Organisational Structure as Barrier or Support in the Personal Social ...

Different forms of specialisation and integration 3In this section we describe different forms of integration and specialisation within thepersonal social services in Sweden. In the research literature there are several examples ofhow to define specialisation. In this study we have used a definition by Doel (1997), where asixth category has been added by Blom (2004) to better fit the Swedish context.The definition we have used includes six different types of specialisation of social work:1 Field: hospital, school, etc.2 Setting: field social work, residential work, etc.3 Age: children, families, or adult services, etc.4 Problem: Mental health, alcohol abuse, etc.5 Methods: Task-centred approach, cognitive therapy, etc.6 Function/Task: assessment vs. intervention; service vs. treatmentAll these forms of specialisation exist in Sweden, though types 3, 4 and type 6 are the mainfocus of this paper. A suitable attendant question is what genericism (or generalism) is insocial work then? Despite the great number of textbooks on generalist practice in social work,there is no agreement on the definition of genericism or generalist practice. In the literature,generalist practice is said to be almost everything from multi-methods and multilevel (macro,mezzo, micro) approaches; working with all or most client groups; to having a number ofroles and an eclectic choice of theory base. In this study we regard genericism as what iscarried out within integrated personal social services. That is, an organisation where socialworkers – often in several geographical areas/districts – work with all (or almost all) types ofsocial problems, groups of people and aspects of the work with clients (cp. figure 1 below).Based on a preceding empirical study (Lundgren, Blom, Morén & Perlinski, 2009) within theresearch project, we present five pure examples of how the personal social services can beorganised in Sweden. For the sake of clarity we want to point out that each model exists in anumber of variants around the country.PSSArea East Area West Area SouthFigure 1. The integrated personal social services.In this figure the PSS-organisation is divided into geographical areas. Other variants are PSSorganisationsdivided according to town or municipal districts. In each area all forms of PSSrelated tasks are conducted. Even so, one of the areas within an integrated organisation cansometimes have a special responsibility for a certain task. For example questions about familylaw, and such a family law section is then shared by all areas.3 Parts of the section “Different forms of specialisation and integration” is previously published in Swedish inLundgren, Blom, Morén & Perlinski (2009).2