A multi-layered repertoire: professional perspectives in times of workfare. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brandt, Steven; Roose, Rudi; Verschelden, Griet
• Is Part Of: European journal of social work. Volume 24:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 71
• Page End: 83
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Depoliticisation -- methods -- professional perspectives -- professionalism -- welfare state; depolitisering -- methoden sociaal werk -- professionele perspectieven -- professionaliteit -- welvaartstaat; Social service -- Europe -- Periodicals; Social service -- Vocational guidance -- Europe -- Periodicals; 361.3209405
• DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2019.1633625
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1369-1457

Abstract

ABSTRACT: All over the western world, welfare states are eroded and reshaped. Little empirical evidence have shown how these shifts in the welfare state conjunct with or are an issue for professional practices. To shed light to this matter, we will discuss a study conducted in a public welfare centre in Ghent. Particular attention has been given to the professional perspectives of the social workers. Professional perspectives serve as frameworks of reference. They grasp the ideas about welfare goals as well as the strategies to attain these goals. They enable us to analyse whether and how workfare becomes visible in the ideas about practice of social workers. The findings point out that the ways in which social workers make sense of professional practice is complex and multi-layered. Challenged by the societal and political climate, our empirically based contentions in this particular public institution hand out evidence that social workers do not shift en masse to the side of workfare logics. Instead, social workers interlace and intermingle professional perspectives from different methodological and political origins.