Although the therapeutic effect of the alliance between the social worker and the client is widely recognized, the knowledge on what actually constitutes a successful alliance is limited. The factors at stake are mostly referred to as common factors and include the ability of the social worker to be warm, personal, caring and devoted towards the client. With a bidirectional perspective on the construct of agency Ester Goh (2015) among others has shown that the relationship between the social worker and the client could be regarded as a resource for therapeutic success that enable the client to bean active agent in the process in his or her process of change. The aim of this study is to increase the understanding of what resources a successful relationship between a socialworker and a young client carries in the respect of enabling agentic behavior in the young client. Method In a collaboration with a drug prevention program in the municipality of Ale in the south-western part of Sweden, young clients in the age between 14 and 18 will be interviewed together with their social worker regarding their mutual relationship. Rather than addressing the social issues, the interview will focus on the relationship as such in search for the narratives of the nature of their relationship. Each paired interview will be followed up by individual interviews with the social worker and the young client respectively. Expected results The study is expected to expand the knowledge on how social workers establish functional relationship with young clients, relationships that in turn represents an important resource for the voice of the young client in his or her own process of change.