Abstract
The Support and Contact Scheme (SKP Scheme, Støtte- og kontaktpersonordningen, § 99 in Lov om Social Service) is an offer available to those addicts, homeless and mentally ill people who are so vulnerable and isolated that they are not capable of receiving help elsewhere. The aim of the SKP Scheme is to assist these extremely vulnerable citizens in once again or for the first time to become capable of making use of other parts of social work.
The provisions of the SKP Scheme specify that the social relief must be provided on the terms of the users. Evaluations of the SKP Scheme in Denmark – as well as assessments of similar schemes in Norway – indicate a very high level of satisfaction among the users of the scheme. As such, the SKP Scheme is a success.
The focus of the present thesis is on two aspects of the political and legal intensions with the SKP Scheme. Firstly, we examine existing challenges of making contact with the most vulnerable and isolated citizens. Secondly, with a view to bring the SKP relief to an end, we investigate existing challenges of helping the users of the scheme to become capable of making use of other relevant parts of social work.
The scope of our exploration is restricted to the SKP Scheme in the City of Copenhagen where we have made observations of different meeting situations between SKP-workers in practice, and carried out focus group interviews as well as individual interviews with SKP workers.
The formulation of the problem is as follows:
How is practice in the City of Copenhagen challenged in relation to the overall political and legal intentions of commencing and completing SKP-programmes?
In order to provide an answer to this question we have chosen to bring different theoretical perspectives into play. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘power’ we discover some general challenges which are facing the SKP work.
The relational power between the user and the SKP worker can be explained as positive and productive power. It is a form of power that seeks to transform the user for his/her own good as well as for the common good of society at large. On his/her part, the user may put up resistance to such transformation in terms of counter-power.
This implies that SKP workers cannot coerce citizens into receiving help, neither from the SKP Scheme, nor from any other parts of social work.
Applying Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory we elaborate on how we can understand the SKP Scheme as part of social work which compared with many other parts of social work offers other and more open conditions of inclusion. In addition we make use of Luhmann’s notion of ‘interpenetration’ in order to explain the challenges of the SKP Scheme’s cooperation with other parts of social work.
Our examination shows that the SKP Scheme is challenged by the intentions of other parts of social work as these are not always in harmony with the intentions of the SKP Scheme. Consequently, SKP workers find themselves spending a lot of time, respectively, on tasks which do not come under the SKP Scheme, and on citizens who are too resourceful to match the users described as the target group of the SKP Scheme.
Inspired by the experiences we have gained during our gathering of empirical data, we elaborate further on this problem by making use of Michael Lipsky’s notion of ‘creaming’; a notion which explains how priority in practice is given to certain citizens and to certain tasks against overall intentions.
Furthermore, we have learned that the SKP work involves a number of exceptions to the provisions and intentions of the SKP Scheme. While some of these exceptions contribute to the working of the SKP Scheme in practice, some of them do also pose challenges to the intentions of the scheme. Thus, following Robert B. Edgerton we explain how certain rules may be observed from these exceptions to the rules.
The provisions of the SKP Scheme specify that the social relief must be provided on the terms of the users. Evaluations of the SKP Scheme in Denmark – as well as assessments of similar schemes in Norway – indicate a very high level of satisfaction among the users of the scheme. As such, the SKP Scheme is a success.
The focus of the present thesis is on two aspects of the political and legal intensions with the SKP Scheme. Firstly, we examine existing challenges of making contact with the most vulnerable and isolated citizens. Secondly, with a view to bring the SKP relief to an end, we investigate existing challenges of helping the users of the scheme to become capable of making use of other relevant parts of social work.
The scope of our exploration is restricted to the SKP Scheme in the City of Copenhagen where we have made observations of different meeting situations between SKP-workers in practice, and carried out focus group interviews as well as individual interviews with SKP workers.
The formulation of the problem is as follows:
How is practice in the City of Copenhagen challenged in relation to the overall political and legal intentions of commencing and completing SKP-programmes?
In order to provide an answer to this question we have chosen to bring different theoretical perspectives into play. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘power’ we discover some general challenges which are facing the SKP work.
The relational power between the user and the SKP worker can be explained as positive and productive power. It is a form of power that seeks to transform the user for his/her own good as well as for the common good of society at large. On his/her part, the user may put up resistance to such transformation in terms of counter-power.
This implies that SKP workers cannot coerce citizens into receiving help, neither from the SKP Scheme, nor from any other parts of social work.
Applying Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory we elaborate on how we can understand the SKP Scheme as part of social work which compared with many other parts of social work offers other and more open conditions of inclusion. In addition we make use of Luhmann’s notion of ‘interpenetration’ in order to explain the challenges of the SKP Scheme’s cooperation with other parts of social work.
Our examination shows that the SKP Scheme is challenged by the intentions of other parts of social work as these are not always in harmony with the intentions of the SKP Scheme. Consequently, SKP workers find themselves spending a lot of time, respectively, on tasks which do not come under the SKP Scheme, and on citizens who are too resourceful to match the users described as the target group of the SKP Scheme.
Inspired by the experiences we have gained during our gathering of empirical data, we elaborate further on this problem by making use of Michael Lipsky’s notion of ‘creaming’; a notion which explains how priority in practice is given to certain citizens and to certain tasks against overall intentions.
Furthermore, we have learned that the SKP work involves a number of exceptions to the provisions and intentions of the SKP Scheme. While some of these exceptions contribute to the working of the SKP Scheme in practice, some of them do also pose challenges to the intentions of the scheme. Thus, following Robert B. Edgerton we explain how certain rules may be observed from these exceptions to the rules.
| Originalsprog | Dansk |
|---|---|
| Status | Udgivet - 2011 |
Emneord
- hjemløse
- socialpsykiatri
- udsatte