Emergency Social Workers Navigating between Computer and Client.

This paper analyses the use of computers in the video-recorded encounters between emergency social workers and their clients at an emergency social work office. It is asked how the emergency social workers navigate between the computer and their clients. In addition, how the use of computers directsthe encounters and the accomplishment of institutional tasks of emergency social work is reflected on. It is demonstrated how the emergency social workers' orientation between the use of the computer and the client shifts throughout the interaction; it is an interactional accomplishment. Workers use computers as a resource, but the use of computers entails a balance between the computer and the client or even focus on the computer instead of the client. Thus, on the interactional level, the outcomes of computer use can be successful, but momentarily undesired. Computers are essential tools i n the everyday work of emergency social services; they support the handling of the institutional task of retrieving and exchanging information quickly and in situ. It is obvious, though, that emergency social work requires the skill of being able to use computers in a good interactional manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]