This project was a mixed methods study that examined the collaboration dimensions of Homeward's planning process and the factors that motivate organizations to participate. The study examined the collaborative strategy used by an organization called Homeward located in Richmond, Virginia. Homeward is a broker organization (Chaskin, Brown, Venkatesh, & Vidal, 2001) that was created in 1998 to mediate and nurture relationships among partnering organizations in order to facilitate the collaborative process required by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to receive Continuum of Care funding. During the quantitative component of the study, a survey was sent to Homeward's partners (n = 44) to identify partner perceptions of Homeward's leadership, organizational structure, benefits and drawbacks of participation, and relationships with partners. The follow-up survey and focus group in the qualitative component explored themes related to organization affiliation with Homeward, benefits and drawbacks of participation, relationships with partners, challenges that impact the ability of Homeward to facilitate collaboration, and strategies to involve key stakeholders. The findings from both methods have provided an overview of how Homeward's collaborative process is perceived by its partners and have raised issues that may impact Homeward's partner recruitment and retention efforts in the future. Implications for Homeward's model of collaboration include developing an organizational structure that will support the existence of both loosely and tightly coupled systems under the auspices of a single collaborative effort for long-term planning.

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Denna studie utgår från socialkonstruktivism som belyser sociala beteenden, som är konstruerade och där individer skapar mening genom att samspela med varandra. Datorer, Internet och Digitala medier tar en alltmer större plats i barn och ungdomars liv då de växer upp i en alltmer digitaliserad värld till skillnad från tidigare generationer. Syftet med studien är att utifrån socialkonstruktivism belysa hur hälsobudskap framträder i hälsobloggar kring lärande om hälsa. Frågeställningar: Hur framställs hälsobudskapen kring kropp, träning och kost som skrivs av unga killar respektive tjejer? Vilka hälsoråd ger bloggarna till läsarna?Teorier som användes i studien är socialkonstruktivism, sociokulturellt perspektiv, praktikgemenskap samt Hälsism Metod som används i denna studie är netnografi och konventionell innehållsanalys. Netnografi användes för att observera dagliga bloggars uppdateringar under en tre veckors period medan konventionell kvalitativ innehållsanalys användes för att bearbeta insamlad dataempiri. Resultatet i studien visar att bloggars hälsobudskap handlar om att se en vältränad kropp som ett mål, dvs. ett kvitto för hälsa där både kroppens utseende och funktion är viktiga i förmedlingen i att uppnå hälsa. Hälsoråd om träning ges i olika variationer genom hänvisningar till olika digitala verktyg och detta för att öka kunskap bland läsare. Samtidigt handlar dessa råd om att kost handlar ofta om att äta nyttigt, dvs. vara vegetarian eller vegan. / This study is based on social constructivism that highlights socially constructed behaviors where individuals create meaning by interacting with each other. Computers, Internet and Digital media all overshadows a great part of children and young people's lives, because they are growing up in a more and more increasingly digitized world, unlike previous generations.The purpose of the study from a social constructivism perspective is to illustrate how health messages appear in health blogs from a gender perspective. Questions: How is health messages rendered out regarding body, exercise and diet written by young boys and girls? What type of health advice is shared by the bloggers? Theories used in the study is social constructivism, social perspectives, communities of practice and Healthism. Methods used in this study is cyber-ethnography and conventional content analysis. Cyber-ethnography was used to observe the daily blog updates over a three week period while the conventional qualitative content analysis was used to process the collected empirical data. The results of the study show that the health messages from blogs displays the body as a goal, ie, a form of receipt for health where both body appearance and function are important factors in the process of achieving health. Health advice on training is given in different variations by referring to various digital tools in order to increase knowledge among readers. At the same time the advice concerns dieting, it shows that eating healthy also/often means being a vegetarian or vegan.