Time to work – opposing political rationality with young peoples’ experiences of working in a mandatory activation context in Norway

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and Journal of Applied Youth Studies (2021) 4:153–167 165 indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.This paper argues that young people, targeted by activation policies, had several temporal experiences with work that can contribute to broadening our understanding of labour market policy for this group of young people. By drawing on qualitative interviews with young people not in employment, education, or training (NEET) in a Norwegian activation context, and by applying anthropological and sociological concepts on temporality and work time in our analysis, we question how time is constructed and reproduced in the establishment of work relations among this group of people. We argue that political discourses of work inclusion for young adults (NEETs) tend to portray work as a means to an end for inclusion. In doing so, they fail to address the complex temporal dimension of work. We find that young adults have a range of complex experiences where disparity between formal and informal aspects of work becomes visible. The temporal dimension of these experiences and the relativity of speed in getting a job are not experienced in a linear manner but as churning between getting a job, having a job, and losing a job.publishedVersio

Rettigheter, behov og plikter i aktivitetspolitikken Forståelser av aktivitetsplikt for unge sosialhjelpsmottakere

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC- BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.Hvordan relasjonen mellom rettigheter og plikter erfares av ulike klientgrupper i velferdsstaten, er i liten grad studert. I lys av Frasers begrep om behovspolitikk, og hennes diskusjon om forholdet mellom behov og rettigheter, tar vi utgangspunkt i en akseptert oppfatning om at unge som ikke går på skole, utdanning eller er i arbeid, trenger aktivitetsplikt. Gjennom en personsentrert analyse av to unge mottakere av sosialhjelp og deres erfaringer med aktivitetsplikten argumenterer vi for at aktivitetspliktens behovsfortolkning kan tilsløre mottakernes grunnleggende behov for anerkjennelse. Ettersom behovsdefinisjoner legger premisser for fordeling av goder i samfunnet, er det nødvendig med en kritisk vurdering av implikasjonene av slike definisjoner.publishedVersio

Aktivitetspliktens innside og utside – Unge mottakere av sosialhjelp og deres erfaringer med aktivitetsplikt

Fra januar 2017 er alle norske sosialhjelpsmottakere under 30 år forpliktet til å delta i arbeidsrelatert aktivitet – det vil si at de har aktivitetsplikt. Resiprositet er en politisk begrunnelse for aktivitetsplikten, som er formulert i sosialtjenesteloven § 20a. Lovbestemmelsen sier at det skal stilles vilkår om aktivitet for tildeling av økonomisk stønad til personer under 30 år. Men hva betyr dette for målgruppen? Basert på kvalitative intervjuer med unge sosialhjelpsmottakere undersøker artikkelen deres erfaringer med aktivitetsplikt. To dimensjoner er tydelige: aktivitetsplikt som en sosial praksis og aktivitetsplikt som en sanksjonerende praksis. Disse dimensjonene analyserer vi som henholdsvis aktivitetspliktens innside og utside, det vil si en byttemoral med et kontinuum av ulike resiprositetsformer. Funnene viser at aktivitetsplikten kan gi stønadsmottakerne mulighet til å komme seg ut av en vanskelig situasjon og nærmere arbeidslivet. Men Navs tette oppfølging kombinert med sanksjoner er også tvetydig og kan legge begrensninger på de unge voksnes bestrebelser med å klare seg selvpublishedVersio

From Model to Everyday Practice: A Qualitative Observational Study of Daily Fact Team Board Meetings

Introduction: The Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) model has rapidly become a way of organising services for people with severe mental illness. FACT describes the integrated approach of interprofessional teams. Method: A qualitative study of interprofessional collaboration in three FACT teams was conducted. Thirty observations of the teams’ board meetings were conducted, and field notes were thematically analysed. Results: This study generated three themes in interprofessional collaboration in FACT teams. The first theme reflects the challenges of working in line with the model, the second suggests an unclear understanding of a shared caseload, and the third shows different approaches to working with a shared caseload. Discussion: The themes suggest that there is increased opportunity for the shared caseload in the FACT team board meeting. The findings reflect that there is a lack of either the resources necessary for working with a shared caseload or an understanding of the intention of a shared caseload. Conclusion: The potential of the shared caseload in FACT team board meetings are dependent on sufficient resources and a collective understanding of the FACT model and the shared caseload among professionals. Further research on how a shared caseload is experienced and facilitated in FACT teams can provide insight into their practices

Refraining from rights and giving in to personalised control: young unemployed peoples’ experiences and perceptions of public and third sector support in the UK and Norway

In this article, we present an analysis of young unemployed peoples’ perceptions and experiences with public and third sector support in Norway and the UK. Drawing on data generated through qualitative semi-structured interviews, the analysis shows that street level workers’ approaches towards clients are important in understanding(dis)engagement with various employment support systems. Taking a ‘street-level’- perspective as a lens for understanding young, unemployed peoples’ perceptions and experiences, we suggest that their voices as (potential) participants in employment services can contribute a further dimension to perspectives that are more usually focused on workers as performers of politics. The paper highlights the challenges of making employment services responsive to young peoples’ needs and expectations

Frontline provision of integrated welfare and employment services: Organising for activation competency

Using the Norwegian case of an integrated welfare and employment service organisation, this study examined how organisational factors of this far-reaching, street-level agency have affected frontline workers’ opportunities to provide individualised services to users with complex needs. The article reports on two different policy and organisational settings: frontline workers as ‘generalists’ in a ‘national employment policy context’, and frontline workers as ‘specialists’ in a policy context that emphasises ‘empowering the local level’. Findings suggest that the generalists in the study did not experience an opportunity to utilise the flexibility available to them in selecting suitable measures, nor did they develop user-specific knowledge. The article argues that caseworker specialisation can create more room for discretion and professional knowledge about users and which measures should be applied, thereby improving the opportunity to tailor services in a ‘one size fits all’ organisational context

Vurdering av arbeidsevne i NAV: Et spørsmål om kunnskap?

Denne artikkelen studerer NAV-veilederes vurderinger av arbeidsevnen til personer som søker om arbeidsavklaringspenger – trygdeytelsen som skal sikre inntekt for dem med helseproblemer. Funnene er basert på en feltstudie ved to NAV-kontorer. Artikkelen viser at i møte med søkernes egne oppfatninger om sin arbeidsevne og legenes medisinske vurderinger, mangler ofte veilederne en ”mot-kompetanse” å møte disse premissleverandørene med når de skal utrede om det finnes muligheter på arbeidsmarkedet fremfor trygd. Selv om det etterlyses sterkere arbeidsmarkedskompetanse i førstelinjen i NAV er det uklart hva slags kunnskap og ferdigheter det er som etterlyses. Dessuten er det ikke nødvendigvis bare manglende kompetanse som vanskeliggjør veiledernes vurderinger. Usikkerheten i vurderingen av arbeidsmuligheter har også en normativ dimensjon når det gjelder spørsmålet om hvem som har rett på stønaden. artikkelen argumenterer for at tydeligere instrukser og retningslinjer for hvordan NAV-veilederne skal veie ulike forhold i sine vurderinger kan være vel så viktig for iverksettingen av arbeidslinja som å øke arbeidsmarkedskompetansen

Regulating inflow or outflow: a comparison of the work capability assessments in the UK and Norway

In the era of activation policies, several OECD countries have introduced work capability assessments to measure the employability of sick and disabled people. In essence, such assessments concern how sick and disabled people get access to incapacity benefits and services. This paper investigates how the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is designed and implemented within the different institutional contexts of the UK and Norway. The paper concludes that introducing WCAs represents a challenge to the bureaucratic and legal models of administrative justice by emphasising a managerial model (in the UK) and a professional model (in Norway). In the UK, the WCA tool seems to be primarily aimed at reducing the inflow of new recipients, while in Norway it seeks to increase the outflow of recipients. Consequently, the paper argues that the introduction of the WCAs as activation policy instruments has intensified the country-specific characteristics within which the instruments are implemented

Vurdering av arbeidsevne i NAV : Et spørsmål om kunnskap?

Denne artikkelen studerer NAV-veilederes vurderinger av arbeidsevnen til personer som søker om arbeidsavklaringspenger – trygdeytelsen som skal sikre inntekt for dem med helseproblemer. Funnene er basert på en feltstudie ved to NAV-kontorer. Artikkelen viser at i møte med søkernes egne oppfatninger om sin arbeidsevne og legenes medisinske vurderinger, mangler ofte veilederne en ”mot-kompetanse” å møte disse premissleverandørene med når de skal utrede om det finnes muligheter på arbeidsmarkedet fremfor trygd. Selv om det etterlyses sterkere arbeidsmarkedskompetanse i førstelinjen i NAV er det uklart hva slags kunnskap og ferdigheter det er som etterlyses. Dessuten er det ikke nødvendigvis bare manglende kompetanse som vanskeliggjør veiledernes vurderinger. Usikkerheten i vurderingen av arbeidsmuligheter har også en normativ dimensjon når det gjelder spørsmålet om hvem som har rett på stønaden. artikkelen argumenterer for at tydeligere instrukser og retningslinjer for hvordan NAV-veilederne skal veie ulike forhold i sine vurderinger kan være vel så viktig for iverksettingen av arbeidslinja som å øke arbeidsmarkedskompetansen

Getting Sick and Disabled People off Temporary Benefit Receipt: Strategies and Dilemmas in the Welfare State s Frontline

This article explores responses by frontline workers in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service (NAV) to activation policy measures. Frontline workers in NAV are required to write work capability assessments for long-term sick and disabled benefit recipients within a reformed organizational structure with holistic agencies (‘one-stop shops’). These policy mechanisms are intended to empower the frontline workers and make them emphasize work and activation in their evaluation of the employability of the beneficiaries. However, a large number of long-term sick and disabled people remain in receipt of temporary benefits. Key findings emerging from this study’s fieldwork suggest that frontline workers often perceive the task of clarifying the employability status of longterm sick and disabled people to be demanding. Their assessments hinge on criteria set by actors outside the frontline office—and these criteria are hard to obtain. Consequently, the limited range of exit options restricts the discretion of the frontline workers, which results in locking claimants with complex problems into temporary benefit. Their attention tends to be drawn to concerns that are likely to be unintended, which are to keep claimants’ income safe and to secure a smooth workflow within the office as well as to smooth benefit transactions. The context of a generous welfare state with a strongly rights-based benefit scheme is regarded as a likely contributor to these concerns