DIZIONARIO: VOCE UTENTE

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the jargon of Italian social workers, the user is indicated with the user a professional intervention of help from the operators of social-assistance services. The term is well rooted in professional jargon, in literature and in the tradition of social service, so much so that it also appears in the codes of ethics and in the legislation concerning the professional social service. However, the use of this expression is not at all controversial: we could even say that it is used above all because a better diction has not yet been found. Internationally, the Anglo-Saxon correspondent user (more often specified with service user) has a completely different story. To find a term similar to our user in terms of tradition and breadth of use, we need to move to the English client, probably the most used word in the world to indicate the people who access services through social operators (Dominelli, 2004). Even clients, however, are not accepted without reservations. Moreover, while its use remains in the United States and, in general, in all the literature translated into English from other languages, in the United Kingdom (but also in Australia), from the 1990s onwards, service expressions are increasingly found user or consumer.