Social workers in public welfare services can be considered, according to Michael Lipsky theorization, street level bureaucrats. Lipsky (1980) defines as street level bureaucrats all public service workers who interact directly with citizens and have substantial discretion in the execution of their work. They are professionals who grant access to State programs and provide services within these programs; but they also operate in an environment where resources are chronically inadequate to the task they are asked to perform, where goals expectations tend to be ambiguous, conflicting or vague and where the demand for services tends to increase constantly to meet the supply.