Social Work Tales: Client as a “Talking Problem”

In social work context clients with their stories are strongly determined by their
very “client” position, the core of which is a certain “social problem”. Written
social work documents are often like a detailed list of user’s failures, mistakes,
weak sides, deficiencies. The focus of writing is often on confirming whether a
certain behaviour was appropriate or not. The author emphasises that written
documents are not just dead words in the paper, but a sort of act, an
intervention: they have real and actual power as professional opinions, reports,
etc. This article includes recent findings in researching this matter in Slovene
social work practice and suggests how to improve oral and writing professional
practices toward more complex storytelling.