The aim of this study is to better understand the Swedish concept of“förebyggande socialt arbete”, preventive social work. I have conducted elevenqualitative interviews with different key persons and skaters, together withparticipant observation. During the process of analyzing the material I have usedRandall Collins´ concepts of interaction ritual chains together with Jean Laves andEtienne Wengers concept of situated learning. The answers could be split up inthree areas, first those who regard prevention work as building good things for thefuture. The second group to prevent something bad to happen and the third groupregard preventive social work to be repairing what was broken. The first group,mostly architects, included all three levels of the urban system, the social culturecontext, the human interaction and the urban design. The second and third group,mostly participant from the social work area, focused on the individual level.Although social work should be involved in social policy and development areincluded in the Swedish Social Serves Act. The findings is that Swedish definitionof social work need to be wider in order to include the urban design as a part ofsocial prevention work.