Vammaispalvelun asiakas-työntekijäsuhteen rakentuminen vuorovaikutuksessa

Abstract

Social work plays a key role in ensuring equality for citizens, as successful social work can ensure that marginalized people receive the support and help they need. The route toward the achievement of set welfare policy goals is built both at the level of the institution and management, as well as in the everyday encounters between workers and clients. However, social services also receive criticism from clients due to clients´ experiences of inequality and injustice. The aim of this dissertation is to describe how the client-worker relationship in disability services is constructed discursively through interaction. This research produces information that supports the creation of client-worker relationships and thereby the development of client services and experiences. Specifically, this dissertation consists of four qualitative research articles. The data consist of blog posts written by clients of disability services and their relatives, interviews with disability service workers, and observation data from disability services’ client juries. The research also relies on social constructionism and utilizes various discursive methods of analysis. The results show that the meaning of the client-worker relationship is constructed by the simultaneous negotiation of institutional roles as well as interpersonal expectations and needs, which are rooted in the contradiction between interpersonality and institutionalism. The discourse of the institutional role is associated with a power asymmetry that appears problematic, especially when the meanings constructed by the worker about the client and the client’s needs conflict with and overrule the client’s own meanings. The conclusions problematize the role of the client-worker relationship in preventing client exclusion from the perspective of building experiences of inclusion and eliminating otherness. Keywords: Client-worker relationship, disability services, interpersonal communication, relational dialectics, identity, power, conflict