The aim for this study was to investigate how social workers perceive that they are responding to clients who define themselves as transgender. The study has a qualitative basis with six semistructured interviews based on an elaborated vignette method. The selection of interviewees was social workers, three in the field of public authority and three workers at various excutive agencies. The material have been analyzed based on Queer theory and Honneths Recognition Theory. The findings indicate that social work organizations are lacking in knowlege of transgender people and their experiences. There is also a lack of evidence-based procedures, action plans and policies to respond to transgender people within the organizations. The findings also implies that social workers can respond to transgender people and address them more empathically, with greater acceptance as well as recognition through a professional self-reflection and a humble attitude. / Denna studies syfte har varit att undersöka hur verksamma inom socialt arbete uppfattar att de själva tillika verksamheten i stort bemöter transpersoner. Studien har en kvalitativ grund och baserar sig på sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med vinjettmetod. Urvalet av intervjupersoner är verksamma inom socialt arbete, tre inom myndighetsutövning och tre arbetande på olika utförarinstanser. Materialet har analyserats utifrån Queerteori och Honneths erkännadeteori. Resultatet visar bland annat att verksamheter inom socialt arbete brister i sin kunskap kring transpersoner och deras upplevelser samt saknar evidensbaserade rutiner, handlingsplaner och policys för att bemöta transpersoner inom organisationen. Resultatet visar även att yrkesverksamma inom socialt arbete kan bemöta transpersoner mer inkännande, med större acceptans och med en erkännande karaktär genom en självreflekterande och ödmjuk attityd.

The objective of this study is to examine the perspectives and preferred actions by managers at elderly care home facilities regarding ethical dilemmas that may emerge when elderly people fall in love. Previous research is mainly focused on ageism and the sex-life of elderly people at care homes. Less attention is paid to their love-life and the view of the managers is often overlooked. Researchers tend to interview and observe the staff, such as nurses and assistant nurses, rather than the managers. In order to provide information to reduce this knowledge gap, this study is based on interviews with managers at elderly care homes in Sweden using the vignette-method.The analysis of this study is based on ethical theory, which is divided into two main orientations called duty-based ethics and consequentialist ethics. Ethical theory is used as a tool for analyzing the data in order to discover which ethical orientation the managers prefer to base their arguments on. The conclusion of this study shows that neither duty-based ethics, nor consequentialist ethics is more often used than the other. The managers motivate their arguments and actions on both ethical orientations without being solely reliant on neither one. Furthermore, the conclusions of this study state that the managers value autonomy and the well-being of the elderly as well as their spouses. However, they all pointed out that ethical dilemmas derived from love in elderly care homes are complex to deal with and more knowledge is needed.

Background: The common staff approach in psychiatric care has not been studied explicitly before. Earlier studies in related areas of social processes in psychiatric care highlight the importance of the interaction between the patient and the carer to understanding communication patterns and attitudes. Other studies on social order and power in psychiatric care shows carers and patients as taking part in a hierarchical system in which patients are subordinate to carers. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis is to study the phenomenon of the common staff approach in psychiatric care, how it emerges, and how it is used and experienced by both carers and patients. Method: In the first study, grounded theory was applied to data from observations and interviews carried out with carers and clients in two psychiatric care group dwellings. In the second and third studies, a phenomenological hermeneutic method was used to analyse narrative interviews conducted with nine careers working on psychiatric wards and nine patients with experience of psychiatric in-care, respectively. In the fourth study, qualitative content analysis was used to analyse data obtained by a vignette method from interviews with 13 carers with experience of working in psychiatric in-care. Results: A common staff approach can be understood as a social process in municipality-level group dwellings and psychiatric in-care, imposed by carers on clients or patients with the aim of restoring a predetermined order desired by the carers. When the order is disturbed the carers try to restore it by adopting a common and consistent approach towards the single patient perceived as the threat to order. Barriers to the success of a common staff approach, from the point of view of the carers, include the likelihood that colleagues will interpret situations differently, the chance that patients might succeed in dividing carers into “good” and “bad” camps, and the knowledge that the patient suffers under a common staff approach. The patients’ experiences partly confirm those of the carers – the dominant picture is that the patient feels persecuted and suffers under a common staff approach. However in some situations, patients can perceived the common approach as supportive and aimed to promote their recovery. Carers’ ethical reasoning about the common staff approach is usually applied on an individual basis; it can change depending upon the patient, the situation, and the proposed approach, as well as upon how the approach might affect other patients, staff members, or the carers themselves. Conclusions: The overall results from the four studies show that the common staff approach may meet carers’ needs, which under the approach take precedence over those of patients, but that the approach is more an exercise in asserting power and maintaining control than it is a therapeutic technique; that it is a difficult choice for the single carer to choose between the interests of the patient and the approval of colleagues; that the patient often suffers when a common staff approach is used; and that carers are seldom aware of the suffering experienced by the patient being managed by such an approach. A common staff approach has no part in a care-strategy; it is not an intentional care-plan; instead it appears to be a way for carers who feel vulnerable and under pressure to maintain order by controlling particular patients.