What are your thoughts on the term 'Front-Line Workers'?

ARGHHHHHH.......I don't like any of the terms used to describe what we do/are for all the reasons shared already and 2 more-most terms are either too professional/unprofesional-sounding or too Union'non-union sounding. The same is also true for the 2 I am going to offer......just that they are better and from our expeience work from a normalizing community-based perspective: 1. Whatever(fill in the blank) Counsellor or
2.Community Treatment Professional

I guess we'll just have to keep looking and don' t even start with what's wrong with the term VISITS  to describe, measure, or justify what we do.

What about the term "Client"? Is that still okay to be used universally? If so, what is it about that particular term that makes it okay and can we use it (and other terms such as "Counsellor","Community Treatment Professional", Caregiver, etc) as a starting point to create Linguistic (is that the right word?) guidelines to begin sifting through old terms and changing/adding new ones?

My opinion: we should be guided more by what the client ("recipient of service") perceives as our role/action, and overall have less juristiction in the semantics. This is I believe the direction "recovery"is taking us. Standardization of language should not be attempted without input from the people we are trying to help. This should make it more difficult to determine "outcome measures", but that too needs more input from you-know-who... 

I agree. With language, context is everything, so I think standardization can be tricky. One approach is to avoid labeling entirely where possible and talk about "the person providing a service", or "the person providing care" or "the person... " whatever it is specifically they are doing in that particular scenario. Of course this is easier said than done depending on the form on communication.

As a youth with lived experience, I extremely dislike the term "front-line worker."

I find it very demeaning, and similar to someone "going to battle."

I feel like we, as a society and a MHA sector we work towards creating my positive language.

Well said!

"Hard to Serve" one of the more disturbing ones I've encountered over the years.

...Oh my, that's not too far from calling someone "Disgruntled".

"Hard to serve" sounds more like ice cream. Not client-centred language at all!

How about "Frequent Flyers"? I have heard this term used so many times in meetings. I think we should have a reward system in place then for these folks, since they are obviously not getting what they need over and over again. Shouldn't we then apologize and compensate them for the service failure?

Yeah and give them prizes too!

Seriously, language is everything! It puts everything into perspective and most importantly CONTEXT.

I'm just now catching up on this incredibly helpful thread, so thank you to everyone who has contributed to this so far! I am guilty of using the term "front line worker" as recently as a few minutes ago and while I have questioned it, I never really thought of it in the ways it's been explained here. I liken it more to someone who has direct interaction with the person who requires assistance rather than someone like me, who can be helpful in a system navigation kind of way, which I think as more of a "behind-the-scenes" or secondary role.

I also use the phrase "complex needs" quite often to describe a variety of situations that involve multiple, competing, cross-jurisdictional needs that do not fit neatly into any one service system or sector.

This is a really helpful exercise to keep me mindful of the power of language!

Glad you found the thread helpful, Amy!