Challenges in dealing with involuntary clients

Abstract

The study focused on exploring the challenges being faced by social service workers in dealing with involuntary clients. This study is qualitative in nature and in-depth semi-structured interviews were used as a tool for data collection. The data was collected from 21 social service workers residing in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and Al Gharbia. Moreover, a purposive sampling technique was deployed and the Thematic Content Analysis technique was used to analyse the results. The qualitative interviews explored various challenges being faced by the involuntary clients. The most prominent ones are the client’s anger, frustration, reluctance, lack of confidence, discipline, and motivation. All of these factors pose huge challenges for social workers because they lead involuntary clients to a situation of poor communication with social workers. This study has created a new body of knowledge that can be used in the Middle East and the Western parts of the world. From the academic perspective, this study is value addition in the literature of social service workers. From the practitioner perspective, this study provides an opportunity to work on such challenges while developing effective strategies to counter them.