Researchers have stressed the importance of addressing the social/emotional needs of early childhood (EC) children, including the development of resilience; however, some U.S. school personnel focus more on academics than on these needs. When young children possess these skills, they can handle social/emotional challenges later in life. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to explore school social workers' (SWs) perspectives about resilience in EC settings. Research questions focused on knowledge of existing programs, participants' perceptions of the successes and challenges of working with EC students, and their recommendations to improve EC students' education. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and O'Neill's and Gopnik's work on needs of young children informed this study. Five elementary school SWs with at least 6 years' experience from 5 districts in the U.S. Midwest participated in 2 semistructured individual interviews. Interpretive phenomenological analysis, involving first-cycle, transition, and second cycle coding, was used to identify themes. SWs' experiences indicated a need for a clear definition of resilience, and needs of young children, including EC programs that develop psychological resilience of children's thoughts and an increase in adults to promote resilience. Additional research may expand and enhance educators' and families' understanding of resilience and help develop research-based preventive programs and strategies to foster psychological resilience in young children. These endeavors may enhance positive social change by adding components of psychological resilience to EC programs for school personnel and students and in parent/family workshops, which may result in sound mental health practices that enable them to become productive members of society.

<p>The overall aim of the present thesis is to gain an understanding of the working life of social workers working in public social services in Crete. It is a three-phase study, consisting of three distinct but related research parts; each research part is built upon issues and questions derived from the preceding part. In this work, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed. Theoretical perspectives regarding the impact of the welfare environment on social welfare workers’ behaviour and on their well being as well as gender aspects of welfare work constitute the main theoretical framework.</p><p>The findings of this thesis reveal the significant impact of the organisational environment on social workers’ well being, on their effectiveness as well as on their coping behaviour with unsatisfactory organisational conditions. The main sources of social workers’ dissatisfaction were organisational and extrinsic work aspects; their main sources of satisfaction were intrinsic work aspects. Social workers found themselves facing ethically difficult situations arising from the organisations’ inability to cover clients’ needs as well as from difficulties concerning interprofessional relationships with their superiors or physicians.</p><p>The most common pattern of coping that social workers used in order to deal with unsatisfactory organisational conditions was the ‘active defensive’ kind of adjustment aiming mainly at offering clients temporary relief. They adjusted their work attitudes to reflect lower expectations of their work. As their professional orientation called for altruistic behaviour towards clients, social workers tried to find solutions within the resource constraints they encountered; they did not risk trying to change the limitations imposed by the employing agencies. Certain common beliefs, such as that offering clients temporary help was the best they could do under the organisational circumstances, contributed to the forming of a dominant view: “the culture of silence”, which resulted in the perpetuation of unsatisfactory organisational conditions.</p><p>There were influences on social workers’ coping behaviour which affected them in order to accept limitations in their work rather than challenge them. The inability of welfare programmes to cover social needs, organisational factors, factors related to gender and the insufficient amount of social workers’ knowledge limited their potential for intervention in order to improve unsatisfactory conditions. The most common patterns of coping resulted in the partial covering of clients’ needs. Social workers who used active strategies experienced frustration due to their limited effectiveness and the perpetuation of the organisational problems; most of them wanted to quit working in the organisation. The high job demands they experienced due to their efforts to deal with organisational constraints along with the low level of job control resulted in emotional exhaustion.</p>

The overall aim of the present thesis is to gain an understanding of the working life of social workers working in public social services in Crete. It is a three-phase study, consisting of three distinct but related research parts; each research part is built upon issues and questions derived from the preceding part. In this work, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed. Theoretical perspectives regarding the impact of the welfare environment on social welfare workers’ behaviour and on their well being as well as gender aspects of welfare work constitute the main theoretical framework. The findings of this thesis reveal the significant impact of the organisational environment on social workers’ well being, on their effectiveness as well as on their coping behaviour with unsatisfactory organisational conditions. The main sources of social workers’ dissatisfaction were organisational and extrinsic work aspects; their main sources of satisfaction were intrinsic work aspects. Social workers found themselves facing ethically difficult situations arising from the organisations’ inability to cover clients’ needs as well as from difficulties concerning interprofessional relationships with their superiors or physicians. The most common pattern of coping that social workers used in order to deal with unsatisfactory organisational conditions was the ‘active defensive’ kind of adjustment aiming mainly at offering clients temporary relief. They adjusted their work attitudes to reflect lower expectations of their work. As their professional orientation called for altruistic behaviour towards clients, social workers tried to find solutions within the resource constraints they encountered; they did not risk trying to change the limitations imposed by the employing agencies. Certain common beliefs, such as that offering clients temporary help was the best they could do under the organisational circumstances, contributed to the forming of a dominant view: “the culture of silence”, which resulted in the perpetuation of unsatisfactory organisational conditions. There were influences on social workers’ coping behaviour which affected them in order to accept limitations in their work rather than challenge them. The inability of welfare programmes to cover social needs, organisational factors, factors related to gender and the insufficient amount of social workers’ knowledge limited their potential for intervention in order to improve unsatisfactory conditions. The most common patterns of coping resulted in the partial covering of clients’ needs. Social workers who used active strategies experienced frustration due to their limited effectiveness and the perpetuation of the organisational problems; most of them wanted to quit working in the organisation. The high job demands they experienced due to their efforts to deal with organisational constraints along with the low level of job control resulted in emotional exhaustion.

This study regards the Swedish documentation system, BBiC, which is translated from the English version LACS. BBiC is created to make sure that the children’s needs are put in centre of attention in child protection investigations. The BBiC-system becomes problematic regarding unaccompanied refugee children because of the parent-perspective which is a keystone in the system. Therefor BBiC creates discretion for the social worker which is not BBiC: s original intension. The study’s aim was to understand how BBiC: s creates discretion for the social worker that works with unaccompanied refugee children. In the results of the study we show that the social workers discretion expands when using BBiC in the work with unaccompanied refugee children. Because of the lack of guidelines from Socialstyrelsen, BBiC is used differently in different municipalities. The social workers sees BBiC in different ways, some see BBiC as a complete system and has adapted BBiC well to the work with unaccompanied refugee children and therefore the discretion increases. Some has only adapted BBiC as a way of thinking and still has a large discretion. We use Lipskys theory about street-level bureaucracy and discretion. We selected the theory and its concept because it is relevant to analyze how BBiC has created discretion for the social workers that work with unaccompanied refugee children. With a large discretion there is also a risk of injustice safety for the unaccompanied refugee child. Therefor the legitimacy of municipality can be questioned. We preformed semi-structured interviews in eight municipalities in southern Sweden and had twelve interviewees. We have also done literary studies regarding Socialstyrelsens reports about BBiC and the research that concerning the implementation of BBiC.

The study aims to gain insight into how social workers perceive their psychosocial work environment and examine whether this effects the performance of their duties. The study mainly addresses the shortcomings of the psychosocial work environment of Social Services and the implications it entails for social workers health and wellbeing. The psychosocial work environment includes physical and psychological factors therefore the study's interpretive framework consists of organizational theoretical and social psychological concepts and previous research on the subject. We examined the organizational and social psychological connections to social workers perception of their work environment with a qualitative approach. The empirical data was collected through interviews with four social workers in a municipality in central Sweden using a semi-structured interview guide. The results led to the conclusions that challenge our preconceptions and gave us a nuanced perspective on social workers working conditions. The result of the study indicates that social service officials may not always be affected by adverse workplace conditions. Exceptions exist.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur socialarbetare på barn- och ungdomsavdelningen bedömer föräldrars omsorgsförmåga utifrån ett fiktivt fall. Vidare undersöks om det förekommer skillnader i bedömning angående föräldraförmågan utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Slutligen undersöks socialarbetares handlingsutrymme satt i relation till bedömningen. Studien baseras på en kvalitativ vinjettmetod som omfattar intervjuer med socialarbetare, där intervjuerna har utgått från konstruerade fallbeskrivningar, som är typiska för barnavårdsutredningar. Hälften av deltagarnas intervjuer utgår från en vinjett och hälften från en annan, men vinjetterna är detsamma förutom att föräldrarnas könstillhörighet är utbytta. Social konstruktionism tillämpas som vetenskaplig utgångspunkt i studien, vilken även används som ett teoretiskt begrepp i samspel med rollteori och genusteorier samt handlingsutrymme med lagstiftning. Resultatet visar att det förekommer skillnad i bedömning mellan vinjetterna, där samma egenskap upplevs olika beroende på förälderns könstillhörighet, vilket kan tyda på att synen på mödrar respektive fäder är olika. Det framkommer även att brister framhävs tydligare än förmågor samt att mödrar riskerar att anklagas för bristande omsorg av barn, men att det ändå är mödrar som har fördel i barnavårdsutredningar. Det kan medföra ojämlika bedömningar, där en anledning till åtskillnader och framhävandet av brister kan vara det snäva handlingsutrymmet som socialarbetarna befinner sig i. / The aim of this study was to examine how social workers on child and youth department assess a child’s parents based on a fictive case. Further, the aim was also to examine whether there are differences in assessment regarding the parenting skills based on a gender perspective. Finally, the aim was to examine the flexibility that social workers have in relation to their assessment. This study is based on a qualitative vignette methodology including interviews with social workers, where the interviews are based on a constructed case study, which are typical for child welfare investigations. Half of the participant’s interviews are based on one vignette and half on another, but the vignettes are the same except that the parent’s gender is changed with each other. Social constructionism is applied as a scientific base of the study, which is also used as a theoretical concept in interaction with role theory and gender theories and discretion with laws. The results show that there is differences in assessment between the vignettes, where the same characteristics are assessed differently depending on the parent's gender, which may indicate that the experience of mothers and fathers are different. It also shows that flaws are emphasized more clearly than abilities and that mothers may be accused of lack of care of the children, but still mothers have advantage in child welfare investigations. This can cause unequal assessments, where a reason for differences and the emphasis of flaws may be the tight discretion that social workers find themselves in.

Previous research shows that women who are victims of intimate partner violence and also have asubstance abuse have difficulties getting access to services to aid with their experience of violence.This study has examined social workers experiences of working with women with these problems,what types of services are provided and how their service needs are assessed. The study has ahermeneutical approach and the data consists of interviews with nine social workers in lines ofwork that come into contact with women in the previously described client group. The data hasbeen analyzed using content analysis. The result of the study indicates that women who are victimsof intimate partner violence and also have a substance abuse do not get their needs provided forthrough the current services in the field of social work. These women are described as havingcomplex problems and are therefore in need of more and other services than those currentlyprovided. The result suggests that these women need long-lasting and coordinated services and thatthere is a need for a shelter where this group of client is welcome. To get there work is needed fromthe social services, in part by reaching out to these women and in part by providing services toalleviate the feeling of guilt and shame these women are experiencing. The result indicates that thesocial services are not good at identifying both sides of the multi problematic these women haveand therefore have difficulties offering services adapted to the needs of these women. Instead eitherside of the problem is prioritized regarding services in the line of social work. Continued work isneeded to give this client group a higher priority because they are discriminated against based ontheir gender. / Tidigare forskning visar att våldsutsatta kvinnor med en missbruksproblematik har svårt att fåtillgång till insatser för sin våldsutsatthet. Denna studie har undersökt socialarbetares erfarenheterav att arbeta med kvinnor med denna problematik, vilka insatser som ges och hur deras insatsbehovbedöms. Studien har en hermeneutisk ansats och studiens datamaterial består av intervjuer med niosocialarbetare inom verksamheter som kommer i kontakt med kvinnor inom den ovan beskrivnaklientgruppen. Intervjumaterialet har analyserats med hjälp av innehållsanalys. Studiens resultatantyder att våldsutsatta kvinnor med ett missbruk inte får sina behov tillgodosedda genomnuvarande insatser inom socialtjänsten. Dessa kvinnor beskrivs ha en komplex problembild ochdärför behövs fler och andra insatser än vad den nuvarande insatsrepertoaren kan erbjuda. Resultatetpekar på att dessa kvinnor behöver långvariga och samordnade insatser samt att det finns behov avett eget skyddat boende där denna klientgrupp kan vistas. För att nå dit krävs ett arbete frånsocialtjänsten, dels med att nå ut till dessa kvinnor och dels med olika insatser för att minska denskuld och skam dessa kvinnor känner. Resultatet indikerar också att socialtjänsten är dålig på attidentifiera båda sidorna i dessa kvinnors multiproblematik och har därför svårigheter med atterbjuda insatser anpassade till dessa kvinnors behov. Istället prioriteras antingen den ena eller denandra delen i problemet när det gäller insatser i det sociala arbetet. Ett fortsatt arbete krävs med attge denna klientgrupp en högre prioritet då de diskrimineras utifrån sin könstillhörighet.

published_or_final_version / Social Service Management / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This PhD by published work consists of: • five single authored articles in refereed journals; • two main author articles in refereed journals; • four jointly authored articles in refereed journals; • a single authored article in a non-refereed journal; • one jointly authored book, including five single authored chapters; • two single authored chapters in edited books. They were published in the period 2003-2013. None has been submitted for any other degree or diploma by me or any other person. The theme running through these publications is the need for social workers to pay significant attention to issues arising from religion, belief and culture. The research reported highlights the impact of such issues on the lives, experiences, resources and responses of individuals, groups and communities for whom they are important. The work emphasises the importance of developing such understanding and of enhancing knowledge of different ways in which religion, belief and culture impact on the issues that social workers deal with. I suggest that these are essential aspects of culturally competent social work practice which have too often been neglected in both research and professional training. The publications are listed in Appendix 1 (pp 56-59). They demonstrate how my thinking has developed over the past decade. They reflect and are, in part, a response to the developing professional, theoretical and political context within which I have operated as a social work practitioner, manager and academic over a longer period. The majority are solo-authored. However, I remain committed to collaborative work and recognise that discussions with those researched, my collaborators, and others remain invaluable to the ongoing development of my thinking. Joint authorship declaration forms have been completed, in respect of all relevant publications, and are appended. Eight publications (Art.12, Art.11, Art.10, Art.9, Art.8, Art.6, Art.5 and Art.3) are based on findings from primary research, while Art.1 and Art.2 explore published data or data supplied by others to provide original analyses of particular issues. The remaining publications, notably book chapters, are primarily conceptual in their approach. They are underpinned by findings from both the primary research reported elsewhere and the use of case examples collected from semi-structured interviews with social work practitioners.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy