ABSTRACT. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) aim to promote employability and foster labour market inclusion through a wide range of policy measures, including heightened conditionality in conjunction with a suite of pastoral enabling supports such as counselling, mentoring and lifelong guidance – measures not always mutually consistent. However, in policy delivery at the front line, it is unclear how the 'opposing elements of ALMPs co-exist' (van Berkel et al., 2017), particularly how trust, a prerequisite for pastoral approaches, is negotiated against a backdrop of conditionality. Drawing on a set of 37 interviews, 32 with the unemployed and 5 with caseworkers who directly support them, we explore the dialectic between trust and conditionality imposed upon their relationship by ALMPs. Our dialogical analysis demonstrates that conditionality at the point of delivery is confounding and perplexing to those subject to it. At any point, conditionality can intervene in the relationship and provoke anger, suspicion, and fear - thus hampering the ability to build trusting relationships and sterilising the effectiveness of pastoral supports, leaving SLBs frustrated by what they see as a waste of scarce resources due to policy incoherence. Given that 0.6 % of European GDP is spent on the service element of ALMPs, our findings have important implications for how PES deliver conditionality, suggesting to whatever extent it is required, it should be separated from pastoral supports.

ABSTRACT. Emotions energize action. Anger is a particularly active emotion that mobilizes energy to overcome obstacles. Anger is often a response to injustice and hence a form of resistance. Anger may be important for client participation, because anger is a source of dissent, insubordination and resistance against oppression. This suggests that anger is related to voice. For anger to facilitate voice, the “uptake” of anger is crucial: whether others recognize the offence expressed through anger and the claims behind it. In the context of political debate, Sparks (2015) suggests that anger may make the participation unintelligible as participation, but also that anger may be deflected through belittling, rejected as inappropriate or ignored. However, she also suggests that anger may be tolerated or even embraced as an important part of the debate. The micro-level expression of emotions in encounters between employment services and the unemployed have rarely been studied. However, the coercive use of positive affect and mandates for self-improvement in welfare-to-work settings has been discussed extensively. Studies have also begun to explore, how the unemployed are governed through affect, emotions and feelings. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in seven Danish municipalities, this study investigates the role of anger in client resistance in employment services and how street-level workers respond to client anger. The analysis suggests, that client anger may contain information vital to employment services and hence to the co-production of employment services. How SLBs respond to client anger hence have implications for co-production.

ABSTRACT. The extraordinary disruption to everyday economic life during the Covid-19 pandemic posed enormous challenges for states and their social security systems. Between April 2020 and March 2022, the Covid Realities research programme worked in partnerships with over 100 UK parents and carers living on low incomes to document their experiences of the pandemic through online diaries, meetings, and creative workshops. Through this participatory work we explored the street-level knowledge and expertise held by users of the social security system. We documented their understanding of its successes and shortcomings. Starting from participants' own expertise and experience, we sought to engage the participatory imagination to chart possible alternative futures for the UK welfare system. This paper reports on this process, and outlines the proposals and reforms recommended by Covid Realities participants. It concludes by arguing for more inclusive, creative, and democratic policy-making.

ABSTRACT. Since the conception of European welfare states after the second World War and following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, welfare states have taken an active role in envisioning and pursuing the normative value orientation of social justice and human rights which lead to the implementation of a constitutive rights-based principle of social protection. Welfare states have institutionalised an extensive infrastructure of public welfare services to redistribute social resources, which is often referred to as the ‘system world’. However, many European welfare states have been confronted with barriers in realising the social rights of certain groups of citizens. This is referred to as the non-take up of social rights, which relates to the phenomenon that persons or households do not (fully) make use of the welfare benefits and resources they are entitled to. During these transitions, a tendency towards decentralisation and increasingly local welfare provision has been promoted as a strategy to deal with these challenges. Subsequently scholars have emphasised the vital importance of discretion in local welfare systems in realising social rights being considered as dynamic arrangements in which professional actors are involved in the provision of welfare resources and rights. In this study, we accordingly focus on how local social welfare systems regarding the non-take up of social rights are made. We rely on neo-institutional ideas to theorise how (local) social workers employ their professional discretion during processes of policy implementation, related to the broader circumstances in which they operate, and whether their strategic actions might create openings to transform and/or change the rules of the local institutional game. The qualitative analysis is based on policy documents and qualitative interviews with key actors in two municipalities in Belgium, and serves to conceptualise the role of social workers in the non-take up of social rights on the local level.

ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on the role played by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in shaping educational and occupational aspirations of refugees. Unlike other social groups and since their arrival, refugees live in a “policy-dense” environment in which they are confronted with a range of policies that are likely to shape their aspirations. On the implementation level, they are regularly in contact with SLBs who manage various aspects of their lives from childcare, accommodation to educational and occupational opportunities. To understand the role played by SLBs in shaping refugee aspirations we interviewed 24 SLBs (social workers) and 29 refugees in the canton of Vaud Switzerland. We paid close attention to how SLBs perceive refugee aspirations and the factors they take into consideration to direct them towards certain professions and educational paths. From refugee interviews we zoomed in on the role their interactions with SLBs have informed their educational and occupational choices. Findings show that on one hand SLBs highly focus on quick access to vocational training and employment. This means that educational options are only considered for refugees when they lead to quick labor market access. On the other hand, refugees don’t seem to challenge much this policy orientation as many of them aspire to acquire financial autonomy as soon as possible. These results contribute to our understanding of the dynamics behind the social inclusion of refugees and the empirical knowledge on refugee aspirations.

ABSTRACT. Schooling of migrant students has for long been a tale of certain Danish policies’ dubitable effect (Hellesdatter Jacobsen 2012; Moldenhawer and Øland 2013; Li and Enemark 2021). As teachers in the Danish welfare state have a great degree of discretion, they are crucial in ensuring the rights and needs of migrant students are being met (Haas et al. 2011; Hellesdatter Jacobsen 2015). A particularly vulnerable group of migrant students are the ‘newly arrived’. These students and their parents often have a knowledge gap (Brussig and Knuth 2013), when it comes to knowing their rights and consequences of agreeing to what is presented to them by officials. In this regard, teachers and other school staff’s enactment of policy therefore become especially important for migrant students’ further progress in school and beyond. I investigate how a municipality’s schooling policy for newly arrived migrant students meant one teacher struggled with what they felt was a severe violation of national legislation, resulting in a subsequent use of several coping mechanisms (Lipsky 2010).

In this paper, I ask: How can teachers rely on coping mechanisms when encountering discrepancy between municipal policies and their professional morals (Lipsky 2010; Brodkin 2015)?

Materials include publicly accessible policy documents, personal correspondence from the street-level front worker in question as well as a lengthy interview I conducted with this teacher. I conclude decentralization in the Danish welfare state can lead to significant variation for the schooling of newly arrived migrant students and when combined with limited accountability measures, street-level workers potentially resort to the ultimate coping mechanism of quitting. The paper adds to existing literature on how little power street-level workers can have in adjusting policies to their practice and how those clients who are most marginalized are often those who are subject to negative disparities in provision (Brodkin 2015).

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we examine what kind of situations appear messy or challenging for a career counsellor working with clients with a migration background? We are specifically interested in what kind of discretion counsellors use in their work, drawing on Lipsky’s theory on street-level bureaucracy. Using discretion is not only demanding, but also contradictory: the political or organisational goals set for a particular service, the practical pre-conditions, and clients’ various needs may differ greatly from one another. In our study, we have combined data from two sources. One dataset consists of interviews of career counsellors working in an integration training programme, targeted to adult jobseekers with a migration background. Another dataset consists of interviews with career counsellors working with migration-background pupils and students in basic, secondary, and adult education. Both empirical contexts share not only the same target group but also similar integration policy goals. According to our analysis, the counsellors experience situations that require them to use value discretion as especially challenging or messy. A central phenomenon in their work is the immigrantisation process, which both frames the counsellors’ work but acts as a coping mechanism for them. 

ABSTRACT. This study contributes to the understanding of uncertainty in frontline decision-making on social assistance (SA) eligibility. Social workers’ assessments of two vignettes (n=927; n=936) describing fictive SA applicants were analysed. The names of the applicants were randomly varied so that the respondents assessed vignettes attributed with either Swedish- or Arabic-sounding names. The respondents were asked to assess applicants’ eligibility for SA, and to specify if any alternative assessment would be possible to make. Data was analysed by means of directed content analysis of free-text answers on the one hand, and crosstabulations and multilevel regression models on the other.

The results suggest that, first, possibility of alternative assessments depends on varying definitions of what the problem is, why it is and how it may be solved. These aspects may, in turn, be related to either one of four, to some extent overlapping, rationales. Second, the results show that ethnicity bias may be involved both in how suitable for eligibility professionals assess SA applicants to be, and how definite or uncertain they perceive their own assessments to be. In relation to both vignettes, the choice of denying SA to applicants with Arabic names was most clearly linked to perceived uncertainty.

ABSTRACT. Researchers of street-level bureaucracy and the sociology of professions often have an ambivalent relationship with and at worst an a priori suspicion towards discretion. Drawing on Max Weber and John Dewey, this chapter develops a public office approach to discretion that provides a conceptual frame for understanding the necessity and value of office-based discretion in public service delivery. Based on field-studies of doctor/patient encounters in increasingly standardized public healthcare settings, the chapter further discusses the value of the casuistic competences of the public officer, especially in the ambiguous and non-standard cases in which there is no easy link between generalized knowledge and the specificity of the case. Lastly, it is suggested that current reorganizations of public service delivery call for further attention to the conditions for exercising frontline discretion. Rather than curtailing public officers’ discretionary possibilities, conditions must be enhanced that train and cultivate their ethics of public office.

ABSTRACT. In Sweden, the debate on gang related criminality are at the forefront of current political discussion. Local municipalities in collaboration with the police are assigned an important role in community-based crime prevention and the promotion of safer neighbourhoods, and the strategies adopted are supposed to be informed by the policies of national advisory bodies. This paper reports on a three-year research project that studied local crime prevention/safer community practices in four so-called ‘particularly vulnerable areas’ using meeting observations and stakeholder interviews. Advisory bodies emphasize a strategy in five steps: surveying the problem, analyzing the problem, prioritizing the correct measures, implementing them and, lastly, evaluating the results, and the strategy itself is based on a notion that community-based prevention lack sufficient knowledge on how to work. The paper highlights the tensions amongst the professionals when having to find suitable professional approaches towards the policy perception of a shortage of knowledge. Analysis displays the manners in which the professionals embrace, reject or negotiate the assertion of their deficiency and the way they simultaneously embrace and dismiss recommended working models when staging the everyday practical work.

ABSTRACT. Drawing on the Self-Determination Theory of motivation and a qualitative longitudinal case study of young unemployed people in Denmark, this article explores how young unemployed people make sense of mandatory activation. More specifically, I examine under which circumstances young unemployed people internalise external demands to participate in mandatory job placements. The analysis shows that the context of Danish active labour market policies is often, but not always, conducive to successful internalisation of demands for participation in activation. Successful internalisation depends on whether young people feel that they are listened to and respected, that they are able to establish a trusting relationship with caseworkers and that a rationale for participation is established through dialogue with caseworkers. Whether successful internalisation happens or not has important implications for young people’s experience of activation as meaningful and the way it influences their wellbeing and motivation. These findings provide important guidelines for the design and implementation of welfare conditionalities. They show both the possibility and the significance of implementing interventions in a way that provides citizens with a feeling of agency and self-determination. In the absence of this, citizens may be left with feelings of anger, disempowerment and demotivation, and interventions implemented in this way may therefore have the opposite effect than intended.

ABSTRACT. Co-creation, co-production and user innovation has become buzzwords for policy makers and scholars to describe a New Public Governance tool or a set of instruments and ways of working, that are meant to produce better outcomes in terms of service quality and efficiency. Service users are invited and expected to participate in coproduction and co-creation of social services, which calls for democratic practices placing service users more centrally in decision-making. The question in this study is, how this is practiced in the social work field, where the service users are marginalized and vulnerable, and may lack capabilities to participate. The paper is based on empirical data from a qualitative fieldwork at Danish Drop-in centers and analyze three different types of co-production at the Drop-in centers between the frontline workers and the vulnerable service users. Inspired by Goffman’s theory of social interaction the analysis illuminates how new roles develops in the social situation and in the interaction between the different participants. Furthermore, the paper explains how actors cope with flipped roles and altered power relations. The analysis points out examples of role confusion and role conflicts and dilemmas of the altered power balance, which calls attention to new identities as a social worker and the need for new skills among professionals to co-produce with vulnerable users. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges and potentials of new types of collaboration in a social work context and discuss whether the new roles are transferable to other contexts with other social actors.

ABSTRACT. Enhancing labour market participation for vulnerable jobseekers, has been recognized as a main political challenge in welfare states. Theoretical and empirical research on welfare-to-work mainly focus on the delivery and effect of services and less on how the services are used by vulnerable jobseekers to increase or decrease their employability.  I argue that public service logic gives a framework to understand vulnerable jobseekers’ co-production of services and creation of user value. By reinterpreting research from Denmark and Norway on vulnerable jobseeker’s experience with welfare-to-work services, I  demonstrate users’ value creation and destruction based on a variety of service offerings. I discuss the users’ contribution to co-creation and a conflict between public and individual value as a source of service offerings leading to vale destruction. I conclude public service logic may reinterpret the relation between user and job centre and give a new approach to understand and improve welfare-to-work services.

ABSTRACT. The ambition to make use of the concept Recovery Capital have resulted in a number of assessment tools constructed to measure alcohol and drug (AOD) related treatment progress and outcome. In Sweden, The National Board of Health and Welfare states in its guidelines that assessment tools are necessary to address the client´s treatment needs and analyse the outcomes of a specific treatment, as well as strengthening the relationship with the client and, by mapping out the progress, motivating the client to change. In the meantime, the role of standardisations in human service organisations is complex, and research suggests that the implementation of standardisations should be carried out with caution. By examining the need for a recovery capital assessment tool in a Swedish alcohol and drug treatment context, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion concerning both the use of assessment tools in AOD related treatment, as well as the relationship between standardisations and social work professionals. Four group interviews with employees from AOD-treatment facilities in Stockholm, Sweden, were conducted, yielding a sample of 20 interviewed professionals. The respondents were presented an example of a recovery capital-based assessment tool, and asked to review both specific items, as well as the overall applicability of the tool in their daily work. A thematic analysis provided insights concerning the applicability of specific assessment items, as well as general notions concerning the complex relationship between standardisations, vocational self-confidence of the professional, and discretion in human service organisations. The findings suggest that the conflict between the professional and standardisations can be considered somewhat magnified. Professionals are ultimately going to rely on their knowledge and experience, and act accordingly to support the service user, irrespectively of the manuals and standardisations regulating their work.

ABSTRACT. Child Welfare Service (CWS) employees are front-line workers interacting with families with children supposed to need professional assistance from child welfare agencies. In Norway, the CWS undertake the primary responsibility for supporting vulnerable children and families, with emphasis on early intervention, prevention and support. However, it is also their responsibility to monitor and implement necessary interventions without children’s or parents’ consent when needed (Child Welfare Act, 1992). In the most serious cases, they can decide to place the children in public care. Many of these decisions are controversial, and the European Court of Human Rights has convicted Norway in 15 cases so far, for the violation of the right to family life. Therefore, many children and parents are contesting the CWS employee’s role as helpers. With «Street Level Bureaucracy» (1980), Lipsky put attention to the situation for the front-line workers. They were supposed to be a tool for realizing goals given from the top of the organization. Because of scarce resources and conflicting goals, the street level bureaucrats had to use their own discretion for both the prioritization and handling of the cases. Later both empirical studies (Dubois 2010; Gofen 2013; Zacka 2017), and literature reviews (Tummers et al 2015) have pinpointed that street level bureaucrats can take different roles in the interactions with clients, being both helpers and controllers. Tummers et al. (2015) differ between moving towards the clients, away from them or against them. Anchored in SLB theories, we want to conduct a study, interviewing CWS employees about how they understand their role as co-producers of children’s quality of life, how they define their given mandate, and how they balance the (sometimes contested) interests of the families and the «public interest». The intention of this article is to discuss the conditions for co-production with clients in the CWS.

ABSTRACT. In Denmark, it is customary for parents to receive visits from a children’s nurse (sundhedsplejerske) during the first 12 months after giving birth, where the health and development of the child and the wellbeing of the parents are checked and discussed. In these discussions the parents and nurses understand and relate to the babies and to parenthood in different ways; mainly, through measurements, models and numbers and through gut feelings, bodily sensations and experience.

Building on 12 months of anthropological fieldwork among visiting nurses and new parents, in this paper, I will explore the epistemological grounds on which the nurses build their advice and recommendations and I discuss the tensions between these different grounds and approaches to infant parenting that the nurses propose.

First, I will take a closer look at what I call 'living by numbers': How the parents relate to themselves and their children through technologies and the numbers they generate rather than through their own bodily senses and how the nurses encourage this. I will examine the metrics as a way of handling the uncertainty and anxiety related to having small children and how this relates to the parents’ need for social validation of their parenting practices. Then I explore the phenomenological aspects of the nurses’ work and their advice about learning to trust one’s gut and listen to one’s body and instincts and I will examine how the parents often struggle to ‘find’ and get in touch with their instincts. Lastly, I will examine the tension between these approaches, a tension which is also implicit in the nursing discipline’s background in both biomedicine and care work, and I will examine how the official structures and disciplinary background of the nurses affect how the parents buy into the different approaches.

ABSTRACT. Avoiding burnouts and high turnovers of street-level professionals have proven to be a key challenge in the provision of key welfare services across European countries. These challenges are also pertinent when looking at street-level professionals, social workers, in child welfare agencies in Denmark, seeking to protect and help children and families in vulnerable situations. As shown by previous research the challenges has great impact on the efficiency and quality of the casework, the decisions and the services provided (Katz et al., 2021; Webb & Carpenter, 2012) and therefore pose a risk for children and families in need of help. It is well-documented how individual preferences and factors of the social worker impacts on their work satisfaction but less is known about how the experience and role of organizational setting influence work satisfaction. While the organization of the work and the organizational setting has been a key part of understanding the challenges in previous research, we still need to know more about how it is not merely a formal setting but also experienced as everyday practices. Practices that directly influence social workers’ job satisfaction. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within two local child welfare agencies in Denmark, we find three ways in which organizational experiences influence the social workers’ job satisfaction. First, positive identification with the municipality and its overall vision. Second, professional care among co-workers and management. Third, priority of time with families.

ABSTRACT. The labour market participation of people with disabilities (PwD) is persistently low (Moore et al., 2017). In order to promote the labour market participation, ALMP have stimulated organisations to hire and maintain PwD. Although employers often express positive attitudes (Araten-Bergman, 2016; Bredgaard, 2018), only a minor portion of employers is actively engaged. This may be due to challenges organisations experience in hiring (e.g., not able to find suitable candidates) and/or maintaining (e.g. difficulties in wage value assessments) (Shaw et al., 2014; Huang & Chen, 2015; Van Berkel, 2020).

In order to overcome these challenges, SLB in public employment services are expected to support employers, e.g. assist in job creation or wage subsidies. However, not all employers rely on public employment services. Some organisations take a more active, independent approach to dealing with challenges. These organisations arrange support within the organisation (e.g. buddy/mentor system), or seek support from organisations in the private sector (e.g. recruitment agencies) (Bonet et al., 2013; Kulkarni et al., 2016). Under which conditions organisations rely on support from public employment services or seek support in an active, independent manner, remains largely unknown. This research aims to gain better understanding of how and under which conditions organisations arrange support that matches their needs.

Interviews were conducted with businessowners or HR managers in organisations that hired PwD. Our previous study (Van Os, Van Berkel & Van Harten, in progress), showed variation in how organisations with different characteristics hire and maintain PwD, indicating that support needs might differ. Therefore, we interviewed organisations with different characteristics (e.g. size, sector).

Previous research focussed primarily on public employment services to assist employers. By focussing on a more active, independent role of employers in arranging support, we extend the focus in the literature on employers as ‘receivers’ of public employment services.

ABSTRACT. Objective: Worldwide, collaboration between health and social services is highlighted as an important issue in the development of integrated care. In Norway, where this study is carried out, efforts have been made in recent years to promote collaborations between public services. Yet, little is known about the frequency and impact of such collaboration in mental health services. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine mental health providers routines and practices for collaboration with public external services. Method: 201 mental health providers were recruited from municipal mental health services and specialized clinics across Norway. Participants completed a survey package comprising questions regarding demographics, employment and practices related to collaborative care in Norway. Results: Results suggests that frequent contact with social services predict perceived psychosocial and socioeconomic readiness for discharge among mental health providers. In addition, results demonstrated varying degree of frequency and type of collaborative practices. Mental health providers most frequently engage with general practitioners, and least frequently with volunteer services. There are substantial variations in when mental health providers are contacted by external service providers, and when they themselves initiate contact. Conclusions:

ABSTRACT. In recent years employers’ role in labour market inclusion for vulnerable groups have received increased scholarly attention. While the concept is useful to understand how governments and service providers seek to involve employers, less is known about the actual behaviour of engaged employers. In this article we examine what characterizes the day-to-day practices and interactions in a sample of “inclusive workplaces” that have successfully employed people from vulnerable groups. We draw on a qualitative case study, consisting of interviews with employing manager, employed persons, co-workers and public service providers in these workplaces. A distinctive finding is the predominant existence of “high-quality connections” (HQCs) (Dutton & Heaphy, 2003) between the interviewed individuals. Connections are high quality if they foster positive feelings of recognition, participation and mutuality between the involved individuals. We use the concept as a sensitizing concept to explore meaningful and constructive relations developed by managers, relations which seem to underpin the ability for these workplaces to include and retain vulnerable individuals. The article argues that concept of HQC comprises a crucial ‘missing link’ in understanding what makes some employers particularly skillful or committed in strengthening vulnerable people’s work ability and feeling of accomplishment.

ABSTRACT. Active labour market policies are increasingly focusing on engaging employers in promoting the labor-market participation of vulnerable groups such as PwD (Van Berkel et al., 2017). As a consequence, professionals in public employment services are expected to service and support employers in developing practices and competences that enhance the workplace inclusion of PwD. However, scientific knowledge about the organizational, HRM, and workplace factors that contribute to the sustained employment of PwD is rather scarce. This is especially the case for SMEs which receive only little scientific attention in comparison with larger organizations. Moreover, SME’s often dispose of limited resources to deal with organizational and HRM challenges and therefore are likely to have a higher support need in hiring and retaining PwD. As employer services are often standardized and service providers do not receive specialist training in HRM or organizational issues, this raises the question to what extent these services actually fit with the specific needs and challenges SME’s face. The aim of this paper is to gain more insight into how SME’s can successfully contribute to the sustained workplace inclusion of PwD and can be supported effectively in doing so. Using a qualitative case study design the experiences relating to hiring and retaining PwD of 10 inclusive SME’s in the Netherlands were investigated. 25 individual interviews were conducted at different organizational levels. The presented findings will shine light on the challenges SME’s face in hiring and retaining PwD, their support needs, and to what extent employment services are able to effectively address these support needs. The results of this study therefore contribute to a better understanding of how public employer services can effectively support SME’s in hiring and retaining PwD. Moreover, they can help to develop more effective and tailor-made policies which, in turn, will enhance employer engagement among SME’s.