<p>The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the organization, resources and practice of pupil welfare work in municipal compulsory schools. In one study, telephone interviews with head masters from a random sample of 100 municipal compulsory schools have been carried out. A second study is based on material from two case studies, where the work of the pupil welfare team members and the everyday organizing of pupil welfare, are scrutinized.</p><p>The distribution of special pupil welfare resources varied considerably. Almost one-third of the variation could be explained by organizational and structural variables included in a regression analysis. Practically all schools in the sample had a school nurse, while school social workers and in particular school psychologists, were available to a lesser extent. Regarding the latter two professions, the results indicate that these resources are allocated to pupils of different age groups. The involvement of different kinds of municipal service in pupil welfare work is becoming a common form of organization. The case studies show that these service units can become influential actors in the organizing of local pupil welfare work. </p><p>School nurses appear to be an institutionalized resource, with regard to their presence in schools and the content of their work. The school social worker lacks a specific technology of her own that distinguishes her work from other professions. School social work is performed by several professions and for some tasks domain conflicts can arouse. These conflicts can to a certain degree be rooted in the enhanced consultative role of the pupil welfare specialists, which affects the division of labour between the actors. The pupil welfare meetings studied in the case studies where characterized by asymmetrical relationships, where little space were given for pupils and their parents to be actively involved in the decision-making process. </p>

<p>The purpose of this study is to examine what professionals tell about stress, rewards, impact and treatment in the professional treatment with young sexual offenders. Eleven qualitative interviews of half-structured design brought up results about the professional role in the treatment process. During the interviews the professionals described which methods of treatment they work with. We examined the methods through literature research, which was added to the study whit the purpose of strengthening the interview data. The professionals consider their work important and meaningful and they feel safe in their working role. They differentiated between the person and the actions in their view of a young offender, which non professionals many times are incapable of doing. There was no single factor causing the development of offensive behaviour, but rather a combination of factors. It was something that the professionals and researchers in the field agreed upon. In the professional work place they experienced both strains and rewards. Signs of stress could occur in terms of powerlessness, not feeling complete in their work. This could be due to work being a burdensome in itself and lack of professionalism working with the young offenders. The rewards in working with youth took many forms, including satisfaction when making progress, and motivated them to continue whit their work and to develop it even more. Methods of treatment for young sexual offenders were cognitive behavioural therapy, psychodynamic theory, individual therapy, group therapy, environmental therapy, aggression replacement training and network therapy. The professionals found themselves having a lot of room for professionalism in their work although it also had challenges. The professionals said that it is always a challenge working whit young sexual offenders.</p> / <p><p>Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vad professionella berättar om påfrestningar, belöningar, påverkan och behandling i det professionella behandlingsarbetet med unga sexuella förövare. Utifrån elva kvalitativa intervjuer med en halvstrukturerad design framkom resultat om den professionella rollen i behandlingsarbetet. I intervjuerna tog de professionella upp vilka behandlingsmetoder de arbetade med, som vi undersökte genom litteratursökningar som tillkommit i studien med syfte att förstärka intervjudatan. De professionella ansåg sitt arbete viktigt och meningsfullt samt att de kände sig trygga i sin arbetsroll. De skiljde på person och handling i sin syn på en ung förövare, vilket de inte upplevde allmänheten hade förmåga till alla gånger. Det var ingen ensam faktor som gjorde att ett förövarbeteende utvecklades. Snarare var det en kombination av faktorer. Det var något som styrktes både av de professionella och forskare inom området. I det professionella arbetet kände de av både påfrestningar och belöningar. Påfrestningarna kunde yttra sig i vanmakt av att inte känna sig klara i sitt arbete, det kunde bero på det tunga området i sig samt brist på fler professionella som arbetade med de unga förövarna. Belöningar fanns i arbetet, som tog sig många former, bland annat glädje över olika framsteg med de unga som motiverade dem till att fortsätta med det arbete som tidigare gjorts samt utveckla det mer. Arbetet innebar en viss påverkan, både positivt och negativt beroende på vilken situation de befann sig i. Behandlingsmetoder för unga sexuella förövare var kognitiv beteendeterapi, psykodynamisk teori, individuell terapi, gruppterapi, miljöterapi, aggression replacement training samt nätverksarbete. I behandlingsarbetet upplevde de professionella sig ha stort utrymme för professionalitet som även innebar utmaningar.</p></p>

<p>In this dissertation, I explore a quite unique legal situation, namely administrative court hearings relating to coercive interventions: the Care of Young Persons Act (LVU), Care of Abusers (Special Provisions) Act (LVM), and the Compulsory Psychiatric Care Act (LPT). There are three central participatory roles in the court hearings: The official party is the authority who files the application for coercive intervention – either a chief psychiatrist or a social welfare board (typically represented by a social worker or sometimes a lawyer assisted by a social worker), whereas the citizen party is the person about whom the application is brought. The citizen party is represented by a legal representative. The professionals represent two different logics: therapeutic and judicial.</p><p>The purpose of this dissertation has been to study the tension between therapeutic and judicial logic in court hearings relating to compulsory care. With theoretical concepts from Scott (1995) and Wetherell & Potter (1998), it is possible to say that the therapeutic and judicial logics are built up by institutional elements that are communicated through interpretative repertoires. Three questions are central:</p><p>1. How do professional participators handle the different role expectations embedded in therapeutic and judicial logic? In this case, I am particularly interested in role conflicts faced by social workers and psychiatrists.</p><p>2. How do different institutional elements (regulative, normative/cognitive) play out in the court hearings?</p><p>3. To what extent can these court hearings be considered a scrutinizing order of discourse, where the arguments of official party are subjected to critical examination?</p><p>In my analysis I am inspired by both critical discourse analysis and organizational theory, more precisely, new institutionalism. These two perspectives provide useful insights and make it possible to combine the micro- and macro levels in the analysis. Data for the analysis consist of 43 court hearings and 31 interviews, gathered from two different county administrative courts in Sweden. All written documents used and produced by the courts are also part of our data.</p><p>The dissertation consists of five studies that indicate that the court hearings hardly can be described as a scrutinising order of discourse. In spite of this, the court constantly finds that the legal criteria for coercive intervention are satisfied. Neither the official party nor the legal representative argue according to a judicial logic. Instead, therapeutic logic dominates the order of discourse. When the arguments for compulsory care are therapeutic, they are not explicitly related to the criteria in the law. In my interpretation, the reason why the conflict between therapeutic and judicial logic is not realised can be found in the existence of a logic of normalisation. This ideological logic of normalisation can be found in most of the institutions in the Swedish society and are built on the idea of traditional welfare norms.</p>

Since the end of the 1980s, the introduction of market mechanisms in the public sector has been a dominant feature in Sweden. The same is true for the social services in several municipalities, where business style behaviour and organisation, and competition have become salient features of market-oriented social services. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse: the structural conditions for market oriented personal social services; how social workers pursue client centred work in market oriented personal social services; the consequences of this market orientation on the personal social services. The empirical study is a case study of the personal social services in the municipality of Linköping. The purchaser-provider model in Linköping is one of the most advanced and discussed in Sweden. The research comprises a quantitative pilot study and a qualitative main study. The main study is based on twenty semi-structured interviews with experienced social workers and their immediate superiors. The analysis of the interviews reveals that the personal social services are only achieving to a lesser extent the ends that a quasi-market, theoretically, should achieve. The conditions that have to be satisfied to achieve the ends of the quasi-market are only partly met. Bureaucratic control is one important reason why the personal social services are imperfect as a quasi- market. The re-organisation has resulted in a number of, to some extent, positive consequences. The re-organisation has, however, also resulted in some negative consequences. In the thesis these are categorised in terms of fragmentation, antagonism and obscurity. A linguistic change, in market oriented personal social services, appears to have influenced social workers to think and act differently in relation to their work. The most important conclusion drawn from the study is that the market oriented personal social services partly function as a responsive quasi-market for strong, rational and well- informed clients. However, in relation to the most vulnerable, it is failing in many respects. / digitalisering@umu

The aim of this study was to examine and analyze the experiences which social workers have of working with relatives of substance abusers. This included examining how they work with relatives who are in need of care and support and how the social workers identify their needs. We have also investigated how well informed the social workers are when it comes to approaches to helping relatives of substance abusers. A qualitative method has been used in this study in order to analyze the experiences of the social workers from a phenomenological point of view. This study was based on six semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that the relatives of substance abusers could receive help from a majority of the agencies but that most of the approaches to helping them were lacking in structure. Another result showed that relatives could not be accepted as clients at a majority of the agencies which presented a difficulty to working with relatives of substance abusers.

The purpose of this study is to examine what professionals tell about stress, rewards, impact and treatment in the professional treatment with young sexual offenders. Eleven qualitative interviews of half-structured design brought up results about the professional role in the treatment process. During the interviews the professionals described which methods of treatment they work with. We examined the methods through literature research, which was added to the study whit the purpose of strengthening the interview data. The professionals consider their work important and meaningful and they feel safe in their working role. They differentiated between the person and the actions in their view of a young offender, which non professionals many times are incapable of doing. There was no single factor causing the development of offensive behaviour, but rather a combination of factors. It was something that the professionals and researchers in the field agreed upon. In the professional work place they experienced both strains and rewards. Signs of stress could occur in terms of powerlessness, not feeling complete in their work. This could be due to work being a burdensome in itself and lack of professionalism working with the young offenders. The rewards in working with youth took many forms, including satisfaction when making progress, and motivated them to continue whit their work and to develop it even more. Methods of treatment for young sexual offenders were cognitive behavioural therapy, psychodynamic theory, individual therapy, group therapy, environmental therapy, aggression replacement training and network therapy. The professionals found themselves having a lot of room for professionalism in their work although it also had challenges. The professionals said that it is always a challenge working whit young sexual offenders. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vad professionella berättar om påfrestningar, belöningar, påverkan och behandling i det professionella behandlingsarbetet med unga sexuella förövare. Utifrån elva kvalitativa intervjuer med en halvstrukturerad design framkom resultat om den professionella rollen i behandlingsarbetet. I intervjuerna tog de professionella upp vilka behandlingsmetoder de arbetade med, som vi undersökte genom litteratursökningar som tillkommit i studien med syfte att förstärka intervjudatan. De professionella ansåg sitt arbete viktigt och meningsfullt samt att de kände sig trygga i sin arbetsroll. De skiljde på person och handling i sin syn på en ung förövare, vilket de inte upplevde allmänheten hade förmåga till alla gånger. Det var ingen ensam faktor som gjorde att ett förövarbeteende utvecklades. Snarare var det en kombination av faktorer. Det var något som styrktes både av de professionella och forskare inom området. I det professionella arbetet kände de av både påfrestningar och belöningar. Påfrestningarna kunde yttra sig i vanmakt av att inte känna sig klara i sitt arbete, det kunde bero på det tunga området i sig samt brist på fler professionella som arbetade med de unga förövarna. Belöningar fanns i arbetet, som tog sig många former, bland annat glädje över olika framsteg med de unga som motiverade dem till att fortsätta med det arbete som tidigare gjorts samt utveckla det mer. Arbetet innebar en viss påverkan, både positivt och negativt beroende på vilken situation de befann sig i. Behandlingsmetoder för unga sexuella förövare var kognitiv beteendeterapi, psykodynamisk teori, individuell terapi, gruppterapi, miljöterapi, aggression replacement training samt nätverksarbete. I behandlingsarbetet upplevde de professionella sig ha stort utrymme för professionalitet som även innebar utmaningar.

The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the organization, resources and practice of pupil welfare work in municipal compulsory schools. In one study, telephone interviews with head masters from a random sample of 100 municipal compulsory schools have been carried out. A second study is based on material from two case studies, where the work of the pupil welfare team members and the everyday organizing of pupil welfare, are scrutinized. The distribution of special pupil welfare resources varied considerably. Almost one-third of the variation could be explained by organizational and structural variables included in a regression analysis. Practically all schools in the sample had a school nurse, while school social workers and in particular school psychologists, were available to a lesser extent. Regarding the latter two professions, the results indicate that these resources are allocated to pupils of different age groups. The involvement of different kinds of municipal service in pupil welfare work is becoming a common form of organization. The case studies show that these service units can become influential actors in the organizing of local pupil welfare work. School nurses appear to be an institutionalized resource, with regard to their presence in schools and the content of their work. The school social worker lacks a specific technology of her own that distinguishes her work from other professions. School social work is performed by several professions and for some tasks domain conflicts can arouse. These conflicts can to a certain degree be rooted in the enhanced consultative role of the pupil welfare specialists, which affects the division of labour between the actors. The pupil welfare meetings studied in the case studies where characterized by asymmetrical relationships, where little space were given for pupils and their parents to be actively involved in the decision-making process.

The purpose of this study was to inquire how social workers perceive and describe financial abuse of older persons. Six qualitative interviews were carried out and the assembled data was then categorized and analyzed using a theory considering exercise of power and ageism as a theoretical frame. Previous research has shown that at least 10% of older persons have been exposed to some form of abuse or violence; however, there is a lack of research carried out in a Swedish context regarding financial abuse specifically. The six persons interviewed in this study all presented financial abuse as some kind of violence and as previous research has shown the study suggests that this is an increasing problem. Further research ought to be carried out to increase the awareness of this particular form of abuse and to facilitate discovery and development of measures to prevent financial abuse of older persons. The result of this study as well as previous research indicates that there is a high amount of unrecorded cases; therefore, it is hard to define financial abuse since the use of the term varies among different contexts and that the term consists of very differing examples.

The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine attitudes among social workers, particularly their attitudes toward their clients’ poverty and towards economic counseling as a method. A further aim was to study the relationship between attitudes towards poverty and economic counseling. Primary data used for the study was assembled among social workers (n = 111) with the use of an electronic questionnaire that was sent out to social welfare offices in 34 city districts in Stockholm,Gothenburg and Malmö. The findings showed that a majority of the social workers had a structural understanding of poverty and a positive attitude towards economic counseling. No correlations were found between the attitudes towards poverty and towards economic counseling. Although economic counseling can be seen as a method for individual change, the social workers had a positive attitude towards using it with clients’ whose inability to support themselves was interpreted as structurally implied. This was understood as a means to minimize the negative effects of poverty and as a way to go beyond administrative tasks. Through Giddens duality of structure theory, economic counseling was interpreted as a way of affecting the structurally caused problem of poverty by changing the actions of the client.

The aim of this study is to examine social workers' and social work students' attitudes towards people living with hiv in Sweden. I will also examine if there is a connection between knowledge and attitudes. The questions at issue are how social workers' and social work students' attitudes can assume to influence on their professional practice and what causes can affect their attitudes towards people living with hiv. The study is based on a qualitative method. The methods have been: conversational interviews with five social workers, who work with family issues and integration, and a focused group interview with four social work students. Both forms of interviews were combined with the vignette method. The theoretical framework of this study is symbolic interactionism. The result of the study indicates that both the social work students and the social workers lack adequate knowledge about hiv, however, the respondents are capable of reflecting and are able to put themselves into others' situations and therefore they will not discriminate their clients because of their disease. Results of the study also indicate that there is a great ambiguity among all of the respondents because of the lack of knowledge and adequate education.