Who works what? Division of roles and tasks in social work debt counselling

Background and purpose: The demand for voluntary involvement in the field of social work debt counselling is increasing. Due to the economic crisis, the number of people with serious debts grows rapidly. The consequence is... [ view full abstract ]

Background and purpose:
The demand for voluntary involvement in the field of social work debt counselling is increasing. Due to the economic crisis, the number of people with serious debts grows rapidly. The consequence is that social work participants with serious debts are being faced with social services provided by volunteers. This is happening while there is no understanding of the impact of the involvement of volunteers in service provision on the quality and effect of the services as well as on the social inclusion of social work participants. Aim of the paper is to find out what the optimal division of roles and tasks between relevant stakeholders could be: professional social workers, volunteers and social work participants.

Method
Cross sectional design based on a combination of document analysis, interviews (10 social work participants and 16 social work professionals), and focus groups (one for each practice, consisting of 4 volunteers). Data are collected in three best practices of social work debt counselling in Amsterdam.

Results
This research shows that the target group of volunteer support within the field of debt counselling are primarily social work participants who, due to their mental or social disabilities, are not able to perform basic administrative tasks. Volunteers help participants to perform those tasks by teaching them practical techniques and supporting them emotionally.

Conclusion and implications
This research suggests that volunteers and social work professionals in the field of debt counselling perform complementary tasks. Further research is necessary to find out how volunteers within the field of debt counselling affect the quality and effect of the services as well as social work participants’ possibilities for social inclusion.

This paper is part of the symposium Volunteering from the perspective of social work participants.