Presenting documents to clients in social work encounters

Abstract

In Social Work, documents provide important information concerning clients' situations and how institutions operate. Because these objects may contain technical information not easily understood by clients, it is crucial that professionals present them in a clear manner by showing them, explaining their function and allowing clients to read them on their own. Based on a video corpus of Social Work encounters in Portugal, and grounded on the framework of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, the present study examines how social workers describe and show documents to clients, highlighting some of the practical challenges and opportunities that emerge within the course of this activity. By doing so, this study aims at contributing to a multimodal, socio-interactional approach to Social Work practice, as well as to the study of document-centered practices in institutional settings.