Platform social work - a case study of a digital activity plan in the Norwegian Welfare and Labor Administration

Abstract

Various digital platforms are currently being introduced in many fields, including social work. This research presents the Digital Activity Plan (DAP) introduced by the Norwegian welfare and labour administration (Nav) in 2017 as a case to investigate how governmental digital platforms impact social work practices. DAP has several intentions for developing digital client communication and managing casework for counsellors, as well as governing and implementing social policies. This article aims to investigate the socio-technical affordances of the digital platform and how it affects the role of the counsellors in Nav. The article defines five affordances of DAP: client communication, information systems, citizen-state contract, measuring, and political instruments. It discusses these affordances from both the counsellor’s experiences and in light of contemporary social politics and research. The results from this case show the impact of digital platforms on social work, how multifaceted socio-technical assemblages emerge, and how complex negotiations of platform affordances take place.