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Literature on Housing First indicates much success of the program in terms of financial savings and tenant positive outcome evaluations; however, there is limited explanation of how these successful outcomes are produced. Within this dissertation, interactions between tenants and case managers are revealed to be the primary intervening variable in a process of transition for tenants. These interactions connect Housing First policy (independent variable) to successful outcomes for tenants experienced during continued housing tenure (dependent variable). The measurement methods in the study are triangulated to reflect the fluidity of real life processes and both qualitative and quantitative data types are collected. From March 2008 until January 2011, twenty tenant case studies were interviewed three times in six month intervals. Nine case managers were also interviewed once and two tenants who discontinued permanent housing tenure were interviewed for an overall total of 71 interviews. Overall, symbolic interactionism is found to be a reasonable framework for explaining the successes of Housing First. Through highly focused intention in interactions case managers facilitate three social processes for tenants that lead to their successful continued housing tenure. These beneficial processes can be more specifically described as `socially healing processes' or `social healing' as they heal the social dimensions of identity, affective home creation, and wellness networks to various degrees for tenants. / Sociology

The theme of this thesis is the analysis of socially pathological issues in the context of placing children into children's homes. It investigates the causes of these issues and possible methods of prevention. At the beginning of the thesis there is a brief characteristics and history of institutional care in the Czech Republic. There is also a part about the formation of socially pathological issues based on internal and external causes in humans life. Furthermore there is a detailed analysis of certain socially pathological issues in the families and their influence on a child's development. These specific issues were chosen based on findings made in Children's Home Dolní Počernice. In the conclusion of the theoretical part of this thesis there are mentioned possible ways of supporting families - as a method of prevention of placing children into institutional care. Especially focused was the method Housing First and its first testing in Brno, where the positive impact on the quality of life of participating families was achieved. The research part of this thesis was realized via a quantitative survey - 61 files of children placed into Children's Home Dolní Počernice were analyzed in June 2018. I focused mainly on the causes of placing the child into the institutional care, family conditions, and...

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Research on how homeless individuals perceive shelters, housing programs, and their agents has been limited, especially in relation to the reasons for engaging in or avoiding programs. This phenomenological study explored the perspectives of chronically homeless individuals in Wake County, North Carolina, regarding shelters and housing programs, examining their reasons for using or not using shelters or public housing. Using Glidden's structuration theory as the framework, the research questions for this study were based on exploring the perceptions of homeless individuals use of public resources related to housing and shelters to better understand why some use, and perhaps more importantly, why some choose to not use these resources. Purposeful sampling was used to identify 12 chronically homeless men and women and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Data were both deductively and inductively coded and analyzed using a thematic analysis procedure. This study found that the persistence of homelessness is a result of a combination of homeless individuals' perceptions of housing programs' structural failures including long waiting periods for access to housing, unnecessary bureaucratic entanglements, and what they perceived as inaction or apathy on the part of program staff in response to requests for assistance. These findings are consistent with structuration theory. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to policy makers to consider the views and perceptions of homeless people in designing programs, including ways to improve access to public resources that may ultimately lead to permanent housing for homeless individuals.

Our main aim with this study is to shed a light over the social workers opinions about what they believe will be the consequences of introducing Housing First in the city of Stockholm. We wanted to examine the social workers perceptions about how Housing First could change their client’s autonomy and justice. Therefor we accomplished five qualitative interviews with social workers. We analyzed our empirical material with the theoretical terms; justice, autonomy and intern role-conflict. The results and analysis showed that the social workers considered that their client’s autonomy and justice increases by the Housing First model. We also found that Housing First seems to reduce the social workers intern role-conflict. We found that the reason might be that they do not have to choose between different expectations in the same extent as when they work with the continuum of care model. The result also showed that the social workers believed that the more independent the clients are towards the social services and the social workers demands, the more dependent the clients become towards the social workers, by the means of motivation work.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka hur socialarbetare från kommunala och ideella verksamheter upplever arbetet med hemlösa och hur deras arbete kan påverka de hemlösas möjligheter till stöd och eget boende. För att undersöka och svara på syftet etablerades två frågeställningar. Våra frågeställningar berörde kontakten och samverkan mellan stödverksamheterna samt deras kontakt till de hemlösa. Undersökningen är utformad med en kvalitativ ansats där sju stycken semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts. De deltagande i studien arbetar på olika sätt med hemlöshet och kommer i direkt kontakt med hemlösa individer. Vi tog hjälp av teoretiska utgångspunkter om stigma, makt och samverkan för att kunna analysera vårt resultat. Vårt resultat visade att de hemlösas kontakt till socialarbetare är väsentlig för att kunna ta sig ur hemlösheten. Det framkom även att både de ideella och kommunala verksamheterna är viktiga eftersom deras arbete ser olika ut och därför kan möta hemlösa som befinner sig på olika plan i sin hemlöshet. Samverkan har också visat sig vara betydlig eftersom den möjliggör att de hemlösa som väljer att endast vistas på de ideella verksamheterna fångas upp genom ett samarbete mellan de kommunala och ideella verksamheterna. / The aim with this study was to explore how social workers from communal and non-profit organizations experience the work with homeless people and how their work can affect the homeless people’s opportunities to get support and their own home. To examine and answer the aim we established two questions. These questions referred to the contact and cooperation between the organizations and their relation to the homeless. The study has been designed with a qualitative method where seven semi-structured interviews have been made. The participants in the study are all working with homelessness and meet homeless individuals. To analyze our result we used theories such as stigma, power and cooperation. Our result showed that homeless people’s contact with social workers is essential to be able to get out of homelessness. What also emerged was that both the non-profit and the communal organizations are important since their work looks various which means they can meet homeless people that are on different levels in their homelessness. Cooperation has also been shown to be important since it makes it possible for the homeless that chooses to only visit the non-profit organizations to get help because of collaboration between the communal and non-profit organizations.

Den här studien sker mot bakgrund av uppgifter i nyhetsmedier där det berättats om de svårigheter som hemlösa möter om det är föräldrar till barn som inte delar deras situation i hemlöshet. Den sker också mot bakgrund av att Barnkonventionen inom kort inkorporeras i svensk lagstiftning. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur det sociala problemet “att vara hemlös förälder i missbruk” konstrueras i vetenskapliga texter om två modeller för arbete med motverkan av hemlöshet i Sverige. Studiens syfte är också att skapa en djupare förståelse av om, och i så fall hur, nämnda modellers lösningar möjliggör för föräldern att tillgodose den rätt barnet enligt Barnkonventionen har till sina föräldrar, till bostad och till skydd, genom förälderns deltagande i respektive modell. Studiens metod är kvalitativ innehållsanalys och perspektivanalys utgör både teori och analysmetod utifrån socialkonstruktivistisk grund. De två problemperspektiv vi funnit har vi valt att kalla för ”behandling först – boende sedan” respektive ”boende först – behandling sedan”. De skiljer sig avsevärt från varandra beträffande hur det sociala problemets karaktär, orsak, konsekvenser, lösning och utveckling konstrueras. Det visar sig också finnas skillnader mellan hur problemperspektiven möjliggör tillgodoseendet av barnets rättigheter enligt Barnkonventionen. En viktig slutsats är avsaknaden av tydliga barnperspektiv i de bägge problemperspektiven. Studien finner även att ”behandling först – boende sedan” är ett problemperspektiv som bygger på en voluntaristisk orsaksförklaring medan ”boende först – behandling sedan” istället bygger på en deterministisk.

L'itinérance est un problème complexe qui a des conséquences désastreuses pour les individus et la société. Pour répondre à ce problème, le gouvernement de Canada a adopté le modèle Logement d’abord et l'approche de réduction de méfaits. Logement d’abord offre un accès facile au logement avec des services de soutien aux personnes en situation d'itinérance chronique qui ont souvent des problèmes concomitants de santé mentale et de toxicomanie. D’autres part, la réduction de méfaits reconnait que certaines personnes ne peuvent pas ou ne veulent pas arrêter de consommer des substances psychoactives. Par conséquent, cette approche se centre sur la réduction des effets nocifs de la consommation de drogues et d'alcool. Le but de cette étude était d'examiner comment l'approche réduction de méfaits et son déploiement dans le cadre du programme Logement d’abord à Montréal. Nous avons examiné les facteurs qui facilitent ou empêchent son utilisation, comment l’approche aide les résidents et les travailleurs à atténuer les risques et à comprendre la consommation de substances et quelle est sa contribution au processus de réinsertion sociale des participants du programme Logement d’abord. L'analyse des données a démontré que des pratiques de réduction de méfaits facilitent l’acquisition de logement pour les personnes en situation d'itinérance chronique en réduisant donc les effets néfastes de l'itinérance. De même, le soutien à long terme semble être un outil qui aide les gens à surmonter l'isolement, à maintenir un logement et à atténuer les problèmes de toxicomanie. Cette étude conclue que l’utilisation de l’approche de réduction de méfaits dans le cadre du programme Logement d’abord demande de prend en compte le niveau d’autonomie de la personne ainsi que son droit à l’autodétermination avec la possibilité de se retirer des services dont elle ne ressent pas le besoin. De plus, il est important de comprend que les résidents ont déjà des outils de base sur la réduction des méfaits en raison de leurs connaissances et leurs expériences même s'ils se montrent incapables de définir ces termes. Du point de vue des intervenants, la réduction des méfaits s’actualise en aidant les résidents à entretenir leurs appartements, en les sensibilisant aux effets négatives de la toxicomanie et en leur fournissant un soutien pendant la durée du programme. Néanmoins, la réduction de méfaits dans ce contexte est confrontée à plusieurs défis, notamment le manque d'éducation sur l'approche, et le manque d'inclusion des personnes toxicomanes dans les programmes qui les desservent. / Homelessness is a complex problem that carries disastrous consequences for individuals and societies. To help address the problem, governments have adopted the Housing First (HF) model and the Harm Reduction (HR) approach. HF provides housing and supportive services to people experiencing chronic homelessness who often have co-occurring mental health and substance use problems. HR acknowledges that some people are unable or unwilling to stop using substances, therefore, it focuses on reducing the harmful effects of drug and alcohol use. The purpose of this study is to examine how the HR approach is deployed within a HF project in Montreal, what are the factors that facilitate or hinder its use, how it helps HF residents and workers mitigate risk and understand substance use and what is its contribution to participants’ reinsertion process. The results demonstrate that HR practices facilitate housing acquisition for people experiencing chronic homelessness and therefore can reduce the adverse effects of homelessness and substance use. For some people finding ontological security means that they no longer need to cope with the dangers of living in the streets and have a better management of substance use. In a similar manner, long-term support also seems to be a tool that helps people fight isolation, maintain housing and mitigate problems related to substance use. The study concludes that the use of HR in HF requires intervention that takes into account the person’s level of autonomy as well as their right to self-determination with the possibility of opting out of services if they do not feel the need. In addition, It is important to acknowledge that residents have inherited HR tools based on their knowledge and experiences even though they manifest not being able to define HR principles. From the worker’s perspective, HR is practiced by helping residents maintain their apartments, creating awareness about substance use, and providing support throughout the duration of the program. Nevertheless, the practice of HR faces several challenges, including the lack of education about the approach as well as the lack of inclusion of drug users in programs that serve them.

Hemlösa personer med samsjuklighet sägs vara en av de mest utsatta målgrupperna inom socialt arbete. Då återfall är ett symtom av skadligt bruk och beroende har målgruppen haft betydande svårigheter att leva upp till nykterhetskraven som ställs inom traditionella insatser. Således har insatsen Bostad först tagits fram med en skademinskningspolicy som prioriterar minimering av de risker som är vanliga för målgruppen över nykterhetskrav. Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka praktiska erfarenheter av det skademinimerande arbetet i bostad först Data samlades in genom en kvalitativ fokusgruppsintervju med fyra socialarbetare som är anställda som Case managers inom ett svenskt Bostad först-projekt. En tematisk dataanalys gjordes med socialkonstruktionism och nyinstitutionell teori som teoretiskt ramverk. Resultaten visade på ett holistiskt synsätt på skadereducering men också att synen på skadereducering varierar starkt beroende på sammanhanget. Det framkom också att de motstridiga principerna om nolltolerans och skademinskning påverkar det professionella samarbetet på flera sätt. / Homeless persons with comorbidity are among the most vulnerable populations within social work. The relapsing nature of substance abuse has been a significant barrier to the traditional treatment/housing programs that build upon abstinence-based policies. Therefore, there has been a shift toward Housing First, a harm reduction policy that prioritizes the minimization of harms over abstinence. This study aims to explore practical experiences with the harm reduction approach within Housing First.Data was collected through a qualitative focus group interview with four employeeswithin a Housing First project in Sweden. The data was analyzed by a thematic analysis with social constructivism and new institutionalism as theoretical frameworks.The results showed a holistic approach to harm reduction but also that the view on harm reduction varies depending on the social context. It was also revealed that the conflicting principles of zero tolerance and harm reduction have affected professionalcollaboration in various ways