ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY Department of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences Program of social work Social Work C C-essay in Social Work, 15 credits Autumn term 2013 The family is the only way back home – A qualitative study on staff’s view on family involvement in the treatment of adolescents Authors: Cakici, Nahrin and Claesson, Sandra Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate how the staff at residential treatment centers works to involve the family and the social network in youth’s treatment and how they experience that the involvement affects the young person. The aim is also to study the difficulties the staff experience in their work to involve the family and the social network. In this study, staff from two residential treatment centers in Sweden participated. The study is conducted based in on qualitative method in which four semi-structured telephone interviews and one group interview have been conducted. The result was analyzed using general system theory, attachment theory and social representations. The result shows that family involvement in treatment will have a positive impact on the young person and the treatment. This may facilitate a positive way to move home. The social network has also an impact on the young person, and then as a support during and after treatment. One difficulty for staff to involve the social network is that they must relate to confidentiality laws which may limit the social network’s participation in the treatment. Keywords: residential treatment center, youth, family, social network, involvement, difficulties.