Reading the Case Record: The Oral and Written Narratives of Social Workers

Abstract

Historians and sociologists often use written case records to critique social work practice. This article uses ethnography to analyze the limits of reading the written texts of practitioners. By concatenating written, oral, and ethnographic data, a new narrative of case management is produced. I show how case managers' oral narratives about consumers of mental health services perform different work with different languages. In addition, I demonstrate the limitations of using written texts to understand social work practice.