goal, solving a problem or bringing about an innovation[INS: . :INS] The "t[INS: eam
:INS] "[INS: :INS] sometimes pursues goals that exceed the scope of common tasks, in which case its
existence is connected with an officially declared or unofficially existing "project"[INS: . :INS]
However, "t[INS: eams :INS] "[INS: :INS] commonly come to exist on the basis of co-operation
prescribed [INS: by :INS] an [INS: agency or by legislation :INS] in supporting a task for the
solving of which no separate department or separate agency has been set up[INS: . :INS]

[23] Chapter three is dedicated to this dilemma.

[INS: [INS: [24] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] By the term "[INS: General Assistance :INS] ",[INS:
Schmidt (1990: 392) :INS] refers to the [INS: social assistance program :INS] me[INS: :INS] funded
by the [INS: California :INS] [INS: county :INS] budget[INS: :INS] in which operated the [INS:
Department of Social Services :INS] studied by the author[INS: . Workers of the intake department
administered applications for benefits funded by this program :INS] me[INS: . :INS]

[25] The term "Social Care Institutions" has been used for years in the Czech Republic for
facilities for people with mental handicaps.

[26] Unlike the Sudentenland where the German population was expelled in 1946, Haná is a region
with the original population and corresponding relatively strong social control.

[27] The findings of the two authors also include social workers. Both discuss a broader category
of helping workers among whom they explicitly mention social workers (Lipsky, 1980: 3-4, 27;
Goffman 1991: 312).

[28] Lipsky points out that forwarding cases [DEL: ”specialistům na tísňové situace” :DEL] [INS: to
:INS] "[INS: pressure specialists :INS] " is not problematic [DEL: ”pokud třeba nováčci žádají
:DEL] [DEL: […] zkušenějšího pracovníka, aby zvládl klienta, se kterým mají obtíže”. :DEL] "[INS:
when novices ask :INS] [INS: […] more experienced workers to handle clients who present
difficulties :INS] "[INS: . :INS] In fact this practice tends to serve the quality of services
well. The quality of services is compromised [DEL: pokud ”důvodem předání není skutečnost, že
povaha případů přesahuje schopnosti pracovníka, nýbrž skutečnost, že je v :DEL] "[INS: when
referrals are made not because cases defy workers’ abilities, but because they interfere with
routine procedures :INS] "[INS: , :INS] [INS: a :INS] nd[INS: :INS] "[INS: the problem is :INS]
[DEL: rozporu s rutinními postupy”, :DEL] [DEL: a ”problém je poslán o poschodí výše ne proto, aby
se řešení dostalo do kvalifikovanějších rukou, ale proto, aby byl zvládnut rozdíl v názorech nebo
nonkonformita.” :DEL] [INS: kicked upstairs, not to seek expertise but to manage :INS] ^[INS:
dissent or non :INS] -[INS: compliance. :INS] " (Lipsky, 1980: 133.)

[29] The book was published for the first time in the U.S. in 1961.

[INS: [INS: [30] :INS] :INS] [INS: Goffman :INS] defines a "[INS: total insti :INS] tu[INS: tion
:INS] "[INS: :INS] as "[INS: a place of residence and work where :INS] a [INS: large num :INS]
b[INS: er of like-situated individuals, cut off from wider society for an appreciable period of
time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life :INS] "[INS: :INS] [INS:
(Goffman, 1991: 11). Goffman (1991: 16) :INS] recognises[INS: total institutions established: (1)
to care for persons felt to be both incapable and harmless (i.e. houses for the blind, the aged,
the orphaned etc.), (2) to care for persons felt to be both incapable of looking for themselves and
a threat to the community (i.e. mental hospitals, leprosia :INS] ,[INS: etc.), (3) to protect the
community against :INS] w[INS: hat are felt to be intentional dangers to it, with the welfare of
the persons thus sequestered not the immediate issue (i.e. jails, concentration camps etc.), (4)
:INS] to better [INS: pursue some worklike task (i.e. army barracks, ships, work camps etc.) a (5)
designed as retreats from the world (i.e. abbeys etc.). :INS] All these institutions according to
Goffman [INS: (1991: 17) :INS] have the following characteristics in common[INS: : (1) :INS] "[INS:
all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority :INS]
"[INS: , (2) :INS] "[INS: each phase of the member’s daily activity is carried on in the immediate
company of a large batch of others, all of whom are treated alike and required to do the same thing
together :INS] "[INS: , (3) :INS] "[INS: all phases of the day’s activities are tightly scheduled,
with one activity leading at a prearranged time into the next, the whole sequence of activities
being imposed from above by a system of explicit formal rulings and body of officials :INS] ",[INS:
(5) :INS] "[INS: enforced activities are brought together into a single rational plan purpo :INS]
r[INS: tedly designed to :INS] fulfil [INS: the official aims of the institution :INS] "[INS: .
:INS]

[INS: [INS: [31] :INS] :INS] [INS: Expert :INS] s[INS: :INS] according to [INS: Goffman :INS] [INS:
(1991: 285) :INS] are persons with "[INS: a rational, :INS] demonstrable[INS: competence that can
be exercised as an end in itself and cannot reasonably be acquired by the person who is served
:INS] "[INS: . :INS]

[32] The reason is the personnel's orientation on control. Goffman (1991: 313-314) defines this
view for example in the following way: [DEL: ”Diagnózy :DEL] [DEL: [...], mohou být lékařské, ale
zacházení takové není, protože na pacienta působí pouze životní okolnosti, které jsou k dispozici
celé kategorii chovanců [...], je zde možnost pacienta pozorovat, ale personál je obvykle příliš
zaneprázdněn na to, aby zaznamenával :DEL] [INS: ”Diagnosis :INS] [INS: [...], may be medical,
while treatment is not, the patient being treated merely with the life available for patients of
his general kind [...], opportunity for observing the patient is available, but staff are often too
busy to record anything but acts of disobedience :INS] [DEL: něco jiného než akty neposlušnosti
:DEL] [DEL: [...], je málo pravděpodobné, že by léčba, která je poskytována v psychiatrických
léčebnách, byla specifická z hlediska postižení [...] pokud je vůbec nějaká léčba poskytována,
cyklus terapií je obvykle uplatňován od stolu celé skupině pacientů :DEL] [INS: [...], the
treatment given in mental hospital is not likely to be specific to the disorder [...] if treatment
is given at all, a cycle of therapies tends to be given across the board to a whole entering class
of patients :INS] [...].”

[33] Thus for example those who attend art lessons have an opportunity "[DEL: ”opustit oddělení a
strávit půl dne v chladném, klidném suterénu a kreslit, obklopeni péčí dámy z vyšších vrstev, která
vykonává svoji skromnou, týdenní dávku charitativní práce; velký gramofon hraje klasickou hudbu a
na každé hodině jsou nabízeny” :DEL] [DEL: jinak těžko dostupné ”sladkosti a cigarety” (Goffman,
1991: 202). :DEL] [INS: to leave the ward and spend half a day in a cool, quiet basement, drawing
under the soft care of an upper-class woman doing her weekly stint of charity work; a large
phonograph played classic music, and :INS] "[INS: :INS] otherwise hardly accessible "[INS: candy
and tailor-made cigare :INS] t[INS: t :INS] e[INS: s were given out at each session :INS] "[INS:
(Goffman, 1991: 201–202). :INS]

[34] The fact that the staff treat inmates as technically manipulable objects does not mean,
according to Goffman, that this is what they are. Rather the opposite, the manipulating action of
the disciplinary system inspires a need in the inmates [DEL: ”vyjádřit nepřípustnou distanci” :DEL]
[DEL: . :DEL] "[INS: to express unauthorized distance :INS] "[INS: . :INS] This leads to displays
of [DEL: ”rituální nepodřízenosti” :DEL] "[INS: ritual insubordination” :INS] (Goffman, 1991:
276-280) and brings an [DEL: ”podsvětí” :DEL] "[INS: underlife :INS] " into existence (Goffman,
1991: 180). Goffman has paid a considerable amount of his research efforts to a detailed
description of this aspect of life in mental hospitals (see in particular Goffman, 1991: 157-280).

[35] Goffman says that individual psychotherapy is "rare" and contact with the local psychiatrist
[DEL: ”neobvyklý” :DEL] [DEL: . V této situaci se ”chovanec, který pro sebe usiluje
o psychoterapii, do určité míry dopouští něčeho nevhodného”. :DEL] "[INS: unique :INS] " in a state
mental hospital[INS: . :INS] In this situation "[INS: an inmate can to some degree forget where he
is as he pursues his psychot :INS] h[INS: erapy :INS] "[INS: . :INS] According to the calculations
Goffman made during his research, [DEL: ”byl určitý druh individuální psychoterapie poskytnut během
jednoho roku :DEL] "[INS: of approximately 7000 patients in Central Hospital :INS] [INS: […] about
100 received some kind of :INS] [DEL: asi stovce ze 7000 pacientů Ústřední léčebny.” :DEL] [INS:
individual psychot :INS] h[INS: erapy in any one year.” :INS] (Goffman, 1991: 273.)

[INS: [INS: [36] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] Lipsky too mentions this technique of coping with great
demand [INS: ( :INS] see above[INS: ). :INS]

[37] For more see the sixth chapter.

[38] It is worth noticing that Hasenfeld puts the assessment of client’s moral character into
context with those features of quality of services that are relevant in terms of the dilemma
between one-sided and symmetric relationships between the worker and the client. This dilemma will
be discussed in the fifth chapter.


[39] However, this "simplification" by taking official steps more often was paid for by an
increased intensity of the dilemma between situational and procedural approaches. This will be
dealt with in the sixth chapter.


[40] Úlehla makes reference to Gordon. Unfortunately he does not publish full bibliographic
information on the original text by Gordon.

[INS: [INS: [41] :INS] :INS] [INS: :INS] The terms "[INS: emancipation :INS] "[INS: a :INS] nd[INS:
:INS] "[INS: disciplination :INS] "[INS: :INS] are used by [INS: Laan :INS] [INS: (1998a). :INS]

[42] "TBR" is an acronym for the Dutch "Ter Beschikking van de Regering", which means "under the
supervision of the government" (Laan, 1998: 99).

[43] This way of thinking is illustrated by the following fragment of an interview: … employee of
community care services (further "CS" only): "Don't fear that people wouldn't make sure they're
heard – sure they do, they telephone – let me say it straight – for whatever silly thing there is."
Researcher: "And don't you think that those who make sure they're heard are mostly those clients
who…?" CS employee: "Chronic complainers!" researcher: "And don't you think that the 'chronic
complainers' usually come from among those clients who are sort of... ?" CS employee: "Almost
self-sufficient!" …


[44] The message given in the last lines of the fifth chapter is a paraphrase of Laan's phrasing of
the "equivocal message" for a social work client (see Laan, 1998a: 225).

[45] As a "professional" is regarded a person in an occupation the members of which have
successfully convinced the public and other authorities that they have mastered useful skills that
are complicated and difficult to comprehend for lay people. Applying them is beyond control from
the outside and must therefore take place individually (from case to case), exclusively on the
basis of the professional's independent judgement. Only he or she and the colleagues of his or her
profession are capable of determining who is or is not a suitable recipient of a service, who
should deliver the service and how, and what should be achieved (Howe, 1986: 114–118). It is
assumed that these characteristics pertain to those so-called "professional occupations" or
"professions" the members of which use approaches in their work that are not only established
through long-term experience and practice, but also theoretically justified and transferred through
demanding training (Greenwood, 1976).


[46] The tendency to respond in a predetermined way to repeating types of problem perceived
separately from other difficulties of clients may, among other things, ensue from the icons of
"evident diagnosis" and "the only just response".  A procedural approach therefore has [DEL: to
:DEL] something in common with the "medical-like approach" discussed in the second chapter.

[47] Unlike standard English, I use the term "supervisor" to refer to the professional partner of
the helping worker who helps him or her to reflect the broader context of his or her helping
practice. To be able to distinguish between the standard and the professional concept of
supervison, I refer to the aforementioned professional partner by using the term "supervisor" in
inverted commas.

[48] On the referring to orders "from above" and regulations, see the dilemma between complex and
simplified goals (chapters 2 and 4).

[49] The diverse theoretical approaches that are used in social work differ in their view as to
which circumstances of the client's life are crucial for solving one problem or another, and in the
opinion about how the worker can respond to these important circumstances (for more on the subject,
see for example Payne, 1991; Navrátil, 2001; Navrátil, Musil, 2000; Matoušek et al., 2001).

[50] Whether a worker who follows the terms of the situational approach learns about the situation
and sets out the solution alone or together with the client depends mainly on how their workplace
is used to dealing with the dilemma between one-sided and symmetric relationships with clients (see
chapter 5). This issue is also discussed by Howe (1986: 65–66).

[51] I am leaving aside what many managers and experts believe – that a binding approach is
desirable even if it is a sheer nonsense for solving the client's problem. In a situation that is
less frequent but realistic, somebody relentlessly tries to apply an individualised solution of a
problem that can be reasonably coped with in a preset way. Everything is a matter of opinion.
People used to thinking in procedural terms find every individualised and situational solution to
be "unreasonably complicated", while people regarding clients' life situations as inherently unique
and complicated find every predetermined solution to be "brutishly simplifying" and
"inappropriate".

[52] See the second chapter for more details about the separation of welfare departments and
personal social service agencies.

[53] In the mid-1980s, Hagen (1987: 263–264) conducted a survey of 120 frontline workers of
departments of public welfare in the state of New York.

[54] Apart from the already quoted authors, coping with the dilemmas of work with clients and their
avoidance are discussed, for example, by Blau (1965), Hasenfeld (1983: 402–403), Hadley and McGrath
(1984: 165–166), Bok (1988), Morrissey (1990), Savaya, Malkinson (1997), Murray (1998: 7–42), and
others. An interpretation of the said authors' findings is presented by Musil (2004: 198–208, 216,
220–223).