Threshold Decisions in Social Work: Using Theory to Support Practice

[Teaser text in italiano] Questo articolo teorico riflette sulla mancanza di chiarezza che sembra circondare il concetto di “soglia”. Il concetto è utilizzato nella pratica del servizio sociale e citato in molte dichiarazioni nelle politiche sociali così come nelle linee guida e nelle procedure. Ciondimeno, in molte situazioni, la comprensione della “soglia” rimane fluida e ambigua. Il nostro intento è quello di esplorare diverse prospettive teoriche che possono aiutare a cogliere le modalità quotidiane con cui gli operatori e i responsabili di servizio valutano e giudicano il raggiungimento (o meno) di una 'soglia' e prendano le decisioni conseguenti

Decision making is an intrinsic and complex aspect of social work practice, requiring consideration of diverse but connected aspects. Decisions are often required as to whether a situation requires protective state intervention or whether it reaches the criteria for public or charitable services. Such instances of deciding whether or not a situation is ‘on one side of the line or the other’ are referred to in this paper as ‘threshold judgements’. This paper draws on experiences and material from a range of social work contexts to explore generalisable theory-informed understandings of ‘threshold judgements’ and ‘threshold decisions’ to develop knowledge and skills on this topic. The paper outlines signal detection theory and evidence accumulation (‘tipping point’) theory and discusses these as ways to understand the key concepts underpinning threshold decisions in social work. We then argue that although these threshold concepts are a necessary part of decision-making in social work, as in many other aspects of life, they are not sufficient. Operationalising such decisions requires some form of sense-making. Naturalistic decision-making and heuristic models of judgement are discussed as frameworks for practice which seem to be useful in this context.