I denna studie är syftet att skapa en förståelse kring vad som utmärker socialsekreterarnas eftervårdsarbete med ungdomar placerade på särskilda ungdomshem. Studien använder sig av semistrukturerade intervjuer som datasamlingsmetod där socialsekreterarna delat med sig av sina erfarenheter och kunskaper. Utifrån intervjuerna har det i analysen gått att urskilja tre teman som beskriver vad som utmärker socialsekreterares eftervårdsarbete. Dessa teman är: Bibehålla ungdomarnas utveckling, Motstånd i eftervården och Förväntningar på ungdomarnas framtid. De olika insatserna som socialsekreterarna lämnar samt de framgångar och motgångar de har erfarenheter av i eftervården har tolkats utifrån resilience och gräsrotsbyråkrati. Med stöd av dessa teoretiska utgångspunkter framkommer områdena boende, sysselsättning, behandling och socialt nätverk, som socialsekreterarna anser främjar ungdomarnas chans att klara sig efter avslutad placering. I studien framkommer även att socialsekreterarna upplever motstånd från ungdomarna och på vilket sätt de bemöter detta. Studien belyser även att socialsekreterarna arbetar med att integrera ungdomarna i det övriga samhället och vilka förväntningar de uppfattar de kan ställa på dessa ungdomar. / In this study the aim is to create an understanding of what characterizes social workers measures in leaving care for young people in secure units. The study uses semi-structured interviews as a qualitative data collection method where social workers shared their experiences of working with leaving care for young people in secure units. Based on the interviews, our analysis found three themes that describe what characterize social workers’ work. The themes are: Maintain young people’s achievements, Resistance in leaving care and Expectations for young people’s future. What kind of measures the social workers provided along with what they experienced benefited or hindered their work has been analyzed on the basis of resilience and street-level bureaucracy. With the support of these theoretical perspectives housing, employment, treatment and social network was found to be a part of the social workers’ measures to promote young people’s chances for an independent living. It was also found that social workers experiences resistance from young people and how they worked with these setbacks. The study also highlights how the social workers’ strived to integrate young people back into society.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / abstract / Dentistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Single subject research procedures were used to evaluate the following effects of Mellaril, a neuroleptic, on adaptive and disruptive behaviors of three institutionalized retarded people: (1) documentation of social interactions, activity level, vocational performance, repetitive motoric behavior, disruptive incidents, and possible tardive dyskinesia to determine which behaviors changed during drug and placebo conditions, and (2) individualized clinical evaluation to determine whether drug therapy decreased disruptive behavior and increased or interfered with adaptive functioning. Each subject received individualized Mellaril dosages and served as his/her own control in reversal designs. All subjects were abruptly withdrawn from the drug. One subject (125 mg.) underwent B-A-B while two subjects (60 mg., 250 mg.) underwent B-A-B-A phases, where B indicated the drug condition and A indicated the placebo condition. Each phase lasted approximately one month. A fourth subject underwent B-A phases and was dropped from the study due to an epileptic convulsion. Pharmacotherapy for this disorder confounded Mellaril-behavior relationships. A trained observer recorded occurrence of behavior on weekdays within the institution including 15 minutes per subject in residential settings and five minutes per subject in vocational settings. Institutional staff documented daily frequencies of incidents including aggression and property destruction. Institutional staff, the trained observer, and the subjects were not told the timing of drug/placebo changes. The results indicated that the following behaviors increased following drug withdrawal: vocational performance, talking, looking at and proximity to others, and talking/laughing to self. Activity level decreased upon drug withdrawal. The following patterns of disruptive behavior were subject-unique: one subject (250 mg.) clearly showed the most incidents while on-drug; one subject (60 mg.) did not show changes during the first drug withdrawal, but showed increases during the second; and the third subject (125 mg.) engaged in incidents at steadily increasing rates during all conditions. The applicability of single subject designs to applied behavioral pharmacology is discussed. Variables within an applied setting which potentially obfuscate drug-behavior relationships are identified. Suggestions for future research are offered.

This is a multi-method ethnographic study, grounded in symbolic interactionism and social constructionism, which seeks to explore the social worlds of people with dementia in institutional long-term care. Carried out over six months, it uses non-participant observation, Dementia Care Mapping, video-recording, focused conversations and extensive fieldnotes to document types of interactions that fourteen people with dementia received in everyday ward life and during weekly creative sessions facilitated by occupational therapy (OT) staff. Using Kitwood’s (1997) work on person-centred care and Sabat’s (2001) work on selfhood (Selfs 1-3) it identifies their responses to such interactions in terms of their well or ill-being and expressions of Self. The study shows that everyday staff interactions with participants, while sometimes positive, were more often limited in their potential for maintaining or increasing well-being. Sometimes staff interactions were abusive; causing participant ill-being. Participants expressed Selfs 1-3 verbally and visually, although some of these expressions were subtle, fleeting and fragile. During creative sessions, OT staff engaged in sustained positive interactions, raising participant well-being and facilitating Self-expression; a fragile expression of Self could become a robust expression of Self, a past Self could be reclaimed and a desired Self co-constructed. My findings suggest that, in their interactions during creative sessions, OT staff generally recognised and supported Self of participants, raising well-being. However, ward staff did not fully recognise and therefore could not support Self in their interactions with participants, resulting in participant ill-being. This is a crucial finding, which could partially explain the differences in interaction types I observed, and the corresponding differences in participant well-being and Self-expression. This thesis argues for integrating the selfhood and person-centred approaches into an innovative staff-training programme, in order to bring about transformational change in practice. This might encourage care staff to reach out, recognise and respond to aspects of Self as they carry out care; promoting more positive ways of interacting with their patients, increasing patient well-being and fostering staff satisfaction.

In Jordan, residential care institutions (RCIs) for children in conflict with the law are identified as various specialised state institutions which constitute a state formal response to youth crime, and specialise in taking care of children. This thesis examines the objectives of RCIs’ programmes for children in conflict with the law in Jordan, as they attempt to reduce offending by convicted children, and whether these objectives meet children’s needs, according to the view and experiences of children themselves (12-17 years). This study is based on qualitative methods, using data from individual and focus group interviews with institutional staff, and participant observation and individual interviews with children. Exploring the divergent claims made within childhood and youth crime theoretical perspectives, this thesis develops a nuanced understanding of institutions’ crime-reduction programmes by drawing upon key theoretical concepts from these frameworks: children as ‘socially becoming’ and ‘social beings’. RCIs provide four rehabilitative programmes to help reduce children’s problematic and offending behaviour; namely, a family guidance programme (FGP), a poverty reduction programme (PRP), an educational programme (EP) and a child behaviour modification programme (CBMP). To a large extent, these programmes tended to provide polices of crime prevention which focus on re-socialising children according to the normative and cultural system of behaviour in which children were generally perceived as incompetent social actors, and where their best interest was not always acknowledged. To a large extent, children’s own perspectives and experiences of institutional rehabilitative programmes revealed the institutional failure to treat their familial, economical, educational and behavioural problems. Overall, children thought such failure happened either because the institutional aims were not actually implemented, or because the methods of delivering the institutional programmes per se were ineffective. This finding reflects a contradictory picture between the RCIs’ objectives and their actual practices, reflecting the institutional departure from a set of theoretical ideas regarding the prevention of youth crime. Focus group discussion with key informant staff referred to a variety of obstacles that contribute to their inability to address children’s wider needs within the existing institutional aims. Parental refusal to participate in child abuse and supervisory neglect interventional sessions, short-term intervention for chronically abused children and institutional reliance on talking methods in promoting parental supervision over children’s behaviour were all issues hindering effective institutional intervention within the familial environment. The institutional failure to meet children’s educational and career training needs occurred because these programmes are scheduled at the same time. The seriousness of some children’s crimes and the inability of some families to accompany their children to school were other issues preventing children from attending school. The lack of staff motivation, along with staff’s interrelated roles, prevented child monitoring staff from fully carrying out the intended intervention of modifying children’s negative behaviours. Ultimately, the findings from this study indicate the inconsistency between RCIs’ principles of rehabilitating children in conflict with the law and their actual practices, including the lack of policies in place to meet the institutional objectives. This in turn meant that RCIs do not actually operate to rehabilitate children in order to reduce reoffending, but are largely punitive and operate to criminalise children and separate them from society.

The problem of the present study is to investigate the consequences of an institutional program planned to develop positive interpersonal relations on the educational achievement, mental, health, and attitudes and outlook of a group of dependent and neglected children. The experimental group was composed of children in a home for dependent and neglected children in a large southwestern city. These children were compared to a control group whose parents were in the same socio-economic class, and who attended Sunday School for lower income families in a large Southern Baptist church in the same locality.

Previous research suggests that careproviders' attitudes and perceptions significantly influence the type and quality of services received by institutionalized adults with developmental disabilities (IADD). This study explored attitudes careproviders hold concerning training needs of the IADD and their service model orientation. It traced the history of training people with developmental disabilities and provided a brief review of the medical, developmental, and normalization models of service delivery. The conceptual framework upon which this study was based proposed that staff perceptions and orientation concerning service delivery to the IADD can be conceptually related to five factors in a research model. They were identified as: (a) careprovider's characteristics; (b) working environment; (c) previous careprovider experience; (d) developmental disability history within the careprovider's family; and (e) self-reporting of a service delivery orientation. This study examined only a portion of this model (factors a, b, and e). The response sample included 370 professionals and paraprofessionals, aged 17 to 72 years, who were employed at a large residential facility serving individuals with developmental disabilities in Denton, Texas. The respondents were predominantly female (76.5%), Caucasian (72.2%) with slightly less than 75% having more than a high school diploma. The instrument, a self-administered questionnaire, consisted of three parts; Careprovider's Service Model Orientation; Careprovider's Perception of Training Needs; and, Demographic Information. Data were analyzed through the use of regression, chi square, and analysis of variance tests. Findings revealed several significant relationships between: professional status and perceptions of training needs of the IADD; professional status and service model orientation; professional status and reported service model orientation; professional status and attitude toward the medical model; and, professional status and attitude toward the developmental model. Significant relationships were not found for four additional hypotheses that were included the study.