Laid Back, times of emergency and times of relations. Clinical report of work experience in the "Sala Operativa Sociale", Social Emergency service of Roma Capitale

Abstract

The “Sala Operativa Sociale” - SOS (Social Emergency Control Room) is a complex public service dealing with a very wide range of issues, such as those regarding homeless people, elderly people lacking family support, difficult relationships between users and services. These issues are often included and confused in the macro category of “Social Emergency", a concept that is not useful in defining practice-related objectives and guidelines. The emotional urgency that characterizes social workers’ interventions makes very difficult to analyze users’ demands, as well as others institutions’ requests addressed to the SOS service. The risk of a user marginalization is constantly present when colluding with requests for intervention without taking into account the complex relational dynamics relation in which social workers are involved dealing with people in the street, on call, with a strong institutional mandate. Psychology and psychoanalysis can give a contribution to guide this practice towards an organizational development, especially in analyzing the demand of users and customers of the service. This clinical report provides an example of this potential work.