The categorization ‘complex needs’ : Constructions of complexity as a problem in professionals’ discourse

• In social work discourse, youth with mental ill-health in combination with social vulnerability are more frequently referred to as “youth with complex needs”. The aim of this paper, based on two interview studies, one with professionals in psychiatric care and social work, and one with youth (age 15-25 years), is to critically investigate how "complex needs" is used as a way to categorize youth. Youth with complex needs are by professionals in the study constructed as recipients of long-term but less successful support from social work services and psychiatric care. They are also, from the perspective of professionals, described as a category that in various ways present challenges for welfare services. Categorizations of people and needs are prerequisites for legal, bureaucratic and professional systems within the welfare state. Welfare organizations construct knowledge and strategies regarding specific target groups according to these categorizations. In the paper we discuss whether there is a risk that a categorization such as complex needs is used in a way that individualize problems, thereby obscuring problems that are related to complex organizations and care systems that cater for the needs of young people in less effective ways.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

socialt arbete

Social Work

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)