Hjörne E, Juhila K, van Nijnatten C. Negotiating dilemmas in the practices of street‐level welfare work Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 303–309 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The theme of this mini‐symposium is based on the core ideas of two influential books published about 30 years ago, namely Michael Lipsky'sStreet‐Level Bureaucracy – Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (1980) and Jeffrey Prottas'sPeople‐Processing – The Street‐Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies (1979). In these books, three dilemmas were identified that have great importance for welfare workers' position as mediators between institutions and citizens: autonomy versus control, responsiveness versus standardisation, and demand versus supply. In this editorial, we discuss these dilemmas with regard to the present context of street‐level welfare work, which is strongly influenced by managerialist policies (also called new public management). It is emphasised that in the era of managerialism, the dilemmas should be approached as empirical matters: how they are present, talked into being and negotiated in naturally occurring practices of street‐level welfare work, and with what consequences.

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Abstract:This article explores how discourses of time are produced and negotiated in professional client interaction when making mental health rehabilitation plans. The discourse of linear time is dominant in interaction, and shared by both participants to create joint future talk. However, the clients might challenge the dominant time talk by using the discourse of the time of mindful body, resulting in clashing time talk. The discourses of time are linked with identity categorisation, and with the criteria of 'good' and 'bad' professional work and clienthood. The analysis demonstrates the relevancy and consequentiality of time talk in professional client interaction.

Mental health work has been transformed by 'shifting geographies of care' from institutions to care in communities, in particular by the emergence of support located within home-spaces. This article studies a floating support service targeted at people with mental health problems and contributes to research on post-institution and home care geographies. The data contain 17 audio-recorded home visits conducted by professional care workers. An ethnomethodological analysis informed by geographies of care in home-spaces shows how the home as a material space has consequences for conversations and the relations between the service users and workers. The parties orient to two relational and shifting identity pairs in their 'home-space talk': a hostguest pair (social call talk) and a professional-client pair (targeted intervention talk).Professional-client pair dominates, and in this sense floating support produces 2 institutionalisation of home-spaces. However, social call talk that enables service users to act as hosts governing their home-spaces has important functions. Orientations to hosts and guests create symmetry and trust among the parties, that encourages recovery promoting interaction. The article also demonstrates the applicability of the methods developed in the geographies of mental health and home in the ethnomethodological interaction analysis, and the other way round.