Introduction
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Kirsi Juhila
Abstract
I walked into the room, and I was nervous as it was, because obviously you’re going into something that is like judge and jury on you. And you walk in and you look at the people and I thought to myself, I’ve got to sit here in front of all these people being judged and … Well, everyone introduced themselves, like they do, they all go round the table. You don’t take it all in, because there’s so many people, all going, ‘Hello my name is so and so’. You have to acknowledge them, but you don’t take it in … (Packman and Hall, 1998, p 222)
These words, from a parent talking about participating in an initial child protection conference, encapsulate the tension at play when service users participate in multi-agency meetings in social welfare. The number of participants alone can make the meetings hard to ‘take in’, and differences in status confer predetermined roles of judging and being judged before the meetings even begin. At the same time, however, multi-agency meetings constitute an opportunity for shared discussions that may increase both cooperation and understanding between different professionals and service users. It is this opportunity that has made meetings where professionals from different disciplines and service users are co-present become commonplace in health and social welfare in Western welfare states. This has happened as part of a larger development, where collaborative and integrated welfare is promoted as a solution to the perceived ineffectiveness of health and social services that are professional-led and dispersed (Kitto et al, 2011).
Abstract
I walked into the room, and I was nervous as it was, because obviously you’re going into something that is like judge and jury on you. And you walk in and you look at the people and I thought to myself, I’ve got to sit here in front of all these people being judged and … Well, everyone introduced themselves, like they do, they all go round the table. You don’t take it all in, because there’s so many people, all going, ‘Hello my name is so and so’. You have to acknowledge them, but you don’t take it in … (Packman and Hall, 1998, p 222)
These words, from a parent talking about participating in an initial child protection conference, encapsulate the tension at play when service users participate in multi-agency meetings in social welfare. The number of participants alone can make the meetings hard to ‘take in’, and differences in status confer predetermined roles of judging and being judged before the meetings even begin. At the same time, however, multi-agency meetings constitute an opportunity for shared discussions that may increase both cooperation and understanding between different professionals and service users. It is this opportunity that has made meetings where professionals from different disciplines and service users are co-present become commonplace in health and social welfare in Western welfare states. This has happened as part of a larger development, where collaborative and integrated welfare is promoted as a solution to the perceived ineffectiveness of health and social services that are professional-led and dispersed (Kitto et al, 2011).
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- From a collaborative and integrated welfare policy to frontline practices 9
- Examining talk and interaction in meetings of professionals and service users 33
- How chairs use the pronoun ‘we’ to guide participation in rehabilitation team meetings 63
- Working within frames and across boundaries in core group meetings in child protection 83
- Alignment and service user participation in low-threshold meetings with people using drugs 115
- Sympathy and micropolitics in return-to-work meetings 141
- Negotiating epistemic rights to knowledge concerning service users’ recent histories in mental health meetings 171
- Relational agency and epistemic justice in initial child protection conferences 197
- Conclusion 225
- Postscript 241
- Index 247
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- From a collaborative and integrated welfare policy to frontline practices 9
- Examining talk and interaction in meetings of professionals and service users 33
- How chairs use the pronoun ‘we’ to guide participation in rehabilitation team meetings 63
- Working within frames and across boundaries in core group meetings in child protection 83
- Alignment and service user participation in low-threshold meetings with people using drugs 115
- Sympathy and micropolitics in return-to-work meetings 141
- Negotiating epistemic rights to knowledge concerning service users’ recent histories in mental health meetings 171
- Relational agency and epistemic justice in initial child protection conferences 197
- Conclusion 225
- Postscript 241
- Index 247
