Introduction

In modern European welfare states, professionals like nurses, physicians and social workers have a prominent role as they provide social and medical care and services to citizens. However, their practice is not always for the good of the client. They may also serve as gatekeepers in the sense that they restrict citizens’ access to welfare services, and it is their mandate to monitor, educate and discipline citizens’ moral conduct (Titmuss, 1968; Bertilsson, 1990).

A close connection to the welfare state has been favourable, and for some professions even decisive, for professional development. Previous research on welfare professions shows that the welfare state plays a central role in creating new jurisdictions, or bringing change to already established jurisdictions. Through its political commitment to social and medical services, the welfare state engages and shapes the welfare professional landscape by demarcating professional jurisdictions, allocating resources to education and research and certifying professional credentials that regulate the licence to practise (Evertsson, 2000; Wrede, 2001; Evertsson and Lindqvist, 2005). But the welfare state is not always an ally. It can push professions in a direction they do not want to go, or even marginalise or extinguish them (Evertsson, 2002). In this chapter we give an example of the latter, that is, how the welfare state has acted against the interest of the social work profession. The example comes from Poland where the jurisdiction of the social work profession has taken a direction that is not in line with professionals’ aspirations.

Our main contribution in this chapter is to show how the jurisdiction of welfare professions such as social work is sensitive to changes in welfare policy. More precisely, we argue that welfare policies are a structuring link between the state and the professional jurisdiction.

Theoretical points of departure

In research on professions, the concept of jurisdiction is frequently used to describe the knowledge and practice fields that a profession claims to control (Abbott, 1998). For welfare professions, jurisdictional control is closely related to, and conditioned by, the welfare state. Professional jurisdiction is intimately woven into the fabric of politics since it is tied to services and resources set by the state.