The purpose of the study was to examine how social workers view their role's responsibilities, opportunities and challenges in young people's school success, in child care investigations. This important aspect in society has not, according to the authors of this essay, been sufficiently addressed in the past, especially not in child care investigations. The study consists of qualitative semi-structured interviews with nine social workers within two municipalities' individual and family care. The result was analyzed against the background of the systems theory and street-level bureaucracy. The result was compared with previous research, based on the concepts of school success, social workers's responsibility, cooperation, efforts, time frame and reporting of concerns. The results showed that school success includes grades, attendance and well-being. The opposite; school failure, seems to be a structural societal problem and not at all the young person's responsibility. In child care investigations, social workers, social services, parents, schools and psychiatry are responsible, but the boundaries within the system are sometimes very diffuse. The informants believe that they themselves, in individual conversations with the young person, and in collaboration with parents, the school and, to some extent, psychiatry, have opportunities to influence school success in child care investigations. Cooperation works to some extent with the school, but is lacking with psychiatry. The challenges with school success are further that school affairs have low interest among social workers, also in the organization, it’s not prioritized as an educational area, lack interventions and involve legal limitations.

In this essay the aim is to analyse the Social orientation course as a part of the Establishment program of newly arrived immigrants in Sweden. The questions I intend to answer through qualitative interviews and analysis of policy documents are: What factors limit the local work with refugees and immigrants within the framework of the Social orientation course as an establishment effort? How is the Social orientation course as a part of the Establishment Reform implemented in Växjö Municipality? And, how can the result of the Social orientation course in the local context be explained by the theory of street-level bureaucracy? In the light of Michael Lipsky’s theory about street-level bureaucracies the study contributes to a better understanding of the factors that limit the work with Social orientation as an establishment effort. The result shows that the local work with newly arrived immigrants in Sweden is much influenced and limited by the features of street-level bureaucracies: the resources are inadequate to the task, goal expectations are vague and conflicting, goal achievement is difficult to measure, and the clients do not serve as bureaucratic reference groups. The limitations result in an introduction program which is an inadequate basis for successful integration of immigrants. This knowledge of the outcomes of the Establishment Reform is of great importance for the newly arrived immigrants in Sweden to whom the reform is directed, as well as for the policy makers.

Fler länder har under Covid-19-pandemin rapporterat att deras restriktioner har inneburit en ökning av våld i nära relation. I Sverige har socialtjänsten det yttersta ansvaret att erbjuda stöd och hjälp till en våldsutsatt kvinna. Under pandemin förväntas socialtjänsten att ge ett likartat stöd som innan pandemin trots de uppmaningar och restriktioner som utfärdats. Syftet med denna studie är således att undersöka hur socialsekreterare upplever sitt arbete med kvinnor som utsätts för våld i nära relation under rådande pandemi. Studien är baserad på material från åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialsekreterare från olika kommuner i Sverige. Michael Lipskys (2010) teori om gatubyråkrati används för att undersöka och förstå socialsekreterarnas handlingsutrymme i relation till den våldsutsatta kvinnan under rådande pandemi. Vidare används Randall Collins (2004) teori om interaktionsritualer för att förstå sammanhanget som studiens socialsekreterare och de våldsutsatta kvinnorna befinner sig. Studiens resultat visar att socialsekreterarnas arbete karaktäriseras av flera aspekter, bland annat av den betydelse som motivations- och informationsarbetet har för att etablera en första kontakt med den våldsutsatta kvinnan samt hur en hög grad av handlingsutrymme krävs för att både kunna ge rätt stöd och upprätthålla en interaktionsritual med klienten. Covid-19-pandemin har förändrat socialsekreterarnas arbete genom att de inte längre kan ha fysiska möten i samma utsträckning som tidigare, vilket visar sig vara en förlust i deras yrkesroll. / Several countries have reported an increase in intimate partner violence during the Covid-19 pandemic due to their restricted measures to control the spread of the virus. In Sweden, the social services have the responsibility to offer services in the form of support and help to a woman subjected to intimate partner violence. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the social services are expected to provide similar services as before the pandemic, despite the issued exhortation and restrictions. The purpose of this study is to examine how social workers experience their work with women who are subjected to intimate partner violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study is based on data from eight semi-structured interviews with social workers from different municipalities in Sweden. Michael Lipsky’s (2010) theory about street-level bureaucracy is used to examine and understand the social workers’ discretion in relation to the abused women during the current pandemic. Furthermore, Randal Collins’ (2004) theory about interaction rituals is used to understand the context in which the social workers in this study and the abused women find themselves.  The results of the study show that the work of social workers is characterized by several aspects, including the importance of motivational and information work to establish a first contact with the abused woman and how a high degree of room for maneuver is required to both provide the right support and maintain an interaction ritual with the client. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the work of social workers in that they can no longer have physical encounters to the same extent as before, proving to be a loss in their professional role.