The aim with the study was, that through a qualitative research approach, to examine in which way social services employees perceive information about children with incarcerated fathers and how they furthermore relates to the child's right to both parents in these situations. Seven interviews were implemented with social workers in the Stockholm County to obtain informa-tion on the following questions; how the children's needs are noticed at the social services, how employees discuss the child's right to their incarcerated father and which possibilities and obstacles social workers experience to promote contact between the child and the father. The ecology of human development theory was used in the analysis. The conclusions are that chil-dren with incarcerated fathers seldom is noticed at the social services as a result of inadequate cooperation between authorities but also due to whether the social services should be respon-sible for the children. Furthermore, children always have the right to maintain contact with their incarcerated father, with exceptions for situations where physical or sexual abuse have occurred. Social workers may contribute to contact by awarding a contact person, in cases where the mother is insufficient. Finally, individual assessments must always be done with considerations to the individual child.

Family centres are established to serve families with children and the personnel usually consists of units of social-workers, preschool staff, paediatric nurses and midwives. The purpose of the study was to examine the social-workers preventive work with families at the family centre. To fulfil the purpose, a qualitative interview with five social-workers was conducted. The theoretical framework referred to attachment and empowerment theory. The results of the study showed that the main part of the work consists of giving advice and support to parents. The social-workers do also organize different group activities. One example of group-work was about teaching parents to interplay with their children. Some work is also carried through in a structural level. The target groups are very varying, and consist of parents with different income, origin and social networks. Furthermore the study showed that the social-workers apprehend that most of their visitors are satisfied with their work. The important possibility united with the social work in a family centre is to meet the families in the beginning of parenthood, and to offer help early. The difficulties consist among other things to collaborate with the paediatric nurses and midwives, and also to claim the importance of their work towards employers and politicians.

The purpose of this study is to investigate preschool personnel experiences concerning their obligation to report existing and suspicions of child maltreatment. This is a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews that can provide a good understanding of the subject and of the informants’ views. The theoretical starting points we used were the communication theory, Kelly’s personality theory and the role theory. We carried out eight interviews with pre-school personnel who work in four different counties in Sweden. The interviews lasted between 45 to 60 minutes. The result from our study shows that the pre-school personnel have a positive view upon their obligation to report child maltreatment. In contradiction to this, the result also shows that there is a fear and concern about making a report. The main reasons for not reporting, is the relationship with the preschool children’s parents, lack of knowledge to identify the children who suffer the abuse, previous bad experiences from the social services and poor feedback from the social services.

The aim of this study is to look how the Social Service has handled custody issues. The study has a legal and social aspect with a purpose to investigate how the law affects the social administration as well as the family. During a period of one year a quantitative and qualitative study was performed within the social administration in a nearby community. The study focus is partly on the relationship between the law, family and society. The main questions have been: Which one of the parents, mother or father, did in fact get the custody and why? How has the children’s point of view been reported in the inquiry? A child needs a well organized everyday life in a preferably conflict free environment. The result shows that the mothers are most often presented as the child’s main provider but it´s not related to gender. The main reason is the child´s need to stability, security and structure in everyday life and therefore the authority often chose to not change the child´s existing resident and surroundings. We have also found out that more focus must be put on the child’s wish, they need to be considered. For the best interest of the child!

The aim of this study is to look how the Social Service has handled custody issues. The study has a legal and social aspect with a purpose to investigate how the law affects the social administration as well as the family. During a period of one year a quantitative and qualitative study was performed within the social administration in a nearby community. The study focus is partly on the relationship between the law, family and society. The main questions have been: Which one of the parents, mother or father, did in fact get the custody and why? How has the children’s point of view been reported in the inquiry? A child needs a well organized everyday life in a preferably conflict free environment. The result shows that the mothers are most often presented as the child’s main provider but it´s not related to gender. The main reason is the child´s need to stability, security and structure in everyday life and therefore the authority often chose to not change the child´s existing resident and surroundings. We have also found out that more focus must be put on the child’s wish, they need to be considered. For the best interest of the child!

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur företrädare inom kriminalvården och socialtjänsten arbetar med barn som har en mamma på anstalt samt vad samverkan mellan myndigheterna har för funktion. Vi har valt att intervjua fyra professionella som arbetar inom kriminalvården och fyra professionella som arbetar inom socialtjänsten. Resultatet visar att myndigheternas olika lagstiftningar, utbildningar, kunskap om varandras verksamheter, uppdrag samt olika synsätt på barnperspektivet försvårar samverkan mellan myndigheterna. / The purpose of this study is to examine social services and prison services works with children who have a mother in prison, and how collaboration between the two different authorities function. We chose to interview four professional working in prisons and four professionals in the social services. The thesis results show that there often is a collision between the correctional authority and social service that both have different perspectives when it comes to children whose mothers are in prison. There are several issues to this interaction. We concluded that because of the two different legal authorities, training, knowledge of each other's activities and assignments, there are shortcomings in cooperation between authorities. The professionals are aware of the shortcomings but nobody is doing anything about it.

Syftet med denna C-uppsats är att genom Pincus och Minahans resursinriktade systemteori undersöka innebörden av hur samhälleliga system tillgodoser hjälpbehov för klienter som uppbär försörjningsstöd under lång tid. Målet är att skapa en strukturerad bild av vad som är bidragande faktorer till långvarigt beroende av försörjningsstöd samt hur samhälleliga system arbetar med insatser gällande dessa faktorer. Frågeställningarna är följande: Vilka hjälpbehov framträder genom journalerna för undersökningsgruppen? Hur adresseras dessa av samhälleliga system och vilka slutsatser kan man dra av detta? Resultatet visar att hjälpbehoven som tillgodoses är av olika karaktär och att det samhälleliga resurssystemet ibland ersätter formella och informella resurssystem när dessa inte är välfungerande. Slutsatsen visar att samhälleliga system kan motarbeta varandra och att detta då blir till men för den enskilde. Slutsatsen visar också att preventivt arbete för att förhindra att långvarigt beroende av försörjningsstöd uppstår är viktigt. / The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to use Pincus and Minahans resource-oriented systems theory to examine how societal systems are meeting the needs of the clients who are longterm dependant on social benefits. The aim is to create a structured image of the factors that lies behind a longterm dependance on social benefits, and also how societal systems are working with interventions concerning these factors. The questions are as follows: Which needs for support can be identified among the studied group? How are these needs addressed by the societal systems, and what conclusions can you draw from this? The result shows that needs that are met by societal systems are of different sorts. It also show that societal systems sometimes replaces private and organizational systems, when thees are malfunctioning. The conclusion shows that societal systems can work against each other and that this can become troublesome for the clients. The conclusion also shows that preventive interventions are important when working with hoe to make longterm dependance on social benefits less occurring.

Abstract In Sweden all persons under the age of 18 are considered children. The age when it is possible to be held responsible for a criminal act, and therefor convicted in court, is 15. Society’s and, perhaps first and foremost, the authority’s attitude towards juvenile crime is that they should not be equal adults in the process within criminal law. Because children are considered essential for the society of tomorrow, it is important to pay extra attention to crimes committed by juveniles. The social services authorities are considered to have the best resources and competence to handle this group of juveniles. In the criminal law process the prosecutor requests a statement regarding the young person who is reasonably suspected of a criminal act. The statement should contain information about if the young person is in need of certain interventions from social services in order to prevent unfavorable development. The conclusion that has been drawn when the statements has been reviewed is that a borderland has been created where social law and criminal law overlap. This overlapping is in a way a collision where social aspects and principles of criminal law have to meet. However, it is not always easy to make both sides satisfied. As a way to meet the needs of both sides the borderland becomes a compromise consisting of the process regarding the juveniles. The purpose of this essay is to describe and understand the compromise that has been made where statements and young juveniles are existing. The aim of this essay is to study 23 statements from social services that prosecutor request and the 23 court records attached to them. All statements and court records are regarding persons between 15 – 17 years old. The study is limited to the period between 2010-01-01 to 2010-12-31. This essay has been from a qualitative point of view where the discourse analysis as an text analytical method has been used to understand the collected statements and court records. Central results is that the statements reviewed in this essay overall are satisfying in fulfilling the social law and criminal law aspects. However the results also point out that an uncertainty within the social services regarding the design of the statements also is to be found. Descriptions of social aspects about the young juvenile behind the statement seems to be important to emphasize.

Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka samverkan mellan fältsekreterare, polis och socialsekreterare samt vilken funktion fältsekreterarna fyller för polis och socialsekreterare i deras ungdomsinriktade arbete. Uppsatsen har sin utgångspunkt i projektet Lokal operativ samverkan i stadsdelarna Gottsunda/Valsätra i Uppsala. Studien rör sig inom det komplexa område som samverkan innebär. Skapar fältsekreterarna nya förutsättningar för hur yrkesgrupperna tillsammans kan arbeta mot ett gemensamt mål? Tidigare forskning har visat att samverkan mellan socialtjänst och polis är beroende av en gemensam problemdefinition och samsyn. Fältsekreterarna verkar i en mittenposition där de förväntas arbeta både utifrån socialtjänstens formulerade önskemål och utifrån ungdomens behov. Fältarbetet kretsar ofta kring att skapa relationer till en grupp som har en negativ bild av myndigheter och att förmå dessa att ta emot samhällets stöd. De teoretiska perspektiv som appliceras för att förstå och tolka samverkan och de interaktioner som sker inom den är systemteori och symbolisk interaktionism. Det är en kvalitativ studie som har genomförts i form utav semi- strukturerade intervjuer. Sex personer har intervjuats; fältsekreterare, polis och socialsekreterare. Intervjuerna analyserades genom en innehållanalys, där skillnader och likheter mellan uttalandena kartlades. Resultatet bekräftar en del av den tidigare forskningen. Respondenterna i studien lyfter fram vikten av en gemensam samsyn. I en samverkan är det viktigt att samverkansparterna fyller skilda funktioner och kompletterar varandra. Respondenterna beskriver att de har skilda perspektiv som kan gynna samverkan. De verifierar att det finns en myndighetsskepsis hos målgruppen, därför strävar fältsekreterarna efter att skapa ett förtroende hos ungdomarna. Fältsekreterarna fungerar för polis och socialsekreterare som en förebyggande aktör. De är myndigheternas ögon utåt. De tre undersökta yrkesgrupperna kan betraktas som ett system, där de fyller olika funktioner men tillsammans arbetar de mot ett gemensamt mål. Samverkan i sig bidrar till en ökad förståelse för varandras arbeten. Den slutsats som kan dras av studien är att det i samverkan är viktigt att ta tillvara på varandras kompetenser och funktioner. Genom att göra detta kan man på bästa sätt möta omvärldens behov. Fältsekreterarna är ytterligare en aktör som verkar i området, de kan skapa en bredare kunskap hos polis och socialsekreterare. / The aim of this study has been to illustrate the collaboration between out-reach workers, police and social workers. The purpose of the study has also been to explore the impact out- reach workers has on the work of the police and social services. Out- reach workers are social workers whose main work is to locate and help youth in their own environment. The basis has been a project in Uppsala, Lokal operativ samverkan. By adding the out- reach workers to the already existing collaboration between police and social workers the conditions changes. Research on the subject has shown that the collaboration is dependent on a joint vision. Out- reach workers exist in the middle, they must meet expectations from the social workers but their main task is to work for the youth in the community. They often meet youth in vulnerable situations. The work includes creating a functional relationship between the youths and the societies agencies. The applied theories have been system theory and symbolic interactionism. The study has a qualitative approach. Six persons have been interviewed using semi-structured interviews, including police, out- reach workers and social workers. Over all the result confirms earlier research on the subject. An agreement about the task is essential for the participants. It’s important to have different roles and to complement each other, to appreciate the different functions. The participants describe how different perspectives further the collaboration. The out- reach workers aim to strengthen the relationship between the youth and the authorities. They function as a preventive and observing agent in the community. The police, the social workers and the out- reach workers function as a system that works against a common vision, but with different tasks. Finally the study shows that it’s vital to take advantage and to esteem the differences in assignments in the collaboration. By doing this the agents can meet the need of the community. The out- reach workers can broaden the knowledge about the youths in the collaboration with the police and the social workers.

In recent years, growing numbers of Mainland Chinese elders are participating in Christian congregations during short visits or extended stays in the U.S. This thesis explores social and cultural factors that explain these immigrant elders’ involvement with Christianity while in the U.S. Based on face-to-face interviews with 20 Mainland Chinese elders living in Atlanta as well as participant observation at a Chinese Christian church and with a Bible study group, this study finds that loneliness and social isolation in a foreign land are the main reasons for Mainland Chinese elders’ participation in Christian activities. Besides religious services, social service functions of churches and opportunities for fellowship are other factors explaining church involvement. Long immersion with China’s religious history of syncretism renders these elders receptive to spiritual alternatives, such as Christianity, especially when dominant ideologies of Confucianism and Communism seem to be in decline in China. But most elders approach their Christian involvement with pragmatic selectivity based more on secular than religious considerations. In conclusion, I argue that social isolation and minority ethnic status, Chinese Christian Churches’ social functions, and current social contexts in China are all factors that help explain Chinese elders’ religious involvement in the U.S.