Title: “The authorities did more harm than good” - Previously abused women about their experiences with authorities.  The aim of this qualitative study was to examine how previously abused women in Sweden have experienced the contact they had with authorities as a result of the violence they were exposed to. Data collection has taken place through seven interviews with previously abused women. The results showed that these women mostly had negative experiences with social services and the police. They wished that these two authorities had more knowledge about intimate partner violence. The results have been analyzed with theories about social support and trust. The women experienced a lack of social support and developed a low level of trust in the authorities. The results in this study are consistent with previous research regarding negative experiences of contact with the authorities. The discussion shows that it is important to improve the work with abused women so that more women dare to seek help. / Titel: “Myndigheterna gjorde mer skada än nytta” - Tidigare våldsutsatta kvinnor om deras upplevelser av kontakten med myndigheter. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie var att undersöka hur tidigare våldsutsatta kvinnor i Sverige har upplevt den kontakt de haft med myndigheter i samband med våldsutsattheten. Insamling av data har skett genom sju intervjuer med tidigare våldsutsatta kvinnor. Resultatet visade att kvinnorna mestadels har negativa upplevelser av den kontakt de haft med socialtjänst och polis. De önskade att dessa två myndigheter hade mer kunskap om våld i nära relation för att kunna bemöta våldsutsatta kvinnor på ett bättre sätt. Resultatet har analyserats med hjälp av teoretiska utgångspunkter om socialt stöd och tillit. Kvinnorna har upplevt ett bristfälligt socialt stöd och utvecklat en låg tillit gentemot myndigheterna. Studiens resultat och tidigare forskning har visat sig gå i linje med varandra till stor del gällande negativa upplevelser av myndighetskontakten. I resultatdiskussionen framgår det att det är viktigt att förbättra arbetet med våldsutsatta kvinnor så att fler vågar söka hjälp.

CUPÁKOVÁ, Adéla. Evaluation of employees in social services. Praha, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, 2012. 124pp. Master Degree Thesis. The diploma thesis is concerned with the evaluation of workers in social services. The topic is examined through the perspective of quality and human resource management. The first chapter of the theoretical part examines the concept of quality in social services. The next chapter is devoted to the quality management system implementation and the general principles of change management. The third chapter explores the theoretical concept of quality, as well as the quality standards in social services. The last chapter discusses the employee appraisal system as a part of human resource management. The practical part of the thesis opens with an introduction of the organization where the research was carried out. The company's current employee appraisal system is described. The next chapters explain the methodology of the conducted qualitative research. The techniques used for data collection include document analysis and semi-structured interviews. In total, 23 interviews with the company's workers were conducted and analyzed. The later chapters discuss the research results and recommendations concerning the employee appraisal system, which were submitted to...

The aim of the thesis is to compare the system of social services in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The author's purpose is to focus on ongoing reforms of both systems and to analyze how successful they are in achieving their targets. These targets come from current trends in the field of social services and are also incorporated in the documents of the European Union. The thesis consists of two parts. The first contains an analysis of the legislation of social services in the Czech Republic and the Slovakia - author analyzes the historical evolution in their legislation and the content of their current laws. The second part of the thesis contains the comparison of the Czech and the Slovak system of social services. Therefore, the main research method used in this work is the method of comparative analysis. The work finds out that Czech and Slovak enactments of social services have some common features. It is obvious that they are based on the common ground. They bring new precautions which should lead into an increase in quality of social services. These precautions can be mainly seen as positive, despite the fact that they have a few shortcomings. But the systems of social services have still lot of serious weak points. The economic inefficiency seems to be the main problem of the...

1 Abstract Informal care is one of the important sources of the help and support provided at home to the seniors requiring the assistance from other people. This topic is highly relevant since it is linked to the growing need of long-term care of seniors reflecting the ageing of population in developed countries. The care provided by informal carers is important also because of the changes in the social services. The changes are related to the shift from institutional care of depending persons including seniors to the social services provided in the natural social environment. Such approach supports the autonomy of clients. This master degree thesis addresses the support of informal carers in the area of the care of non self-sufficient elderly people. The investigation is focused on the needs of informal family caregivers as for the information support, financial support, the support from the social services and the support expected from the services of long-term residential care. The thesis also deals with the motivation of the carers and their understanding of the social context of provided care. The research which is included in the empirical section of the thesis was implemented through qualitative methods, namely using semi-standardized interviews. The interviews with ten informal carers were carried...

Practical education (practice) is an important part of many fields of study at the universities. Education in the fields of medicine and social work, which create a base for the addictology, include a practice as a integral part of study. Practice enable students to gain important professional and work experience that complete the theoretical preparation. Students preparing for their profession in the social servises organizations, account for a future source of possible employees for these services providers. This thesis is focused on the area of providing and offering student practice within the study of addictology from the view of all three involved parties, the university, the organization providing a practice realisation and the students. The main aim of this work was to map a role and a significance of practical education within preparation of students of the addictology for a future profession. A partial aim was to suggest and create a set of recommendations for all parties involved in this process. The aims were achieved by using of qualitative research methods, i.e. documents analysis, interviews or questionnaires that also provided qualitative data. All ethical questions were kept. The whole work was realised in the form of a case study, so that it is focused mostly practically. The set...

Key words: Disability, mental retardation, social services, comprehensiveness, continuity, availability. Abstract (in English): The aim of the diploma thesis is to map the needs of persons with disabilities with a focus on persons with mental retardation from birth until the end of their life and also quantity, diversity and quality of social services with emphasis on continuity and comprehensiveness in the former district town of Rychnov nad Kneznou. In this thesis, I will focus on the challenges and needs of families in which a child with disabilities was born and the amount of support and care that the child received in the past and gets in the present. Also, I point out the difficulties associated with the availability of social services for people with disabilities and their families in a village located 20 km from the district town or regional town. In the practical part, I perform empirical investigation of families with children with disabilities where some of them will come from the district town and the surrounding area and some of them from more isolated parts of Rychnov region.

Abstract in English This work analyzes the conditions which mean that seniors must leave their habitat due to decondition their health and limitation self-support. There is a chance they couldn't go back. They change home environment for institute of residence social services. The theoretical part shows possibilities which help eliminate or at least put back permanent leaving normal environment. Practical part describes the qualitative research results. The research was made by the focus group method with seniors living home group. The purpose is the detection how they sense these possibilities and what variety is acceptable for them. In addition the practical part is enriched by the watching results of seniors' home environment who are using personal assistance services. The expected result of this work is appellation of impacts that have an effect on moving from home environment to institute diligence. Keywords residential conditions, self-support, flat adaptation, social services, health care

Med studien ville vi lyfta fram de faktorer som kan underlätta eller försvåra när man som förskollärare gör en anmälan till socialtjänsten vid oro om att ett barn far illa. Denna kvalitativa studie genomfördes genom fem intervjuer med utbildade förskollärare från tre olika kommuner i mellansverige. Vår empiriska data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys samt accountteorin och begreppen normer och normalitet. Analysen visade att det fanns både emotionella barriärer inom förskollärarna som försvårade, men även externa hinder. Förskollärarna kände en känsla av osäkerhet samt värnade om den relation de hade till barnets föräldrar vilket försvårade när de ställdes inför att göra en anmälan. Det visade sig också finnas en stor gråzon kring var gränsen går för när de ska göra en orosanmälan och samtliga förskollärare upplevde en brist på kunskap inom flera områden relaterade till anmälningsplikten. Alla förskollärare hade även begränsad erfarenhet av socialtjänsten och det fanns en övervägande negativ syn på det arbete som socialtjänsten utför efter inkommen anmälan. Det framkom fler faktorer som försvårar en anmälan än som underlättar. De två faktorer som framkom som underlättar för att genomföra en anmälan är faktorer på förskolan som arbetsplats. Förskollärarna kände att arbetslaget skapade en trygghet när de genomförde en anmälan och att det fanns tydliga riktlinjer att följa innebar att själva genomförandet av anmälan inte är svår när de kom till den punkten. / The aim of this study was to highlight the factors that can facilitate or complicate when preschool teachers make a report to the social services about the risk of children being maltreated. This qualitative study was conducted through five interviews with qualified preschool teachers from three municipalities in central Sweden. The empirical data was analysed using the qualitaive content analysis, account theory and norms and normality. The results showed that there are both emotional barriers within preschool teachers’ themselves that complicates, but also external obstacles. The preschool teachers experienced a sense of insecurity and they valued the relationship with the parents of the children, which complicates when making a report. It also appeared to be a great grey area about when to make the decision to and actually file a report. All preschool teachers experienced a lack of knowledge regarding several fields connected to the mandatory reporting. All participants also had a limited experience of the social services and there was a predominantly negative view on the work that the social services performed after they received a report. It appeared to be more factors that complicate the process of making a report, than factors that facilitate. The two facilitating factors were related to their working enviroment in the preschool. The preschool teachers felt that the team they worked with established a sense of comfort when making a report. They also expressed that well defined and easily accessible guidelines about how to file a report helped once they had reached that point.

I den här studien undersöker vi hur socialsekreterare som arbetar med barnutredningar inom socialtjänsten förhåller sig till barns delaktighet under utredningsprocessen. De utredningar vi främst fokuserar på i uppsatsen lyder under lagrummet i 11 kap. 1 §, 1 st. i SoL (2001:453). Genom sex kvalitativa och semistrukturerade intervjuer med socialsekreterare var syftet att undersöka vad de har för syn på barns delaktighet, hur de ser på sin egen kompetens gällande delaktighet samt vad de upplever sig ha för möjligheter och begränsningar att göra barn delaktiga. Genom en analys med hjälp av Shiers delaktighetsmodell (2001) fann vi att socialsekreterarna upplevde sig ha ett stort handlingsutrymme med goda möjligheter att anpassa arbetssätt och metoder utifrån olika barn. Barns delaktighet beskrivs av socialsekreterarna i termer av att barnet får fortlöpande information om det som rör barnet själv och att det generellt sker ett samtal med varje barn där barnet ges möjlighet att uttrycka sina åsikter men har en relativt liten möjlighet att påverka beslutet om insats. Enligt de intervjuade socialsekreterarna finns en hel del hinder för att kunna göra barn delaktiga som till största del beror på att vårdnadshavare inte ger sitt samtycke och att alliansen med dessa många gånger måste prioriteras. Även barnets personlighet och mognad beskrivs som en påverkansfaktor för delaktigheten, sociala och verbala barn är lättare att göra delaktiga än barn som är tystlåtna och passiva. Socialsekreterarna beskriver att deras kunskap och kompetens inom barns delaktighet är svår att definiera. Det är en kombination av utbildningar och erfarenheter samt till stor del baserad på ett kollegialt utbyte av lärdomar. Det framkommer också att barn med funktionsnedsättningar inte alltid görs delaktiga på samma sätt och att det saknas kunskap gällande hur detta bör gå till. / In this study we examine how social workers relate to children's participation during the case work process within social services. We are focusing on the case work which is regulated in chapter 11, section 1, paragraph 1 in the Social Services Act (2001:453). Through six qualitative and semi-structured interviews with social workers, we explore their views on children's participation, how they view their own competence regarding participation, and how they perceive their opportunities and limitations to involve children. Through an analysis with the help of Shier's model of participation (2001), we found that the social workers felt that they did have room for maneuver and great possibilities to adapt their working methods in relation to each individual child. The social workers describe children's participation in terms of in terms of the child receiving continuous information on matters that concern the child. There is generally one meeting with each child where the child gets the opportunity to express their own opinions but have a rather small opportunity to influence the final decision regarding social interventions. According to the interviewees there are a number of obstacles in involving children, which is mainly due to the fact that parents with their custodial rights won't give their consent and that the alliance with them must be prioritized. The child's own personality is also described as a factor that influences participation, social and verbal children are easier to involve in a participatory way than children who are quiet and passive. The social workers described their knowledge and competence in children's participation as difficult to define. It is a combination of education and experience and largely based on a collegial exchange of work experiences. It also emerges that children with disabilities are not always allowed to be involved in the same way and that there is a lack of knowledge of how to go about it.

This research study explored how intercultural communication factors such as values and communication styles might affect the interaction between Tamil asylees and their U.S. social workers. For this qualitative study, I interviewed 11 Tamil asylees and conducted a focus group with 3 U.S. social workers at an agency serving the Tamil participants. Based on the findings of this research as well as the literature review, this thesis reveals culture-specific information about Tamil asylees and highlights the implications of the research to the fields of intercultural communication, refugee studies, and social work. Findings revealed the following: culture general assumptions overshadow the complexity of values and communication styles when examined in context, refugees are a unique immigrant population and therefore should be the focus of more intercultural research, competent social workers seem to possess culture-specific and general intercultural skills, and social workers can apply the methodology of this study to learn about the values and communication styles of new refugee clients.