Shifting the focus inward: Israeli social workers’ participation in decision-making and their inclusion of service-users in intervention-related decisions

Service-users' inclusion (SUI) in decision-making regarding services provided by public social services has numerous benefits for both users and providers. However, studies show a gap between the evolution of inclusive discourse and policy, and the implementation of SUI in social services’ daily practice. Focusing on the organisational context, the present study is the first to empirically test the relationship between social workers’ perception of the services’ participative organisational culture (POC), their actual participation in organisational decision-making (SWAP) and their inclusive praxes with service-users (SUI). Data were collected between January and March of 2019 via an online survey of 317 Israeli social workers from 173 public departments of social services. Findings show that social workers who find the organisational culture at their workplace to be more participative, do in fact take a significantly greater part in decision-making at the organisational level, and include service-users more in decision-making throughout the intervention. Furthermore, SWAP mediates the connection between services’ POC and SUI. Findings suggest that establishing a POC is not enough to increase users’ inclusion, as social workers’ active participation in decision-making is vital for their ability to include their marginalised users.