A Case Study of Casework Tinkering

Abstract

Citizens with complex problems are often in touch with different welfare services and administrative systems in order to receive the help, they need. Sometimes these services overlap and sometimes they conflict. The lack of ready-made services to match the complex, multiple, and often shifting needs of citizens with complex problems presents a challenge to caseworkers in the welfare system. In this article, we zoom in on the management of a single user´s case, in order to examine in detail how caseworkers nevertheless make casework ‘work’. We employ the concept of ‘tinkering’ to highlight the ad hoc and experimental way in which caseworkers work towards adjusting services to the unique case of such citizens. Tinkering has previously been used in studies of human-technology relations, among others in studies of care-work in the welfare system. In this paper, we employ the concept to capture and describe a style of working that, although not a formally recognized method, might be recognizable to many caseworkers in the welfare system. We show how tinkering involves the negotiation of three topics of concern, namely the availability of services, the potentials of services to be adjusted to the particular problems of the citizen, and finally, the potential for interpreting these problems and the citizen’s needs in a way that they match the service. We further demonstrate that casework tinkering involves both short-term and long-term negotiation of services. Firstly, tinkering is involved in the continual adjustment and tailoring of services to the immediate needs of the citizen, but secondly, it also speaks to a more proactive process of working towards a more long-term goal.

Tinkering with care values in public and private organizations

“…However, tinkering processes need not only be a generic trait of practice in care organizations. As suggested by Vohnsen (2015) and Nygaard-Christensen et al (2018), tinkering might also be a necessity to the maintenance of care organizations and their ability to function over time. In fact, tinkering might be key to the maintenance of social organizations in society per se (Graham and Thrift, 2007).…”

Ethnographic reflections on access to care services

“…To gain as differentiated and detailed knowledge as possible about how access to the field sites mirrors the often contradictory frameworks of, and understandings within, welfare service systems, the overall study relies on several types of data (Holstein and Gubrium, 2008;Agar, 1987). By means of following intertextual references, we collected approximately 8,000 pages of national and local policy documents framing practices in the above welfare systems (Nygaard- Christensen et al, 2018). Moreover, the first author negotiated access to collect citizens' records from each of the systems in all of the geographical sites; i.e.…”

’Så vi kan se rigtig mange gode ting, der er kommet ud af Covid-19’

“…Det er kendetegnende for arbejdet med udsatte borgere med komplekse sundheds-og sociale problemstillinger, at de er vanskelige at håndtere i de etablerede velfaerdssystemer (Bjerge et al 2019, Nygaard-Christensen et al 2018, Social-og Indenrigsministeriet 2016, Andersen & Bengtsson 2019, Møller & Merrild 2019.…”

“…2018, Møller & Merrild 2019. Trods et øget fokus på tvaersektorielle indsatser, koordinering og helhedsindsatser social-og sundhedspolitisk og i praksis i de seneste år (Sundhedsstyrelsen 2012, Social-og Indenrigsministeriet 2016, Rambøll 2020), praeges systemerne således i stor udstraekning stadig ofte af kasse-og silotaenkning og manglende koordinering på tvaers af indsatser (Bjerge et al 2019, Nygaard-Christensen et al 2018. Dette gør, at brugerne risikerer at falde mellem to stole, og at mellemrummene mellem forskellige typer af indsatser bliver for store.…”