The purpose of this study is to illustrate how family home secretaries are discussing the conditions and importance of the biological children in foster families. Through this we want to gain an understanding of the subject and contribute with knowledge that can generate further research. Previous research shows that biological children are under prioritized in foster care. We were curious about what foster care secretary’s actually do for this group of individuals in their work. To get this information we interviewed six social workers who works with foster care. Our six informants were located in different municipalities in southern Sweden. The theoretical perspective we used were the norm of the core family, from private to public and the last theory we used were risk- and protection factors. The qualitative method for the study was semi- structured interviews that we transcribed and coded for our results. The results shows that the biological children gets often overridden due to the lack of resources and that the different municipalities argue differently about the need to support the biological children. The biological children in fosterfamilies has an important roll and meaning for the fosterchildren’s wellbeeing. Another result show that familychanges affects the biological children but the social workers dont’t reflect about that.

M.A. (Social Work) / Continuing education is an indispensable activity in any profession, including Social Work. The constant increase and renewal of knowledge and the learning and refining of practice skills are necessitated by the rate at which knowledge is generated in the twentieth century as well as rapid societal changes. At the same time the profession faces new demands, particularly those which are relevant to accountability, while social work aspirations towards professional status are sustained.Continuing education has for a very long time been an acknowledged and established component of social workers' activities, yet up till now, very little research has been done on this particular subject. In this study,· the following aspects of continuing education in Social Work are explored: it's principles and aims, the provision of training opportunities by educational institutions in South Africa and social workers' motivation for, participation in, and needs regarding continuing education. In chapter two, continuing education is defined in its relation to recurrent education, formal, non-formal and informal education, adult education and professional training. Attention is also paid to activities that constitute continuing education in Social Work. It is being argued that continuing education is supplementary to preparatory training, that it improves social workers' professional efficiency and that it stimulates the process of professionalization. Furthermore, it is instrumental in the provision of high level manpower for the profession and it contributes towards the maintenance of the corps of social workers by preventing professional burnout...

M.A. / 1. Motivation for the study Training programmes in sexuality education are limited within the social work curriculum of universities, although it seems to be important for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and also the emotional trauma that goes with early sexual behaviour. The past four years social work students at universities received additional courses in sexuality education. The aim thereof was to equip students with knowledge, attitudes and skills to conduct group counselling with adolescents. 2. Aim of the study The aim of the study is to develop a training programme in sexuality education for social work students through development research. 3. The integrated developmental research model In order to achieve the aim of the study, an integrated development research model was conceptualised. The model mainly consists of Nel and Nel's (1993) model in which four phases feature namely, the analysis, design, development and evaluation phases. Existing knowledge of sexuality education was utilised for the development of this training programme. In the analysis phase it was found that there is no existing training programme for social workers in sexuality education and that there is a need for the development of such a programme. There are however programmes for other disciplines such as nurses, medical doctors and psychologists, but the aim of these programmes is on therapy and not prevention. During the design phase the aims and objectives were formulated for the programme, a practice model was drawn up, a tentative presentation was made of the innovation suggestions and innovation procedures was determined. During the development phase the development plan had been formulated, planned pilot uses and developmental testing took place. The implementation of the pilot application and developmental testing resulted in a number of modifications of the programme. The results of the evaluation phase showed that the training programme succeeded to improve the social work students' knowledge and attitudes of sexuality education. This programme could be used within the curriculum of social work students. 4. Main finding It was found that a training programme in sexuality education could be created which met the initial research aim. Findings of the research showed that this programme made a positive contribution to the knowledge, attitude and skills of the social work students who attended the course.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of social workers working with unaccompanied children within municipal social service in Sweden. In particular, this study seeked better understanding of the possibilities and challenges social workers experience in their work and also highlight the differences and similarities in the work with unaccompanied children and children who are not unaccompanied. An abductive approach was used, moving between empirics and theories. The empirical data was collected through qualitative interviews with ten social workers with experience of working with both unaccompanied and children who are not accompanied. The results showed that the social workers working with the target group unaccompanied children felt that the work was more rewarding, in comparison to those who didnt work with the target group. Further, the social workers experienced that the unaccompanied children were not as prioritised as other children and that the language within the social services categorized the unaccompanied children as an own group. Accordingly the social workers felt there were more challenges in working with unaccompanied children. The hope is that this study will be an eye opener for the social work, and stop the separation of unaccompanied children into its own group.

The aim of this study was to examine how foster-care workers use their discretion, also how they evaluate foster-care investigations and which criteria affects the outcome of the investigations. Our focus group were social workers from four middle-sized municipalities and two social workers from the private sector. Two overall themes were identified after our interviews, both with underlying themes: discretion during investigation and criteria for foster-care takers.The analysis was based on previous research and theory. Our main conclusions were that social workers’ discretion is affected by the guidelines and methods established at their workplace. Also that the criterias for foster-care takers depends on the situation, but the foster child needs his or her own room in the home and the foster parent can not appear in criminal records.

A report on a study project presented to the Department of Social Work, School of Human and Community Development, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts by course work and research report in Occupational Social Work. September 2016. / Social work in South Africa is challenged by high caseloads, dangerous working environments and poor remuneration (Social Work Indaba, 2015). These challenges combined with high voluntary staff turnover rates (40.4% in 2006) have negative consequences for the protection of South Africa`s vulnerable children (Earle-Malleson (2009). In this context, supervision is often proposed as a potential cure-all for the tensions in social work. This study utilises an instrumental case study design to describe and explore child protection social workers’ perceptions of supervision and retention. The key aim of the study is to interrogate the role of effective social work supervision on a social worker’s decision to leave the employment of a child protection organisation in Gauteng. Twelve participants were identified through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. Utilising a semi structured interview schedule, face to face interviews were conducted with each participant. The data obtained from the interviews was transcribed and analysed thematically. The research findings yielded concerning results on the supervision the participants had received with only 25% of the participants indicating that they found their supervision supportive and educational. High levels of organisational disengagement were noted, which created an organisational climate of neglect. This contributed indirectly to ten participant’s decision to resign as a lack of supervision heightened their frustrations with the system and their increased perceptions of child protection work as monotonous. A lack of a supportive and educational focus also closed off opportunities for participants to grow as social workers and learn adaptive coping skills. This led to some participants feeling emotionally overwhelmed. Both of these factors were cited as reasons for exiting child protection organisations. These findings reaffirm the importance of supervision as a reflexive process and provide insight into the targeting of interventions aimed at retaining child protection social workers in South Africa. Keywords: Child protection; retention; effective supervision; job embeddedness; social worker; disengagement; voluntary staff turnover / GR2017

The Department of Social Work, School of Human and Community Development, Faculty of Humanities, the University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in the field of Social Development / The social work profession has long regarded professional supervision as central to the maintenance of best practices and has taken a leadership role in asserting the significance of supervision in human service settings. The goal of the study was to explore the experiences of child protection social workers with regards to supervision. The study utilized a qualitative research approach. Through a case study design, the researcher explored the experiences of a purposively sampled group of child protection social workers in Johannesburg on supervision. The researcher gathered qualitative data by carrying out face to face interviews with a total sample of twelve participants drawn from two child protection organizations based in the Johannesburg area. The study established that group supervision, individual supervision and peer supervision are the three main types of supervision utilised by child protection organisations, with group supervision being the most commonly used method. Furthermore, the study discovered that supervision plays three main functions in the work of child protection social workers, namely educational, supportive and administrative functions. The study also exposed numerous challenges faced by child protection social workers in their supervision of their daily work. In view of the study’s findings and conclusions in relation to the experiences of child protection social workers in supervision, the researcher proposes that child protection organisations need to utilise the most effective types of supervision which are beneficial to both the organisation and, more importantly, the clients they serve. / GR2017

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. February 2016 / South Africa is regarded as one of the most violent countries in the world. Colonialism and apartheid laid the foundations for a divided and segregated society where violence was accepted as a legitimate means of conflict resolution in order to ensure the domination of one racial group over all other groups. As social and economic inequalities have become more entrenched in South African society, criminal violence has escalated. However, the nature of violence in the country has changed from political violence to criminal violence. Against this backdrop of violence and associated trauma, the South African Police have the insurmountable task of trying to maintain law and order. The science of traumatology is a burgeoning field; traditionally empirical research has focused on the responses of primary trauma victims. However, in recent decades the secondary effects of traumatisation on those who counsel the victims of primary trauma, has received significant attention. Located within the South African Police Service, is an often forgotten secondary group of professionals who assist the police officials through assuming the roles of occupational and forensic social work. The profession of social work is inherently stressful and demanding, especially in a country like South Africa, where social problems are ubiquitous and pervade every facet of South African society. Furthermore, a particular occupational stressor significantly impacting on these social workers as they investigate child abuse or provide counselling for a police officer, is secondary traumatisation. The questions arise: firstly, how these social workers are affected by the amount of traumatic material to which they are exposed by the very nature of their work, and secondly, what coping strategies they employ. It was therefore deemed imperative to explore the effects of secondary traumatisation experienced by these social workers in the South African Police Service in order to understand and ameliorate the negative effects of secondary traumatic stress. Furthermore, social work supervisors can enhance the quality of care their social workers provide to clients if they are adequately supported. It was therefore also considered necessary to explore the stressors these social workers experience and to identify the necessary support mechanisms appropriate to such therapeutic endeavors. The primary aim of this study was therefore to explore the nature and extent of secondary traumatic stress experienced by social workers employed by the South African Police Service. The research design adopted for this study was exploratory, descriptive and correlational, while the research methodology employed was a hybrid of both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. As this study involved an in-depth analysis of a bounded system comprising social workers employed at SAPS, the research was considered a case study. The study comprised two phases: In the first phase questionnaire booklets containing seven standardised research tools and open-ended questions, were administered in group settings. In addition, questionnaires were posted to social workers who were not able to attend the group meetings along with a self-addressed envelope. The research tools measured the nature of secondary trauma exposure, levels of secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion satisfaction, burnout, coping resources and dimensions of the work environment. Two hundred questionnaire booklets were distributed and 128 usable questionnaires were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data, through the use of statistical programmes, SAS and SPSS. In the second stage of the study, 30 participants who participated in the first part of the study and who indicated that they were willing to be interviewed, were purposively selected. A structured research tool was used to guide the interview in order to explore the participants’ perceptions and experiences of secondary trauma while working for SAPS. The interviews were conducted either face-to face, telephonically or through Skype. The qualitative data that emerged from the interviews were analysed through the use of Atlasti, a qualitative computer programme, which assisted the researcher in the thematic analysis. Through the process of incorporating qualitative techniques, the researcher also made use of reflexivity when analysing the qualitative data. In total 128 social workers participated in the study, of whom 102 were occupational social workers while 26 were forensic social workers, all located within South Africa. The extent of exposure to secondary trauma varied substantially between both occupational and forensic social work when considered as separate divisions, as well as within each discipline. This variation manifested in frequencies and duration of cases. In the interviews forensic social workers identified particularly traumatic cases as those where the sexual abuse was severe or the child had died as a result of extreme abuse. In comparison, occupational social workers identified some of the worst cases they had dealt with as cases where the police officers became disabled; and where they were required to deal with police suicides and police family murders or femicide-suicides. Most participants presented with high or average levels of secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma as well as with moderate and low levels of burnout. Furthermore, there was a strong positive correlation between levels of secondary traumatic stress and burnout. The majority of participants experienced average levels of compassion satisfaction from their work. Participants identified various coping strategies and resources incorporating different individual dimensions, namely, physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual. Participants showed high levels of resilience and findings indicated that resilience was negatively correlated with vicarious trauma. There were numerous significant differences between the different ranks of the participants. Participants of higher rank reported greater trauma exposure and had significantly higher secondary traumatic scores. Coloured participants experienced significantly lower levels of vicarious traumatisation than Black participants. Furthermore, there were numerous statistically significant differences apparent between the forensic and occupational social workers. Forensic social workers manifested significantly higher levels of vicarious trauma than occupational social workers, and forensic social workers had greater distortions regarding self-intimacy than occupational social workers. In addition, forensic social workers presented with lower coping resources and lower levels of resilience than occupational social workers. Participants also experienced below average levels of satisfaction within the work environment at SAPS. The results from the work environment scale showed that in particular the relationship aspects in the work environment were problematic and that colleague support levels were below average. There were also significant differences in work satisfaction levels between Black and White participants. These findings enhance understanding of trauma in racially polarised societies. Multivariate analysis revealed the complex relationships existing between the numerous variables in the study, further contributing to the theory of trauma in divided societies. Two structural equation models were developed to show the relationships of the variables measured in the study which were identical apart from the vicarious trauma variable which was separated to incorporate beliefs about self and beliefs about others. The models revealed that coping mechanisms moderated the relationship between traumatic stress exposure and vicarious trauma (self) and that such mechanisms moderated the resilience and burnout relationship. These findings of the study highlight the need to involve social workers at SAPS in the drafting and implementation of a self-care policy which would help to promote empowerment and responsibility of social workers for their own mental health. Recommendations for social work policy, education, practice, supervision and support as well as future research are also provided. / MT2017

Uppsatsen har syftat till att undersöka socialsekreterares upplevelser och erfarenheter med digitalisering inom försörjningsstöd. Sju socialsekreterare som arbetar med försörjningsstöd i sju olika kommuner har deltagit i kvalitativa intervjuer. Empirin från intervjuerna har analyserats utifrån de teoretiska perspektiven McDonalidisering, domänteori samt nyinstitutionalism. Resultatet visar att delaktighet är en viktig parameter för ett lyckat införande av digitala tjänster inom försörjningsstöd och särskilt att det finns en osäkerhet i samband med fortsatt digitalisering och att få en robot som medarbetare. Det finns även en oro att tjänster kommer minskas när arbetet förändras och det upplevs finnas en diskrepans mellan politiken och professionella gällande prioriteringar och vilka förbättringar verksamheterna behöver. Samtidigt är tillgängligheten och frigjord tid som digitaliseringen erbjuder något alla informanter lyfter som en viktig aspekt av arbetet med försörjningsstöd. Informanterna anser att frigjord tid från handläggning istället ska utveckla möten med klienter och att det sociala arbetet därmed kan förbättras. / The purpose of this study was to examine experiences social workers have within digitalization in social welfare. Seven social workers from seven different municipalities was interviewed. The empirical data from the interviews have been analyzed with McDonaldization, domain theory and new institutionalism. The result show that participation in the introduction of digital services is a key parameter for success especially since the informants expresses insecurity in having a robot as a co-worker in the future. There was also a concern that services will be reduced when the work changes and a discrepancy between the politics and professional priorities and which improvements the organisations need. Availability and released time are something all the informants think is important, and that digitalization can help implement. The informants believe that released time from administrative work instead should focus on meetings with clients and that the social work thereby can be improved.

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