The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which children participate in the social services childcare investigations but also what impact the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child had on the investigations according to the social workers. A qualitative method was used, and the study was based on six interviews with social workers from the Swedish social services working with childcare investigations with children in the ages between 0-18 years. The theoretical framework used in this study was Shiers model of pathways to participation. The result of this study shows that the social workers place themselves at least at the third level in Shiers model of pathways to participation while most of the respondents placed themselves at the fourth level of participation before the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Half of the respondents placed themselves higher on the model of pathways to participation regarding after the convention was incorporated. Although, most of the respondents agreed that the incorporation of the convention has not had any significant impact in practice and expressed that they do not work differently after the incorporation.

Barn enligt Barnkonventionen ska ges förutsättningar till att uttrycka sina åsikter i frågor som rör dem. Trots detta lyfts i tidigare forskning, samt av flertalet myndigheter, brister kring hur barn i praktiken görs delaktiga i barnavårdsutredningar. Syftet med studien är att undersöka socialsekreterares upplevelser och erfarenheter av hur de med stöd av arbetsmetoden Signs of Safety involverar barn i utredningar. Utifrån en kvalitativ ansats genomfördes sju semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialsekreterare i socialtjänsten som arbetar med barnavårdsutredningar utifrån Signs of Safety. Genom en tematisk analys framkom det att socialsekreterare kan identifiera en del hinder och svårigheter med delar av Signs of Safety men att de i hög grad anser att Signs of Safety stöttar dem till att involvera barn i utredningar. / According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children shall be provided the opportunity to express their views in all matters that affect them. Despite this, research and several public authorities highlight several shortcomings concerning the participation of children in child welfare practice. The purpose of the study is to investigate social workers' experiences with involving children when using the Signs of Safety working method. The study is based on a qualitative approach and seven semi-structured interviews with social workers in social services who work with child welfare assessments based on Signs of Safety. A thematic analysis indicated that social workers could identify some obstacles and difficulties with parts of Signs of Safety. However, they largely believe that Signs of Safety supports them to involve children.

The aim of this qualitative interview study is to describe and analyze social workers experiences of the measures to prevent client related violence in the Swedish child welfare with focus on protection of personal data as a specific preventive measure of client related violence. Data from six social workers was analyzed by means of a thematic analysis: The research show that the social workers experienced occurrence of client related violence in the Swedish child welfare is low due to defaulted definition, tolerance, and normalization of client related violence in the organizational culture. The measures to prevent client related violence is based on governmental routines and guidelines as well as the social workers' own knowledge about and ability to manage violence. An overall conclusion of the study is that social workers find their name as a central part of their profession. As a result of this, the study shows that the specific preventive measure protection of personal data is problematic partly due to the risk to impede the relationship with clients’ and partly due to the risk of disregarding clients’ right to legal certainty. Consequently, there is a need for other preventive measures.

Sedan införandet av nya socialtjänstlagen 1982 har socialtjänsten gått mot en alltmer tydlig specialisering. Specialiseringen gör samverkan mellan olika enheter nödvändig och det är också något som Socialstyrelsens riktlinjer förordar. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att undersöka socialsekreterares upplevelse av intern samverkan kring missbrukande föräldrar. Ett mål med studien är att synliggöra vilka främjande och hindrande faktorer socialsekreterarna ser i samverkansarbetet. Studiens material baseras på sju semistrukturerade intervjuer och är bearbetat med tematisk analys. I analysen av materialet används samverkans- och systemteori för att förstå, förklara samt organisera resultaten. De främjande faktorerna som socialsekreterarna upplever är att det finns en god kommunikation, att man har förmöten innan klientmöten, att det finns bra rutiner och stöd från ledning samt att man har goda relationer till sina kollegor. Hindren i samverkan utgörs främst av bristande förståelse för varandras arbetssätt, resursbrist samt stress och hög ärendebelastning. Resultaten visar att hindrande och främjande faktorer finns på olika nivåer ur ett systemteoretiskt perspektiv. På makronivå påverkas samverkansarbetet av lagar samt politiska- och ekonomiska beslut. Faktorer som påverkar samverkan på mesonivå utgörs av de organisatoriska förutsättningarna och innefattar exempelvis policys, stöd från ledning och resurser. På mikronivå påverkas arbetet av de interpersonella relationerna, kommunikationen samt roller och synsätt. / Since the introduction of the new Social Services Act in 1982, social services have moved towards an increasingly clear specialization. Specialization makes cooperation between different units necessary, and this is also something that the National Board of Health and Welfare's guidelines prescribe. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate social workers' experience of internal collaboration around abusing parents. One goal of the study is to make visible which promoting and hindering factors the social workers see in collaborative work. The study's material is based on seven semi-structured interviews and is processed with thematic analysis. In the analysis of the material, cooperation- and systems theory is used to organize, explain and understand the results. The promoting factors that the social workers experience is good communication, that you have pre-meetings before client meetings, that there are good routines and support from management and that you have good relationships with your colleagues. The obstacles in collaboration mainly consist of a lack of understanding of each other's working methods, a lack of resources as well as stress and a high caseload. The result shows that hindering and promoting factors exist at different levels from a perspective of systems theory. At the macro level, collaborative work is affected by laws as well as political and economic decisions. Factors that affect collaboration at the meso level are made up of the organizational conditions and include, for example, policies, support from management and resources. On a micro level, work is affected by interpersonal relationships, communication, roles and approaches.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att undersöka socialarbetarens förståelse av sekundär traumatisering, samt om de själva eventuellt upplevt eller påverkats av sekundär traumatisering. Studiens material baserar sig på semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialarbetare som arbetar med barn och unga, en målgrupp som anses vara särskilt sårbar för sekundär traumatisering, enligt tidigare forskning. Intervjumaterialet analyserades med hjälp av tematisk analys och utifrån teorierna resiliens och coping. Resultaten visade en brist på kunskap kring sekundär traumatisering hos respondenterna. Samtidigt pekar deras beskrivningar på att de själva upplever symtom på sekundär traumatisering. Studiens slutsats är att kunskap kring sekundär traumatisering saknas bland socialarbetare inom socialtjänsten trots att sekundär traumatisering är en risk för denna yrkesgrupp. / The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine social workers' conceptualisation of secondary traumatization, as well as whether they themselves experience symptoms of secondary traumatization or been affected. The study material is based on semi-structured interviews with social workers who work with children and young people, a group considered particularly vulnerable to secondary traumatization according to previous research. The interview material was analysed using thematic analysis and the theories of resilience and coping. The results indicated a lack of knowledge about secondary traumatization among the respondents. At the same time, their descriptions suggest that they themselves experience symptoms of secondary traumatization. The study's conclusion is that knowledge about secondary traumatization is lacking among social workers in social services, despite secondary traumatization being a risk for this professional group.

This study, a narrative analysis of it, deals with the term, home, its importance and the use of it by Child welfare investigators in the city of Malmö between the years 1930-1936. Commonly used and acknowledged, home stood for security and order while the term, street, had just the opposite meaning. Living in the countryside symbolized health and sensibility, while city life was considered to be cramped, dirty and immoral. The responsibility of achieving the liberals and conservatives ideal of a sunny, clean and orderly home was given to the woman of the house, as was the task of keeping the home morally correct, and providing the necessary atmosphere for proper upbringing of the children. Consequently, the basis of theory, using Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in regards to the conflicts between the upper and lower classes, and even theories of Jane Lewis of woman´s connection to home and family, have been the grounds for the study. The very detailed results show that home and morals play a major role in the investigations and prove above all, the intimacy between the home and woman.

Fallet ”Lilla hjärtat” föranledde en granskning samt en förändringsprocess av socialnämndernas sätt att arbeta med tvångsvård av barn. Förloppet som följde ledde fram till promemorian Barnets bästa när vård enligt LVU upphör som är framtagen av en utredare på Socialdepartementet. Utredaren presenterade fyra förslag på förändring av lagstiftningen som ämnar att stärka barnets bästa. Jag har genomfört en diskursanalys av promemorian med utgångspunkt i forskningsfrågan: Hur påverkar en specifik händelse, omdebatterad såväl medialt som politiskt, det sociala arbetets styrning? Det är tydligt att de lagförslag som utredaren presenterar har en påtaglig koppling till socialnämndens hantering och debatten kring fallet Lilla hjärtat. Därtill präglas promemorian av en rättslig diskurs som i och med översättningsprocessen från det sociala arbetets praktik till en rättslig praktik förenklar representationen av problemet vilket resulterar i att socialarbetarens maktposition befästs medan barn framställs som passiva mottagare av stöd och skydd. Om lagförslagen antas kommer de påverka den enskilda socialarbetarens handlingsutrymme inom området tvångsplacering av barn. / The case "Lilla hjärtat" led to an evaluation of the social welfare committees' way of working with compulsory care of children. The process that followed led to the memorandum “The child's best interests when care according to LVU ceases” prepared by an investigator at the Ministry of Social Affairs. The investigator presented four proposals for changes in the legislation that aim to strengthen the best interests of the child. I have conducted a discourse analysis of the memorandum based on the research question: How does a specific event, debated both in the media, and politically, affect the governance of social work? It is clear that the legislations presented by the investigator have a strong connection to the Social Welfare Board's handling of the case and the debate surrounding the case Lilla hjärtat. Moreover, the memorandum is characterized by a legal discourse which, through the translation process from social work practice to a legal practice, simplifies the representation of the problem, which results in the social worker's position of power being consolidated while children are portrayed as passive recipients of support and protection. If adopted, the legislations will affect the individual social worker's capacity of action in the area of child protection.

Syftet med den här studien är att belysa idag vuxna biologiska barns erfarenheter och upplevelser av att ha vuxit upp i familjehem samt bidra med kunskap och förståelse kring huruvida samhälleliga stödfunktioner stod i proportion till upplevda behov. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ ansats vars empiri inhämtats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Sammantaget har vi intervjuat åtta informanter. Empirin bearbetades enligt tillvägagångssätten i tematisk analys och utmynnade i ett antal teman och underteman vars innehåll analyserades i förhållande till teorierna Tvetydighet i familjegränser och tvetydig förlust (originaltitel på engelska; Theory of family boundary ambiguity and ambiguous loss) och Nya barndomssociologin samt till tidigare forskning kring ämnet biologiska barn i familjehem. Studien visar att biologiska barn i familjehems upplevelser och erfarenheter behöver förstås utifrån varje individs unika berättelse, vilka har bestått av såväl fördelar som utmaningar. Det utmärkande i resultatet är dock de viktiga och varaktiga relationerna som samtliga informanter utvecklade till några av de familjehemsplacerade barnen. Separationer och risk för separationer från familjehemsplacerade barn skapade känslor av oro, rädsla och stress som några av informanterna, till följd av bristande stöd från vuxna, inte hade tillräcklig möjlighet att bearbeta och förstå. De biologiska barnens tillgång till delaktighet, inkludering och information i frågor gällande de placerade barnen och familjehemsuppdraget, framstår som grundläggande komponenter för att uppdraget ska upplevas som mer eller mindre positivt eller utmanande. Resultatet av studien visar även på betydelsen av att de vuxna har kunskap om de biologiska barnens potentiella behov samt att de på ett flexibelt och lyhört sätt kan förhålla sig till dessa. Stödet behöver således utformas så att det står i proportion till det unika barnets behov. / The purpose of this study is to provide knowledge on today's adult biological children's experiences of having grown up in foster homes and contribute with knowledge and understanding about whether societal support functions were in proportion to perceived needs. The study is based on a qualitative approach whose empirical evidence is obtained through semi-structured interviews. In total, we have interviewed eight informants. The empirical work was processed according to the approach of thematic analysis and resulted in a number of themes and sub-themes whose content was analyzed in relation to the theories Theory of family boundary ambiguity and ambiguous loss as well as the New sociology of childhood and to previous research on the subject of biological children in foster homes. The study shows that biological children in foster care's experiences need to be understood based on each individual's unique story, which has consisted of both benefits and challenges. The distinguishing feature of the result is the important and lasting relationships that all informants developed with some of the children placed in foster homes. Separations and risk of separations from children placed in foster homes created feelings of anxiety, fear and stress that some of the informants, as a result of a lack of support from adults, did not have sufficient opportunity to process and understand. The biological children’s access to participation, inclusion and information in matters concerning the foster children and the foster home assignment appear to be fundamental components for the assignment to be perceived as more or less positive or challenging. The results of the study also show the importance of the adults having knowledge of the biological children's potential needs and that they can relate to them in a flexible and responsive way. The support thus needs to be designed so that it is proportionate to the unique child's needs.