Beschäftigungsorientierte Beratung im Spannungsfeld von Bürokratie und Professionalität

Abstract

Abstract Employment counselors are street-level bureaucrats; they do not simply execute government’s social policy, but have considerable room for discretionary decision-making. The article examines, on the one hand, whether the organizational conditions of their work make it easier or more difficult to act professionally, that is, to link current findings with knowledge acquired through training and work experience and thus develop action strategies that suit best a client’s individual situation – and to pursue them together with him or her. For only the orientation on professional counseling standards seems to safeguard against street-level activation policy that is based on coercion rather than on challenge. On the other hand, we discuss problems of recognizing the work of these specialists in a controlling and control system which is essentially based on outcome-based performance indicators.