The Governance of Social Work Process Eugenijus Dunajevas Vilnius University

Problems Why social worker has to prove the efficiency of their practice? What are the mechanisms that determine what social worker can and can’t do? How the activity of social work organizations is governed in contemporary societies? How it can be changed?

Theoretical framework – Institution is a shared linguistic constrain or oportunity that prescribes, permits or advises actions or outcomes for actors (both individual and corporate) (Crawford, Ostrom 1995). – Institutions are formal and informal (North, 1990). – Organizations are corporate actors. – There are at least three different types of organizations (Ostrom 1990, Williamson 1995, Thompson 2003): Networks; Hierarchies; Markets

The governance of social work process The interactions in social work process are governed by at least three different mechanisms in contemporary capitalist democracies: – The interactions between social worker and client are governed by network. – The interactions between social worker and social work agency are governed by hierarchy. – The interactions between social work agency and social work agency employer are governed by market or quasi market. The effects of existing governance structure are not satisfactory.

What can be done? The ideal type of governance structure for social work is (like Habermas‘ ideal speech situation): The rights to control the actions (Coleman 1990) are the basis for governace structures: – Hierarchy – actor A has the rights to control actor‘s B actions, hasn‘t the rights to control own actions – Market – actor A hasn‘t the rights to control actor‘s B actions, but has the rights to control own actions – Network – actor A has the same rights to control the actions of actor B as the actor B has the rights to control the actions of actor A.