Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 1) | Seite 31

Integration 1

Dear Students of Social Work,
A common topic or comment about services for clients is about integration.
What do we mean by this? What does integrated services look like? Is it about
coordinating services? Is it providing a one stop service? Is it about joining up
services? The word can mean different things to different people. Integration
at its core involves coordinating and providing a “one experience”. It is
different from a one stop service although it could be part of it.
Integration can perhaps be seen as a process of combining two or more
things to create a seamless experience. It is a tall order to integrate services.
It is even harder when we are talking about joining up services that can be
provided by more than one agency. That is why we place a premium on
integration. It involves keen observation and thinking that leads to re-design
or re-arranging of steps to provide a less jerky or disjointed experience.

Integration in Social Care
The call for integration is more urgent in social care. Because a social care user
is usually less mobile and more dependent, she benefits most when services
are delivered from her perspective in a coordinated way and seamlessly so
that she can experience them as one experience. As such, there’s a ‘no one
size fits all’ solution to health and social care integration. The ideal for a social
care user of course is when there is the integration of health, social care and
housing.
It is tempting sometimes to begin work on integration by looking at structural
“solutions”. But this may not be the best place to start as thinking about
integration is a complex exercise. A better place to start thinking about
integration is to be clear about outcomes. Rather than assuming there’s a
perfect organisational structure out there to integrate services, we may want
to work with different partners in different ways depending on what we want
to achieve and for whom.

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