Between differences and common features: The work of social workers in Italy

Abstract

This article analyses the work position of social workers in Italy according to national research carried out in 2008 which considers 1000 people registered at the OAS (Ordine Assistenti Sociali). The first theme it dealt with concerns spheres of professional engagement and the most relevant types of users whom social workers encounter depending on territorial context and work seniority. The other two themes concern working conditions, analysed according to activities actually carried out, and the interests that social workers show in these activities. On the whole, we found a national situation characterized, on one hand, by a wide plurality of working areas corresponding to the increasing plurality of types of users, and on the other hand, by elements of substantial homogeneity, concerning both the types of intervention actually carried out, and, above all, concerning the subjective importance they gave to them. In particular, the respondents gave high priority to the nature and quality of the relationship with the users of social services.

Keywords

Italy neoliberalism professionalization social services social worker

1. Introduction: The central role of social workers for social policies

In the past two decades profound changes in social policies have taken place in all European countries. In the first place, new problem areas have emerged, connected to transformations at the socio-demographic and cultural level; phenomena such as aging populations, migratory flows across national borders, precarious employment conditions, changes in the solidarity structures of families and networks, as well as higher expectations concerning the quality and accountability of professional services, have determined a new configuration in the demand for social protection and security (Kazepov, 2010). Second, the organizational and regulatory framework of social services tends to be marked on the one hand by a stagnation, if not a decrease, in the resources destined for social support, on the other by a shift in the role of the public sector from direct provider of social services to a mere purchasing function of services delivered mainly by non-public service providers (Lorenz, 2006b; Ranci and Ascoli, 2002).

In Italy similar transformational processes are noticeable at a demographic, socio-political and cultural level. Nevertheless, the changes here have taken on a specific nature, both because the socio-demographic transformations have evolved over a shorter period, and because of the overall characteristics of the system of social services and policies. The tendencies in social policy include, for example, increasing delegation of responsibilities to local authorities (Donati and Colozzi, 2005; Gori, 2005), and the growing importance given, especially in some regions, to intervention by private players and the third sector (Colombo, 2008). These trends have been inserted into a model of welfare already characterized by the basically residual nature of social policies which emphasizes the support role assigned to the family (Naldini, 2003), by strong territorial differences¹ (Costa, 2008; Kazepov, 2009) and by the considerable fragmentation of institutional responsibilities (Ferrera, 2005).

It has always been difficult to characterize the overall nature and orientation of social policies in Italy because of several inherent contradictions. There are strong regional differentiations in approaches to social policy, both between regions and in relation to the priorities defined by central government. The contrast between the way governmental and non-governmental social agencies operate is also pronounced, reflecting different interpretations of the role of civil society in view of the recent development of the overall social service structure, the traditional reliance on informal and self-directed support networks, particularly those provided by the family, but also by social cooperatives and self-help initiatives (Thomas, 2004).

An important historical moment was the introduction of Law 328/2000 which aimed at giving the local social service units greater autonomy and exhorting them to be more immediately responsive to the needs of clients. This law also marks an important reference point for the professionalization of social work, giving recognition to the core element of professional competence which is to enable clients to define their own perceived needs. One of the central objectives of the following study was to analyse the actual impact of this law on the practice of front-line social workers.²

Many studies on transformations going on in social policies demonstrate both the underlying socio-demographic factors and ideological and cultural matrices (Carabelli and Facchini, 2011), as well as their possible implications for, or effects on, the overall system of the services and specific sectors of the population or problem areas (Saraceno, 2002). They indicate that there are still considerable regional and class differences in Italy and that while the policies of professionalization and rationalization of services are attempting to reach the levels achieved by other leading industrialized countries in Europe, this trend is constantly disrupted and threatened by financial constraints, political disunity and discontinuity and by general tendencies of the privatization of social responsibility.

Much less attention has been devoted to the people actually working in the services who are faced both with the changes taking place in the types of service users and their problems and demands, and with those occurring in terms of regulations and organization or deriving from the tendency to cut available resources. Yet, this topic seems to us to be of great interest, given the nature of social work responsibilities which is to translate fundamental universal policies into daily practice; social service staff therefore play a central role in the way the services are interpreted and organized. This means that, particularly in Italy, social intervention is characterized by its street-level bureaucracy (Lipsky, 2010), a widespread reliance on discretion which can be traced back to the fact that the offer in this sector does not get presented in the form of ‘rights’, but depends on the resources that are actually available and the evaluations made by operators in individual cases. Advanced regulations or innovative management models can easily remain abstract aspirations unless those who have to operate them in the field apply them meaningfully. In the same way, poor or barely congruent sets of regulations may be turned into effective intervention, if front-line operators are competent and skilled enough to make up for the formal and organizational inadequacies thanks to their professionalism.

The case of Italy therefore raises interesting questions concerning the nature of this discretion, as it symbolizes a fundamental ambiguity: on the one hand, discretion is the hallmark of professionalism, as long as the decisions thereby arrived at are based on solid, scientifically grounded methods which correspond to a recognizable academic discipline and on professional principles corresponding to the code of ethics defined by the profession which entitle the operator to assume relative autonomy from rules and regulations. On the other hand, discretion as ‘street-level bureaucracy’ (Lipsky, 2010) means that front-line service operators have to compensate for the lack of clarity in regulations or overcome the contradictory demands on their job by resorting to ‘private’, not necessarily professional, assumptions about service priorities (Evans, 2010).

In Italy these general considerations assume particular importance because of the greater distance there tends to be, in this as in many other areas, between formal regulations and practice and, thus, because of the even more important role played by individual operators.

2. Social workers as key professional figures in the services

In this perspective, the professional competence of social workers assumes particular importance because of their complex and central role in personal social services. In Italy public social services on an organized scale have been in existence since the end of the 1970s, both in municipalities, in family service and psychiatric centres and in those dealing with addiction, as well as in important areas such as healthcare or prisons. This followed the (late) realization that, alongside medical healthcare and rehabilitation services, intervention of a social nature was also needed (Campanini, 2007; Diomede Canevini, 2005). Since then social work extended to a wide variety of areas and began to differentiate various complex functions ranging from intake services which deal with direct requests for support from people in situations of socio-economic need, to the specialized, longer-term support services to individuals, families, groups and communities and, finally, the work of management and coordination of a range of interventions and services.

The multiple areas of intervention, service user sectors and functions performed thus distinguish the social worker as a crucial figure in the welfare system,³ a figure also with particular responsibility for integrating the very disparate elements of the social services (Cnoas-Censis, 1999; Corposanto and Fazzi, 2005; Facchini, 2010a). Social work in Italy is also a quantitatively important profession. All in all, there are almost 35,000 members on the Professional Social Work Register (Ordine Assistenti Sociali, OAS),⁴ of whom around 32,000 actually work in the social services as social workers.

Based on these considerations, research was carried out in 2008 on a sample of 1000 registered social workers,⁵ with the objective to examine topics such as

– motives for this choice of profession;

– their evaluation of the professional training received;

– their terms of employment, type of contract and salary;

– the time devoted to the different types of work carried out and the priorities afforded to them;

– the evaluation of the changes the services have been undergoing, particularly since Law 328/2000;

– the image and reputation of their professional role;

– elements contributing to stress.⁶

Here we shall be focusing on two specific themes since they give important insights into the nature of professional social work practice and are of international relevance in view of the transformation processes referred to at the beginning.

The first theme regards working conditions, examined by considering the tasks actually carried out by social workers within the margins of discretion afforded to them, as indicators of both the degree of professionalization and the impact of changes in social policy orientation. The intention is to highlight the role played by the type and level of work contract and work environment. The second theme concerns the value that social workers attribute to the various components of their work, in other words to the tasks they actually choose to carry out in view of changing service conditions.

To this aim the research was guided by the following questions: what importance do social workers attribute to direct contact with users of services compared to more general organizational activities? What prominence is given to the generic intake team, instituted by Law 328/2000? Is financial reporting seen substantially as a bothersome administrative burden or is there also an awareness that it contains elements that can be of use for evaluating the quality of interventions? Do directors and team leaders of services evaluate these aspects differently from front-line operators or are other personal characteristics of more importance in this respect, such as gender or one’s age category?

3. Main work areas and service user categories

The first issue concerned the professional areas in which social workers are employed and the main categories of service users they deal with. As the data in Table 1 show, they are most frequently found in municipalities or in municipal consortia (where 45% of the interviewees work), followed by that of the ASL (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, local public health centres, with 24.4%). Social workers in other contexts are less numerous, such as in the Ministry of Law and Justice, in private social work or in hospitals; still less frequent are positions with the provincial or regional authorities, in associations, in the institutions of IPAB (Istituti Pubblici di Assistenza e Beneficenza, mainly private social care services under public control), INAIL (Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione Infortuni sul Lavoro, National Insurance Institute for Accidents in the Workplace) or residential structures for the elderly. Whereas almost 90% work for a single agency, 5.7% work for two and another 5% for three or more agencies.

Table 1.

Prevailing service user sector according to main work context, %.

	Local authorities	ASL and health Services	MinistriesInail	Non-profit	Other	Total
Composite	20.5	13.1		9.3	6.3	15.2
Family, children	30.1	22.6	8.2	32.2	31.3	26.6
Adults and immigrants	9.8	5.9	6.1	8.0	–	8.0
The elderly	23.3	16.7	–	21.9	12.5	19.3
Addicts and psychiatric patients	1.4	29.0	14.3	5.7	12.5	11.4
People with disabilities	6.2	9.5	4.1	19.5	31.2	9.2
Involved in crime	3.1	0.5	67.3	3.4	6.2	6.7
Non-users	5.6	2.7	–	–	–	3.6
Total %	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Database: n	(351)	(219)	(47)	(85)	(15)	(717)

This multiplicity of work areas has important repercussions, especially on contractual aspects and on career opportunities: managerial and coordination posts are mainly to be found in the ministries (Cacioppo and Tognetti Bordogna, 2010) where salaries are also higher, whilst the third sector offers mostly temporary contracts – around 20 percent as against an average of 10 percent in the overall sample (Fiore and Puccio, 2010) and, even though responsibilities for coordination tasks there are widespread, salaries are lower.⁷

This multiplicity of work contexts is also reflected in the service user categories that social workers deal with (Table 1). The most composite service user category is to be found in local authorities and non-profit organizations (10–20%, to which the 30% relating to families and children can be added). However, in half the cases in this category a specific type of service user is again involved: first and foremost, the elderly (20–23%), adults and immigrants (8–9%), those with disabilities (6–9%). In the ASL, the main service user category tends to be that of people with addiction problems (29%), whilst also a fair percentage of elderly people receive attention here (16.7%), as well as a range of different service user types (13.1%). In the Ministry of Law and Justice users of services are obviously closely connected to the penal system, whilst in the remaining sectors, which comprise small, heterogeneous areas, the incidence of disabled people, families and children (both amounting to 31.2%) increases.

Since most social workers work for local authorities, the service user sector they come into contact with most frequently concerns families and children (26.6%) and the elderly (19.3%), whilst situations regarding a composite mix of service users (15.2%), such as addiction and mental illness (11.4%), disability (9.2%) and those involving legal proceedings (6.7%) are less frequent. There are very few settings in which social workers have no direct contact with any sort of service user (3.6%).

4. Organization of work

As far as the actual activities of social workers are concerned the research measured and evaluated the breakdown of tasks in terms of working hours. The types of intervention examined concern the tasks of providing an intake service, work in direct contact with or for service users, administrative work and documentation, networking and community work, coordination and planning activities, research and training (Facchini, 2010b).

Before considering the time allotted to these areas, we first consider the average weekly working hours. Around 20 percent of those interviewed had worked less than 30 hours a week in the previous month, almost half of them between 33 and 37 hours,⁸ around 25 percent between 38 and 41 hours; there are thus few with particularly heavy working hours. The differences between those who work for the municipalities, in the ASL or in the private sector are very slight; differences deriving from the position held and the type of work contract are instead considerable: the longest hours are worked by those with managerial roles (over half of them exceed 36 work hours a week, only 10% work fewer than 36 hours), front-line social workers have shorter hours (over one third work a maximum of 35 hours, just over a quarter more than 36), particularly if they have a temporary work contract.

As for the time devoted specifically to different tasks, the most time-consuming activity is that of direct work with or for service users, which takes up around 13 hours a week (on average around 40% of all social workers); a long way behind, with averages of around four to six hours a week (around 12–15% of the total), comes the time devoted to administrative work and documentation, networking and community work and personal work for the intake team; even less time is devoted to research and training, on average less than two hours, 5 percent of the total (but for half of the interviewees this equals zero).

The time devoted to working directly with service users thus proves to be the longest by far, the time devoted to community work, planning and documentation of individual work is of intermediate length and that devoted to training and research is almost negligible. These amounts of time correspond to the basic motivation for carrying out social work and, presumably, also to the motives for choosing this study subject in the first place (Facchini and Tonon Giraldo, 2010). Nonetheless, we must not underestimate the risks that such a preference may imply, on the one hand, as regards coordination and networking activities, in terms of the difficulty of setting up preventive work or at least of taking into consideration a broader range of interventions, on the other hand, regarding the negligible amount of time devoted to training. This means having less opportunity for developing the skills of reflection on professional experiences or their systematic elaboration, which are in fact of fundamental importance in this type of work (Schön, 1983), particularly in view of the considerable changes taking place in the structure of the services and the types of demand made on them.

In view of these overall trends, we can now examine our initial hypothesis regarding the role played by the work context and the type of work contract.

We stated earlier that the work context does not have a bearing on the overall work schedule. We now need to modify this in that the context does play a considerable role in the definition of actual work tasks.

As we had postulated, in healthcare and local authority settings more time is devoted to work in the front office, on direct work with service users, the promotion of networking and on community work, whilst in the ministries or the INAIL, more time is spent on administrative tasks, on planning and coordination and on further training and studies. The difference can be explained not only by the larger number of managers and team leaders working in ministries and in the INAIL, but also by the fact that in local authorities (particularly in smaller local communities) the social workers’ role focuses more on dealing with requests for assistance in the context of individual social problems, as well as of identifying the most appropriate responses to them whereas in other work contexts the emphasis is on the coordination and overall management of services. At the same time, the role played by the respective organization varies according to the demography of the municipality: the bigger it is, the less time is taken up by intake service work and the more time is devoted to networking, the documentation of completed interventions and on coordination and planning. This is due both to the different organizational structures and to the larger presence of managers and team leaders who focus more on the latter type of activity.

As for the implications of the level of formal responsibility for forms of work it might easily be predicted that basic grade social workers come decidedly more directly in contact with service users, while those who are responsible for coordination and management are more engaged in giving directions to other employees. But it is noteworthy that amongst the latter there is more interest in training and research, whilst this features very little amongst the former (Table 2).

Table 2.

Structure of working hours according to level of work contract, %.

	Social workers	Team leaders	Managers	Total
Direct work with service users	44.2	37.1	17.5	40.5
Intake service work	15.6	12.7	10.4	14.2
Administration and documentation	16.1	15.3	17.8	15.2
Networking and community work	17.5	14.2	13.5	15.2
Coordination and planning	9.4	14.2	32.8	10.4
Research and training	4.2	6.5	8.0	4.5
Total %	100	100	100	100
Database: n	530	174	23	729

This means that for most social workers, particularly if they are based in small towns, the profession centres decidedly on the specific relational dimension of contact with service users, sidelining not only training and research but also other tasks such as planning and the evaluation of the effect of work carried out, tasks to which the Italian and international literature on professionalism in social work attributes great importance (Fargion, 2008).

In the context of this polarity between managers and front-line social workers (both focusing on specific tasks), team leaders have characteristics that resemble those of field workers more than those of managers or, more accurately, their work is less centred on specific tasks. This would seem to confirm that whilst a managerial position is defined by very specific tasks and functions, the functions of a team leader tend to imply a more flexible role in determining the shape and direction of services, relying therefore more on extensive job experience rather than on a specific professional profile (Cacioppo and Tognetti Bordogna, 2010).

5. Interest expressed in the various types of work

Lastly, we consider the average degree of interest shown by the respondents in the different types of tasks that make up the individual job. The data shown in Table 3 demonstrate a particularly high level of interest in direct work with service users (which reaches an average of around 8.5 on a scale of 1 to 10) and in work connected with training and research, networking and coordination (with average results of, respectively, 8.2, 8.1 and 8). Less interest is expressed in work in the intake service (6.0) and in administration and documentation (5.5).

Table 3.

Average interest in some specific tasks according to type of contract.

	Social worker	Team leader	Manager	Total
Direct work with service users	8.6	8.4	7.9	8.5
Social secretariat/intake service	6.2	5.7	6.0	6.0
Administration and documentation	5.5	5.5	6.2	5.5
Networking	8.1	8.0	7.7	8.1
Coordination and planning	7.8	8.3	8.9	8.0
Research and training	8.1	8.4	8.4	8.2

In overall terms, the data clearly show the central importance attributed to the relationship with service users, not only in operational terms but also in terms of professional identity, which thus can be characterized as constituting both objectively and subjectively the heart of the profession. This central role, which is a historical and traditional feature of the profession, is, however, accompanied by a marked interest not only in training and research but also in planning and coordination or in networking and community work, which are seen as more innovative than the ‘traditional’ role of social worker, to which nevertheless less time is attributed. The high interest in networking can be linked to the changes taking place at a normative-organizational level and to the new functions assigned to local authorities, first and foremost to the municipalities as promoters of social networks.

Although predictable, it is of critical importance that the task of administration and documentation is not only the least appreciated but also obtains on average a negative evaluation. These responsibilities should, in fact, be seen as fundamental for the evaluation of the impact of specific interventions both on individuals and on the community and for establishing organized strategies according to a rationale of contact and exchange of experience with other services or other territories. It is of course possible that the lack of interest in this type of work is due to the fear that such documentation carries the possibility of being used for control purposes by managers or outside bodies, or to the fact that information collected is not normally evaluated and presented to the operators with comments on their actual significance. This means that such activities may be seen as being basically without purpose and thus a waste of time compared to the effort required to collect the information. Nonetheless, this low interest in the work of documentation, which is, moreover, closely linked to a lack in familiarity with data processing programmes, seems to confirm that the central role afforded to the relationship dimension has the effect that other aspects of social work tend to count as useless ‘bureaucracy’, despite the fact that they are central to an innovative and professional logic of governance. Lastly, there is a striking lack of interest expressed in the activities of the intake service despite the fact that it is not only one of the few services that the Law 328/2000 defines as essential territorial facilities, but also that it represents the initial vital contact with service users (Stame et al., 2010).

Overall, unlike our findings on the breakdown of time spent on various activities, the level of responsibility in the organization has little effect on the importance attributed to different professional priorities: the distribution reveals only a few percentage points of difference amongst managers, team leaders and basic grade social workers. This means that whilst the position held has a considerable effect on the structural aspects of an individual’s work, it has far less effect on basic professional attitudes. Shared expectations and cultural models predominate: relationships with service users and interest in networking play a central role while less personal importance is given across the range both to intake service work and to documentation and the administrative aspects of work.

Differences according to gender and age group are just as slight, although for all the activities considered some decline of interest can be noted amongst those who have been working longest in the services. This latter result seems to be of interest since it suggests the more likely appearance of burn-out phenomena amongst those who have been in the employment of the services for a long time, or at least of ‘disillusionment’, caused by the continuous confrontation with problematic situations in the awareness that lack of resources and time will not allow the individual social worker to devote sufficient time to networking, training and research and hence achieve the results that one had initially hypothesized (Trivellato and Lorenz, 2010).

6. Conclusions

This research allows for a number of general conclusions to be drawn from the data.

First of all, the variety of contexts in which social workers have found employment clearly demonstrates the relevance social services have assumed in Italian society and the high level of professionalism expected of social workers. In particular, the results show, on the one hand, a situation with a wide range of work contexts, interwoven with a growing range of sectors of service users and, on the other hand, elements of basic homogeneity, both concerning the work carried out in practice and, above all, with regard to the subjective importance accorded to certain professional priorities. The central role traditionally attributed to the relationship with users of the services and in second place with the team and other professional workers operating in the services has been confirmed. The importance of the relational dimension has repercussions not only for the competences and abilities considered necessary to do the job (Lymbery, 2003), but also for the level of interest in the activities carried out. There are two important aspects here. The first is that the competences in forming professional relationships with clients are the most highly valued, whilst elements such as a sound knowledge of the methods of social service are considered less important (Trivellato and Lorenz, 2010). The second is that the activities connected to work in direct contact with service users and with their environment meet with considerable interest, whilst organizational activities and those regarding reporting on the interventions carried out are considered far less interesting.

Thus the profession of the social worker tends to have a marked relational dimension, presumably corresponding to the expectations prevalent at the point of choosing a course of university studies in social work (Facchini and Tonon Giraldo, 2010; Redmond et al., 2008; Stevens et al., 2010). However, it tends to give only secondary consideration to other aspects regarding organization, research and the evaluation of the general impact of individual interventions, as well as to reflection and study. These are aspects whose contemporary importance the Italian and international literature emphasizes (Dominelli, 2004; Ferguson, 2008; Kessl, 2009; Lorenz, 2006a) and they concern, moreover, competences of growing importance in the logic of governance which seems to be dominant in the overall reorganization now occurring in the social services (Bifulco and Centemeri, 2008; Campanini and Fortunato, 2008; Figueira-McDonough, 2007).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

The research was financed by the MIUR, the Ministry for University Education (prot. CoFin no. 2006149274).

Notes

Author biographies

Carla Facchini is Professor of Sociology of the Family at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. She coordinates the professional undergraduate programme in social work and she is President of the National Observatory on Students and Graduates in Social Work (Department of Sociology of Milano-Bicocca). She is Editor of the series of books ‘Transizioni e Politiche Pubbliche’ (FrancoAngeli publisher), and member of the Scientific Committee of the journal Politiche sociali e autonomie locali.

Walter Lorenz is Professor of Applied Social Sciences at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy. His research interests comprise comparative issues of European social work, an area in which he published widely. He was co-founder/co-editor of the journals European Journal of Social Work and Social Work and Society and is member of the advisory boards of several journals and book series in social work.

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