Depicting social aspects: The inclusion chart (IC) as an instrument of social diagnostics

"Social" aspects have gained recognition in the understanding of the basis of well-being, also of people with disease and disability. There are many diagnostic tools to map and analyse person-to-person relationships through to... [ view full abstract ]

"Social" aspects have gained recognition in the understanding of the basis of well-being, also of people with disease and disability. There are many diagnostic tools to map and analyse person-to-person relationships through to relationship and social exchange networks. The essential possibilities for an individual's life chances to use supra-regionally and collaboratively organised infrastructure, however, have so far eluded these examinations. The tool "inclusion chart" (IC3) fills this gap by providing a process that maps relevant facts based on a social work science perspective in a multi-dimensional support arrangement on a theoretically consistent basis and makes them available for cooperative intervention decisions.

The three axes of the IC3 chart three relatively independent perspectives and spaces for intervention of social work. A universal scale for the scope of participation in social life and exchange is applied. Thus, IC3 is well suited for a compact diagnostics of life circumstances as the basis of support planning. At the same time it makes a significant statistical analysis possible that allows to draw conclusions on the situation of target groups of social work and on processes of social exclusion on a large scale.

The instrument was utilized and continuously improved within the last eight years in an ongoing dialogue with the profession in different areas of practice (substance abuse counselling, job centres, youth welfare, geriatric social work, refugee relief etc.). Version 4 (which is in development at present) will allow target group specific options, while still remaining a common core and comparability.

The diagnostic tool IC3 is an example for the synergy of theoretic modelling, profession and social work expertise. It is presented here for the first time in an English version.