Coping with tensions between standardization and individualization in social assistance

Abstract

Today's ambition to adapt and individualize welfare delivery poses a challenge to human service organizations at the same time seeking to standardize clients, with consequences for street-level bureaucrats. In this article, the implementation of an instrument for standardized assessment of income support (IA) in Swedish social services is used to investigate what strategies street-level bureaucrats use to cope with tensions between standardization and individualization. Results from six focus groups in two organizations show how job coaches cope by individualizing their practice towards the client, while caseworkers equally often cope through standardization, which could work towards or against the client, in order to keep their discretion and handle organizational demands. Results point to a loose coupling between IA as an organizational tool for legitimacy, and as a pragmatically used questionnaire. Conflicts and contradictions are left to street-level bureaucrats to deal with.

From “what works” to “making it work”: A practice perspective on evidence‐based standardization in frontline service organizations

“…This study uses a practice perspective to examine the everyday usage and adaptation of standardized, evidencebased manuals in activation service delivery. The literature has focused extensively on the challenges of implementing evidence-based standards (Bergmark et al, 2018;Bosk, 2019;Høybye-Mortensen, 2013;Nordesjö et al, 2020;Petersén & Olsson, 2014;Ponnert & Svensson, 2016;Skillmark et al, 2019;Skillmark & Oscarsson, 2020;Sletten & Bjørkquist, 2020). Thus, this study's aim is to shift attention to the implications of standards for the organizational contexts in which they are used on a situated, day-to-day basis (Schatzki et al, 2001;Smets & Jarzabkowski, 2013;Timmermans & Berg, 2003).…”

Conflicting demands and emotional labour: Balancing and swapping at the front line of the welfare state

“…Second, a tension between bureaucratic distance to the client on one hand and personalized proximity on the other -e.g. depicted in the literature as tensions between standardization and individualization; between fairness and responsiveness; between formal and informal display rules or as a (de)coupling of the frontline worker and the bureaucratic organization (Hansen, L. S., 2021;Mortensen & Needham, 2022;Nordesjö et al, 2022;Røhnebaek & Breit, 2022).…”

A qualitative study of a recovery capital assessment tool in alcohol and drug treatment facilities: Perspectives from social work professionals

“…Further, it is well known that evidence-based standards are sometimes adjusted and tinkered with by professionals, in order to adapt the standard to fit a particular context ( Bakkeli & Breit, 2022 ; Björk, 2016a , 2016b ; Ekendahl & Karlsson, 2021 ; Nordesjö et al, 2020 ; Ponnert & Svensson, 2016 ; Sletten & Bjorkquist, 2020 ), but there are different opinions on whether the EBP procedure should allow for these types of method adjustments. Some suggest that local adaptions can affect the effect of the evidence-based standards ( Bond & Drake, 2020 ; Corbière et al, 2010 ; Sundell et al, 2016 ), while others argue that it is a way to assure that a method or tool is applicable and useful ( Damschroder et al, 2009 ; Durlak & DuPre, 2008 ; Sletten & Bjorkquist, 2020 ).…”