Social work in involuntary transactions : qualitative meta-analysis of existing research in the last decade in Slovenia

Social work in involuntary transactions, reflection on the epistemology of roles of participants, challenging scientific, professional and ethical dilemmas brought along by the constructivist-based, collaboratively-oriented... [ view full abstract ]

Social work in involuntary transactions, reflection on the epistemology of roles of participants, challenging scientific, professional and ethical dilemmas brought along by the constructivist-based, collaboratively-oriented »science of doing« with its practical consequences in contexts with service users’ involuntariness as their entering condition – these are some of the issues addressed in the paper, its background. Its main purpose is to suggest some answers to the following questions referring to the empirical data gathered in social work research in Slovenia within the last decade: What is the state of the art on the conceptual and methodological guidelines as well as the existing practice of social work in involuntary transactions in Slovenia? Where do we go from here in order to do more systematic research and develop potentially more effective models of social work in involuntary transactions? A qualitative meta-analysis of 5 different empirical research studies (2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012), 4 of them qualitative and 1 quantitative, conducted by 6 social work graduate students under the supervision of the author are presented. The meta-analysis takes into consideration the source of empirical data (social workers, managers of social care institutions, service users), the research questions and methods, the main findings, the suggestions for the future research and practice models as well as social work education. The results confirm the % of “involuntary” service users in comparison to the “voluntary” ones found in international literature; managers are unaware of the high ratio of service users who enter the system involuntarily; involuntariness as entering condition is daily experience of social workers but is not reflected as such and they need further training; service users report of how their past experiences with social care system as well as their present, initial contact with social worker and institution influence the development of individual working relationship.