This paper studies the construction of ethics in interactions between professionals in meetings, in relation to the rationing of resources. The research context is a supported housing unit targeted at clients with mental health and substance abuse problems. The service is provided for a municipality, which expects good progress of the clients. The research question is: how do the professionals produce implicit ethical justifications for setting limits to helping, even though the need for professional help is not called into question? (...) Five types of justification appear in the data covering 28 meetings. However, these types of justification do not solve the central ethical difficulty arising in the conversations. Limiting help would easily push people out of reach of all help. Thus, in spite of the talk about ethical justification, workers do not ultimately resort to limiting help in situations with no real alternatives for getting help. The ethical principle of following non-exclusionary practices is highly prioritized. (shrink)

This article examines care plan meetings between professionals and clients held in a mental health supported housing unit. The article asks what is discussed about the recording of the plan and how it is discussed in the meetings. The study focuses on intertextual institutional interaction. The methodical tools used are genre and the genre chain. As a result of the analysis, we gain information on how the plan form, as a product of joint discussion through the meeting interaction, becomes the (...) basis of the care plan. In addition, the article highlights at which stages and for what purposes the care plan is discussed, and how earlier texts and discussions about the client’s situation serve as resources for making the plan. Plan forms have a significant role in directing the meeting conversation, the transferring of the information and producing and maintaining the care plan discourse. (shrink)