2 Examining talk and interaction in meetings of professionals and service users
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Christopher Hall
Abstract
In institutional settings such as health and social care services, multi-agency meetings are the forum for implementing policies and procedures of interagency operations and service user participation. In Chapter 1, multi-agency meetings are conceptualised as boundary spaces that bring together professionals from different professions and welfare agencies, service users and (sometimes) their next of kin or lay representatives. This makes the communicative and interactional processes important, as it is through face-to-face meetings that the everyday practices of professionals and service users are examined, directed and reviewed in a formal setting.
The multi-agency meetings examined in this book are from a number of countries, contrasting welfare regimes and different sectors of health and social care, and they are formulated through different legal jurisdictions. However, as will become clear, there are a number of important similarities. The book does not propose to provide a comparative analysis, but together the analyses suggest that there is something particular about the frame, structure and function of multi-agency meetings that promotes certain interactional practices and addresses interactional dilemmas. This reflects the function of the multi-agency meeting as an organisational procedure for processing people and entities, as occurs in a team meeting or home visit, which requires participants to conform to certain conventions and constraints of turn allocation, topic progression, role performance, politeness, delicacy and so on.
This chapter first questions the notion that meetings should be treated as formal events for making plans and decisions. Instead, it argues that they should be approached as complex social and interactional encounters that draw on everyday notions of what constitutes appropriate organisational interaction.
Abstract
In institutional settings such as health and social care services, multi-agency meetings are the forum for implementing policies and procedures of interagency operations and service user participation. In Chapter 1, multi-agency meetings are conceptualised as boundary spaces that bring together professionals from different professions and welfare agencies, service users and (sometimes) their next of kin or lay representatives. This makes the communicative and interactional processes important, as it is through face-to-face meetings that the everyday practices of professionals and service users are examined, directed and reviewed in a formal setting.
The multi-agency meetings examined in this book are from a number of countries, contrasting welfare regimes and different sectors of health and social care, and they are formulated through different legal jurisdictions. However, as will become clear, there are a number of important similarities. The book does not propose to provide a comparative analysis, but together the analyses suggest that there is something particular about the frame, structure and function of multi-agency meetings that promotes certain interactional practices and addresses interactional dilemmas. This reflects the function of the multi-agency meeting as an organisational procedure for processing people and entities, as occurs in a team meeting or home visit, which requires participants to conform to certain conventions and constraints of turn allocation, topic progression, role performance, politeness, delicacy and so on.
This chapter first questions the notion that meetings should be treated as formal events for making plans and decisions. Instead, it argues that they should be approached as complex social and interactional encounters that draw on everyday notions of what constitutes appropriate organisational interaction.
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
