Under pressure: a critical scoping review of scales and instruments used in work with people in over-indebtedness

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social work is a field in which budget and debt counselling are offered, and instruments have been developed to map this type of problem. The aim of this paper is to present a scoping review of validated instruments in budget and debt counselling with over-indebted people. The study’s questions are: How do the instruments studied address problems related to over-indebtedness? What assumptions about the causes and remedies of over-indebtedness do the instruments for budget and debt counselling rest on? How can the ways in which these instruments address over-indebtedness be understood as micro-managing this social problem? How may the use of these instruments affect the possibility of budget and debt counsellors taking structural conditions and barriers into account? The study results show that most of the instruments are designed to map resources or problems related to the household economy. Using these instruments, social workers can be seen as part of the governance of citizens through reformatory technology and micro-management of subjects in a financialized society. On the one hand, they can be used to support clients. On the other hand, the instruments can also shift the focus away from structural conditions in society and the consequences of economic inequality.