Clients’ and social workers’ stories about discretion in social work with persons with disabilities

Abstract

This study explores discretion in social work with persons with disabilities. By drawing on a narrative social work approach, the study acknowledges narratives crucial for conducting social work. The research question was as follows: How do persons with disabilities as clients and social workers as professionals consider discretion and its consequences? The data consisted of clients’ and social workers’ written accounts about discretion and were analysed by deploying narrative inquiry with small stories approach. The grand narrative was about getting adequate services through appropriate discretion. Three small stories about everyday life, in/equality and the economy were told against the grand narrative. The study argues that discretion in social work with persons with disabilities is constructed through the available narrative resources.

Introduction

This study explores discretion in social work with persons with disabilities by entering a dialogue with clients’ and social workers’ written accounts about the topic in contemporary Finland. ¹ By drawing on the narrative social work approach, this study acknowledges social work as a profoundly narrative profession, as it uses narratives as a means to include both clients’ and professional social workers’ perspectives (Baldwin, 2013). As a part of professional social work, discretion reflects different narratives (Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2000).

Discretion refers to how professionals implement policies in institutional encounters with clients (Lipsky, 2010). Social workers employ discretion when reasoning and making decisions (Taylor, 2012: p. 547) related to, for example, assessing clients’ individual cases, prioritising needs, or organising services. In terms of narrative social work, discretion involves a complex web of political, judicial, professional, ethical, economic and organisational interactions (Baldwin, 2013; Evans, 2013; Juhila et al., 2020). Discretion in social work with persons with disabilities concerns a range of disability services, which has crucial importance to persons with disabilities in their everyday life.

This study is based on the idea that enhancing dialogue between clients’ and social workers’ perspectives on narratives of discretion furthers mutual understanding in social work that is conducted through the available narratives in a given society (Baldwin, 2013). The research question is as follows: How do persons with disabilities as clients and social workers as professionals consider discretion and its consequences?

The narrative social work approach to discretion and disability

From the narrative perspective, social work is embedded in and conducted through the available narratives. Moreover, narrative social work broadens the perspective of narrative and stories in social work. Typically, the narrative approach has been linked with case-sensitive and therapeutic approaches in practice or methodological choices in research, but narrative social work widens the perspective to structural matters as well as ontological and epistemological aspects. Arguably, narrative also engages itself with human rights and social justice, whose fulfilment is part of social work (Baldwin, 2013: p. 3–12, 31–46).

Social work is conducted in narrative environments and social workers address clients’ cases with the available narrative resources in which some narratives are more popular or dominant than others. Therefore, some stories are easier to tell and receive, while others remain unheard because they are both hard to tell and hear (Smith and Sparkes, 2008; Georgakopoulou, 2015: p. 255) especially in institutional settings (Villar and Westerhof, 2023). Social work deploys as well as re- and de-constructs the available narratives (Baldwin, 2013). The ethical dilemmas in social work are also assessed through these narratives (Baldwin, 2013: pp. 61–62).

One of the most remarkable narratives reflecting discretion and regarding social work as a welfare profession in the public welfare service system is about meeting clients’ service needs and assessing them adequately. This process is also about the relationship between people as clients and social workers as professionals in the public welfare service system (Lipsky, 2010; Gubrium and Järvinen, 2014; Mik-Meyer, 2017; Mik-Meyer and Silverman, 2019). This study considers the Finnish welfare system. We understand social work as welfare work (Mik-Meyer, 2017) and as part of the formal public welfare system (e.g. Gubrium and Järvinen, 2014). Welfare policies are implemented through the provision and distribution of services (Ife, 2001; Banks, 2012), which includes social work discretion.

The available narratives matter regarding social work and discretion, and the role of hegemonic narratives is critical to discretion. However, a common story in contemporary social work, for example in Finland, is about insufficient resources (Mänttäri-van Der Kuip, 2015; Juhila et al., 2020). Moreover, narratives such as social work as an ethically deliberative profession (Banks, 2012) exist within professional self-narratives of social work (Baldwin, 2013). Arguably, the existing hegemonic narratives may collide and, in doing so, construct diverse goals for social work.

Social work discretion is defined as ‘utilizing one’s knowledge, skills, experience and values as a basis for decision-making’ (Hardy, 2016: p. 11, 22). Social work is considered as ‘wise practice’, which includes appropriate decision-making such as following: being aware of the practice context, which has both constraining and enabling forces; involving and working with clients and reflexively analysing options to have the most beneficial outcome for clients (O’Sullivan, 2011: p. 183). However, narratives related to both clients with their rights and the administrative state have been identified as central to discretion in social work (Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2000). Organisational rules, standardisation and managerialist control affect discretion in social work (Evans, 2013), and social workers have reported having only limited professional autonomy and opportunities to support clients in ways that meet their needs (Juhila et al., 2020). Social workers have also reported that they cannot do their work in an ethically responsible way due to insufficient resources (Mänttäri-van Der Kuip, 2015).

The available narratives affect ways of telling and receiving stories about disability (Johnson, 2020; Grove, 2022). Disability narratives have been changing along with a rights-based approach to disability. Additionally, social work is based on defending human rights, promoting inclusion and justice, respecting diversity and opposing inequality and oppression (Ife, 2001; Baldwin, 2013: p. 31–57; Barsky, 2020). Ife (2001, p. 38) highlights the construction of rights-based social work compared to conventional needs-based social work (see also Mik-Meyer and Silverman, 2019). Regarding disability, the social model of disability relates to the rights of persons with disabilities, which are implemented through legal and policy framework, an inclusive service model and by removing structural and attitudinal barriers. (Baldwin and Johnston, 2013: p. 118, 126; Malhotra and Rowe, 2014: pp. 2–3.) The above-mentioned ideas are part of the existing narrative resources for social work with persons with disabilities. However, the available disability narratives are considered rather abstract and thus may be inadequate for understanding real life experiences fully (Baldwin and Johnston, 2013: p. 128). Arguably, research on disability related to daily life (e.g. Johnson, 2020) as well as organisational everyday practices (e.g. Skoura-Kirk, 2022) is needed.

Discretion in social work with persons with disabilities has been mostly investigated regarding professional perspectives in disability services (e.g. Järkestig Berggren et al., 2019) and, for example, personal assistants’ points of view (Bahner, 2013), but the perspectives of persons with disabilities remain rare. Moreover, discretion relates to the construction of the organisational identities of ‘client’ (e.g. Skoura-Kirk, 2022; Mik-Meyer and Haugaard, 2021) and ‘professional’ in public welfare work (e.g. Mik-Meyer, 2017). In this study, we focus on discretion in social work with persons with disabilities and we explore it from both social workers’ and clients’ perspectives. In doing so, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge about people in public welfare services (e.g. Lipsky, 2010; Mik-Meyer, 2017) from the perspective of narrative social work.

Methodology

Data

The data comprise clients’ (n = 36) and social workers’ (n = 6) written accounts about discretion in social work with persons with disabilities in contemporary Finland. Both data sets were collected in 2022 as part of the Discretion in Social Work with People with Disabilities research project. The call for clients’ stories was circulated through the research project’s website and social media and shared widely to disability policy organisations, who then circulated the call through their channels, for example through email lists, social media or other medium that reach people widely (not in-person). Only some supporting questions (e.g. What kind of discretion have you encountered in social work with persons with disabilities? What kind of consequences has discretion had in your life?) were set because we wanted to encourage the participants to tell as freely as possible. The maximum length for writings was two to three pages on the web-based platform. The call was open for adults (over 18 years) who had either their own experiences of discretion in social work with persons with disabilities or had experiences about the given topic, for example as a parent of a child with disabilities. Most of the participants discussed their own experiences and few wrote about the experiences of others, for example as a parent. Due to the sensitive topic, that is, clientship in social services, personal or identifying data were not collected. However, it is possible to say something about the participants based on their self-identification through their writings. The writings represented different age range of clients as well as diverse disabilities, from physical to sensory disabilities as well as long-term illnesses.

The call for social workers’ writings was circulated through two selected social media platforms and one e-mail list, in which social workers working in disability services were known to participate. The following questions, for example, were presented to support participants’ writing: What are the consequences of discretion? What promotes and what prevents good discretion? The received writings were well focused on discretion, and they presented participants’ professional experience in social work with persons with disabilities. The average length of a text was one and a half pages; the longest one was almost three pages long, and the shortest was less than half a page. In both collections, personal or background information was not collected, and the participants were informed not to share this information in their writings.

Ethics

The Committee on Research Ethics at the University of Lapland approved the research project on 13 December 2021. Information about the research as well as data management practices were available during the call for participation and on the web-based platforms used for data collecting. The participants were asked to give their informed consent via the platform prior to accessing the main page in order start their participation in the study.

Analysis

By adhering to premises of narrative inquiry, we did not address the data set with ready-made theories at first but instead aimed to enter a dialogue with these two data sets. The analysis went as follows: The first author read the clients’ stories while second author familiarised herself with social workers’ writings. In the next phase, the second author also read the clients’ stories and wrote the first draft of typologies, which were constructed through combining points from the stories that shared the same logic or plot (Hänninen, 1999: p. 99).

Then we carefully read the draft and data several times. We noticed that the drafted typologies resonated with the ideas of a small stories approach (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou, 2008), which was then used to deepen the analysis. According to Georgakopoulou (2015), small stories are a ‘model for’ not a model of narrative inquiry. In this study, this model was used ‘for’ understanding sense-making about discretion that is the small stories approach was not used as a means of modelling discretion categories.

The small stories approach appreciates the diversity of stories and helps to identify those that often remain hidden behind the hegemonic ones (Georgakopoulou, 2015; McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance, 2017). Small stories stem from social life (Villar and Westerhof, 2023), and in this study, small stories stemmed from the encounters between professionals and clients in the public welfare service system. Moreover, small stories engage themselves with people’s social everyday life and lived conditions (Villar and Westerhof, 2023). Thus, they can reveal valuable knowledge that would not be reached otherwise. The study also emphasised the connections between the clients’ and professionals’ stories, which we found through entering a dialogue with them. Although the two data sets did not discuss the same cases, they did resonate with each other.

By following the idea of small stories approach (e.g. Georgagopoulou, 2015), we first identified a grand narrative of discretion according to the clients and the social workers. However, most of the clients’ accounts were about situations in which the desired state reflected in the grand narrative was not (fully) attained. Therefore, three small stories were told against the grand narrative, and they revealed the consequences of inappropriate discretion. It was typical that a participant’s story was about more than one small story. We translated the accounts from Finnish to English. The references in the text are based on the participant numbers in the web-based platforms (clients: e.g. C1 and social workers: e.g. SW1). The findings are presented as follows: First, we present a brief typologised summary that crystallises the main point. The summaries do not present any of the participants’ accounts directly. After that, we explore the relationship between the grand narrative and the three small stories.

Findings

The grand narrative of discretion in social work with persons with disabilities was about accessing sufficient services through appropriate professional discretion, while the three small stories revealed other situations. The small stories were about everyday life, in/equality and the economy. The effects of inappropriate discretion were constructed as a web of stories (Baldwin, 2013) that affected and was lived through at the personal level regarding especially the organisation of everyday life and the level of inclusion for disabled people as well as structural levels of social work.

The grand narrative: Adequate services through appropriate discretion

The grand narrative of discretion in social work with persons with disabilities goes as follows: Appropriate and inclusive discretion ensures adequate services and support for persons with disabilities and empowers both clients and professionals. Both the clients and the social workers in this study considered appropriate discretion as means of addressing clients’ cases and recognising persons with disabilities in their individual lived conditions. Clients highlighted that: ‘[t]here are different disabilities and capabilities, different life situations and just persons with their preferences and values’ (C16), and social workers stated similar points: ‘Each client (…) is an individual with their functional limitations, which are reflected in their operating environment and everyday life’. (SW3)

According to the clients, becoming understood is crucial, but to articulate their needs and conditions requires capabilities and resources. The following account illustrates the situation: ‘I have become heard because I have been capable to present my case in a way that I will become understood correctly’ (C7). Becoming understood requires access to socially shared narrative resources through which the case is handled in social work.

Social workers agreed that appropriate discretion through collaboration with clients leads to a shared understanding of the situation and to meeting their clients’ needs. According to social workers, appropriate discretion has the potential to empower both clients in their lived conditions and social workers in their professional practice when their competence is successfully performed. From the social workers’ perspective, getting to know the case properly was crucial. The following account illustrates the process: ‘My best experiences of discretion and at the same time successful client work are related to situations where I have met the client several times, and we have become familiar’ (SW4)’. The participant continued:

Through getting to know each other and having a shared understanding about their everyday life (…) there has been lots of opportunities to use discretion regarding the case, and that has also resulted in experiences of success and enthusiasm at work. (SW4)

Mutual collaboration and sharing were also highlighted from the clients’ perspective: ‘The cooperation has always been good and client oriented. And it has helped me a lot.’ (C5) Furthermore, clients underlined the importance of reasoning: ‘If you have good reasoning you may get discretionary decisions [from disability services]’ (C2). Adequate reasoning is constructed through narrative resources that are understandable for both professionals and clients. Giving adequate reasonings and becoming understood through using the shared narrative resources were seen as a means of achieving the clients’ service needs. However, this requires both access to the sharing of narratives and narrative competences regarding adequate reasoning in the context of public welfare service system. The narrative resources remaining unshared and disjointed were often a concern as the following three small stories illustrate.

A small story about narrowed everyday life

For persons with disabilities, inclusion is constructed through the lived conditions of everyday life (Johnson, 2020). Both clients and social workers agreed that everyday life is crucial regarding discretion in contemporary social work. However, according to the participants, the lived conditions of persons with disabilities are not fully recognised. The typologised summary of this small story is as follows: The everyday life of persons with disabilities becomes narrowed due to discretion, which does not meet their lived conditions. A client shared their experience about the topic: ‘The decision [from disability services] makes my life very difficult. (…) Additionally, my operational environment has become narrower.’ (C24)

Although understanding everyday life is crucial for the fulfilment of inclusion, the practices related to realising inclusion remain complex. According to social workers, the use of discretion has a significant impact and practical effects on their clients’ everyday life. Social workers agreed that a decision that declines access to the services can cause ‘unreasonable situations and reduce opportunities for participating [in society] and [pursuing] a good life’ (SW4). Therefore, options and potential consequences for clients’ everyday life should be assessed prior to the decision (O’Sullivan, 2011: p. 126; Banks, 2012: p. 196) as some social workers highlighted. In terms of narrative social work, anticipating the outcome of the decision relates to the need also to tell future-oriented stories (Baldwin, 2013).

We [social workers] focus too hard on, e.g., the fulfilment of criteria, but do not address the client's situation as a whole and think about what consequences the decision will produce for the client. (SW1)

Clients agreed with the above-mentioned points, such as avoiding ‘decision-driven work’ that is disconnected from their lived conditions: ‘The social worker makes a decision [that is] detached from my everyday life [and] without knowing me or my conditions of living’ (C1). According to the clients, discretion that is disconnected from their living conditions creates even narrower conditions for them. Moreover, the word ‘minimum’ was repeated in the stories when clients talked about discretion: ‘(…) they try that a client will content themselves with the minimum’ (C2).

In their accounts, social workers discussed inappropriate discretion and they talked about how bureaucracy may construct restrictive organisational culture, which negatively affects the conditions to address clients’ overall life situation; it forces them to work at a distance from their clients and their everyday life. As one social worker explained:

[Poor discretion increases when there is] an effort to withdraw into a very bureaucratic role, in which decisions are made far from clients and their everyday life and knowledge. (SW1)

The clients’ accounts resonated with the social workers’ interpretation about the organisational conditions and highlighted that social workers have to be able to exercise the discretion power that is granted to them by law as well as the opportunity to collaborate with clients. This sentiment was illustrated, for example, by a parent of a child with disabilities:

[The social worker] is deeply familiar with the overall situation of the child and the family. Their professional capabilities are appreciated when [they] can use the discretion that is given to [them] by law. (C15)

In this small story, the consequences of inappropriate discretion were extensively presented. They narrowed everyday life and negatively affected different areas of the clients’ life and produced long-time difficulties for persons with disabilities, such as experiencing financial difficulties due to paying for services themselves (C27), being forced to move to another municipality to get services (C10), being unable to act as a parent (C30), becoming excluded from a working life (C23) and being unable to participate in social relationships (C6). Furthermore, clients discussed inappropriate discretion as limiting their self-determination, for example, ‘by preventing to go outside their home’ (C28). A participant summarised the difficulties as follows: ‘The issues I needed help with remained unresolved’ (C4).

Clients argued that their everyday life was put on hold due to the inadequate handling of cases in a timely manner. Among persons with disabilities, waiting for months and even a ‘year’ (C35) to receive support in their everyday life consumes much of their time and other resources as well as negatively affects their living conditions.

A small story about in/equality

Equality is one of the cornerstones of contemporary disability policy (Baldwin and Johnston, 2013) and the leading principle for social work ethics (Ife, 2001). A small story about in/equality concerned the dilemma of addressing persons with disabilities as a group of people instead of as individual persons. Both the clients and the social workers argued that the concept of equality is sometimes misinterpreted in social work practice. The typologized summary of this small story is as follows: Equality matters but the concept of equality as a ground of discretion varies, resulting in different consequences.

From the clients’ perspective, ‘decisions often seem concerned with all clients who have disabilities ([the so-called] group decisions)’ (C2), which was considered problematic: ‘discretion in social work with persons with disabilities is necessary as there are no two completely alike persons with disabilities’ (C16). However, besides emphasising individual perspective, the clients compared their situations to other persons with disabilities: ‘[N]ot all persons with disabilities are in an equal position; they do not receive the same services on the same basis’ (C16). They also compared them to other people in general: ‘I have paid taxes to this society and the one time when I applied for support, I did not receive it. Others who have done nothing for our society get everything.’ (C31).

Social workers agreed that equality is a complex concept, and the uniqueness of each client’s situation could not be taken for granted. Like clients, social workers also reflected on the different ways of interpreting and perhaps even misinterpreting equality through discretion. One participant argued that discretion must be used uniformly in ‘similar situations’:

If a similar situation arises, then it is appropriate to use discretion in accordance with equality. (…) The consequence is that the use of discretion creates an expectation for the continuation of the service, and in other similar situations, the same must be done. (SW2)

The clients argued that such discretion treats persons with disabilities as a fixed group. A participant stated that ‘[p]ersons with disabilities cannot be lumped together; they have their individual life, as all people do’ (C36). Another participant argued that ‘[in] social work with persons with disabilities, [they seem to be] unwilling to make individual decision as they should’ (C2). In the next account, a case was compared with others: ‘[A social worker] referred to [other persons with disabilities] when saying that even now I get more [services] than others’ (C22). Some social workers shared a similar experience:

Sometimes you hear that a case is compared with another. Equality is an important principle, but you should always remember that each client’s situation must be assessed individually. The situations of some clients may seem similar at first, but when you get to know them more deeply, they are not. (SW1)

Social workers explained inappropriate discretion regarding inequality in terms of insufficient work orientations (e.g. ‘[There is] mechanical interpretation of the law’ (SW1)), poor work conditions and restrictive organisation culture (e.g. ‘employees are silenced’) (SW2). A social worker argued that services are not provided individually due to ‘common rules’ and the limitations of discretion, for example, by the organisation and management. Moreover, the social worker continued: ‘Group discipline among social workers is maintained in the name of equality between clients’ (SW4).

Both the clients and the social workers emphasised, that equality does not mean one-size-fits-all practices but that suitable services can be attained through appropriate and adequate professional discretion. In this small story, equality was assessed within tensions regarding whether persons with disabilities are seen as a group or as individuals.

A small story about the economy

The third small story concerned economy-driven decision-making and organisational culture that complicate social workers’ usage of professional discretion. The story relates to social work austerity (Mänttäri-van Der Kuip, 2015) and represents a counter story for the grand narrative of appropriate discretion that meets the clients’ needs. Within this story, the clients and the social workers discussed discretion regarding the structural conditions of social work, such as management, the economy, the public welfare service system and social policy. The typologized summary of the accounts is as follows: Economy-driven decision-making leads to more expensive and less effective services, which decrease trust in the public welfare system.

A client stated that discretion may be even misused in social work with persons with disabilities:

[There is] an abuse of discretion (…) that attempts to forestall clients to apply for some services [or] assistive devices etc.; obviously the reason for such reluctance is that processing of applications and potentially granting them means the usage of resources (C1).

Another client said, ‘saving is typical for the disability services. [They] seem just to try to avoid costs caused by clients’ (C26). Another continued that ‘the social worker uses power and makes discretionary decisions that serve the resources of disability services and not the needs of the disabled person’ (C3).

Social workers did not deny the power of economy; instead, they shared similar points in their accounts that illustrated professional perspectives. They underlined the need to be aware of structural conditions, such as economic ones: ‘The pressure to work cost-effectively affects how discretion is used’ (SW4). Some social workers highlighted disability services as special services that are more expensive than general social services. In this interpretation, the high costs of disability services led to strict discretion:

Because disability services are expensive, they are not easily granted. Then we use discretion, and usually [it means that we] try to economize at least a bit. (SW6)

The clients agreed with social workers’ low use of discretion due to financial conditions. A parent of a child with disabilities discussed some specific services and stated that ‘[t]he social worker did not have much professional discretional power over as the services (…) were known to be expensive’ (C15). However, disability services are necessary for clients to enjoy full inclusion and participation in society. So, the aim of disability services should be the fulfilment of basic and human rights, which social workers also highlighted. A social worker identified the pressure ‘of savings and the scarce financial situation in the municipality’, but their argument was that ‘the municipality's financial situation should not guide discretion’ (SW4).

Clients were also aware of economy-driven conditions, in which discretion in relation to allocating public welfare fund was exercised. Rejecting individual services and granting more expensive services instead based on uniform criteria bothered some of the clients: ‘[T]here is no way to understand the city's policy and accept a procedure where the costs are shockingly high compared to the [service] I applied for’ (C32). Both the clients and the social workers discussed economy-driven discretion that did not lead to the intended consequences. Ideally, economy-driven discretion may be economically sustainable for different parties. Nevertheless, the small story revealed clients’ and social workers’ shared concern that economy-driven discretion may paradoxically create even more costs in the public welfare system and that social workers working with persons with disabilities need sufficient resources to assess cases adequately.

Discussion

This study explored discretion in social work with persons with disabilities by examining the clients’ and social workers’ accounts of discretion in contemporary Finland. The grand narrative of discretion was about receiving adequate support and services through appropriate professional discretion that empowers clients in their lives and professionals in their practice. The grand narrative presented a desired state that was gained through deploying shared narrative resources and proper mutual understanding. Three small stories were discussed against the grand narrative. The small stories were interlinked as a web of stories (Baldwin, 2013: p. 38) and were summarised with three E’s, namely, everyday life, in/equality and the economy.

Everyday life is crucial for the fulfilment of inclusion and other goals of disability policy (Johnson, 2020). The small story about narrowed everyday life opportunities due to discretion that did not meet the lived conditions of disabled people resonates with Johnson’s (2020) study that revealed how available discourses are entwined with daily life. Additionally, equality is at the heart of contemporary disability policy (e.g. Malhotra and Rowe, 2014) and social work ethics (e.g. Banks, 2012). However, in the second small story, both clients and professionals argued that equality is often problematic in discretion due to its varied interpretations. The stories revealed ethical tensions, such as whether to treat persons with disabilities as individuals or as a group of people and whether to assess equality between clients or all members of the society. The third small story was about the economy and money as drivers in contemporary welfare services (see also e.g. Mik-Meyer, 2017; Mik-Meyer and Silverman, 2019).

Narrative social work tries to address ethical problems in social work discretion through appreciating stories (Barsky, 2020). The three E’s on discretion in social work with persons with disabilities reveal ethical dilemmas in which the rights, needs and interests of different parties conflict (Banks, 2012: pp. 19–21) in terms of addressing clients’ cases (Mik-Meyer and Silverman, 2019). We illustrate this conflict with the following questions: Are the clients’ needs and conditions assessed through a system-oriented way or through a person’s everyday life? Are the needs of each person considered individually to achieve equality, or is a disabled person compared to both other disabled and non-disabled persons? In addition, to what extent do social workers consider the needs, conditions and rights of clients and to what extent do they consider the system’s resources when exercising discretion? (Mänttäri van-der Kuip, 2015; cf. Ife, 2001; O’Sullivan, 2011).

Discretion entails power (Mik-Meyer, 2017: pp. 113–126). Additionally, narrative has the power to engage with social work as a profession as well as with clients’ lives. Both clients and professionals described empowerment, which is a description of power, in a positive tone (Mik-Myer and Villadsen, 2013: p. 1). Power relations regarding narrative agency, such as who is considered capable of telling which stories (Grove 2022: p. 226), were also considered. Discretion that does not recognise a client’s lived conditions may lead to exclusion (see also Bekken et al., 2021). Therefore, small stories may be crucial to both reveal and critically observe the conditions of being and becoming excluded. Social workers may also experience their professional identity as being excluded if they cannot exercise discretion professionally and morally correctly (Mänttäri-van Der Kuip, 2015) although social work is ‘fundamentally, a moral endeavour’ (Baldwin, 2013: p. 11). The grand narrative reflects moral aspirations while participants shared three, partly overlapping small stories that illustrate both the consequences (e.g. a narrowed everyday life) of the desired state not attained and the reasons for it (e.g. economy-driven priorities). Consequences and conditions may be also entwined, as the conditions of everyday life are not always fully recognised (as participants argued). Discretion may also not meet these conditions, which means they will become even narrower.

Access to adequate, socially shared resources is crucial for inclusion (Schirmer and Michailakis, 2015). From a narrative perspective, inclusion demands access to sharing stories and being recognised as a narrator (Baldwin, 2013). In this study, we focused on a specific context of social life (e.g. Mik-Meyer and Haugaard, 2021): social work with persons with disabilities. However, discretion in social work with persons with disabilities affects opportunities to enjoy inclusion, and participation may be limited due to inadequate discretion. Furthermore, organisational and institutional settings of social work construct conditions for both social workers and clients, where they tell and receive stories from each other. Social workers have a demanding responsibility to address stories that are atypical or hidden as well as stories that may be not easy to tell or receive (Baldwin, 2013).

It is not easy for persons with disabilities to share stories about their personal life in institutional settings and then hear social workers’ talk about limited resources. However, it is not easy for social workers to discuss the shortcomings of the organisation and profession or to hear clients’ stories about social work decisions leading to unreasonable living conditions. The three small stories on discretion told in this study serve as a useful starting point to achieve better understanding about how professional discretion connects with clients’ lives. Moreover, as these small stories were more or less shared by both clients and social workers and relate to a wider societal context, they must be told to social work managers and political decision makers.

Mik-Meyer and Haugaard (2021, p. 504) noticed that professionals’ and clients’ opportunities to achieve their objectives are related to ‘both collaboration and resistance’. The findings of this study highlighted both clients’ and social workers practical knowledge and their opportunities to share it through the available narrative resources. This finding resonates with the notion that practical knowledge is crucial for interactions between clients and professionals (Mik-Meyer and Haugaard, 2021).

This research entailed sensitive aspects. Web-based data collecting was thus chosen because it allows participants to re-consider their points prior to submitting their responses. The main aim for collecting clients’ accounts was to acknowledge clients’ perspective about discretion in social work with persons with disabilities, as such data are still rare in research. The web-based platform also offered social workers a space to tell their stories in a way that is not possible in conventional institutional settings (Villar and Westerhof, 2023; Georgakopoulou, 2015). However, participation in the study required both technical prerequisites (e.g. internet access) as well as the willingness and capability to express oneself in written form. In the call for clients’ writings, it was mentioned that they can participate in the study, for example, with the assistance of someone or, if necessary, ask another person to write on their behalf. In this case, however, it was advised to mention that without providing identification data.

In this study, the small stories shed light on the institutional context in which disability narratives are practised, but not all (lived) stories have enough space and/or resources to be told, heard or shared (also Villar and Westerhof, 2023). Hence, small stories make the complexity of discretion in social work visible and highlight the interactions between the clients’ and the social workers’ stories as well as their connectedness to a shared stock of stories and even a mutual understanding of them (McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance, 2017). Participants exercised their narrative agency and provided valuable information that could not have been otherwise accessed. From a narrative perspective, further studies are needed that engage with diverse stories about discretion to advance the discussion (also Baldwin, 2013). Diverse narrative resources as well as narrative savviness are essential for not only developing social work as public welfare work but also for including clients and acknowledging their stories.