The aim of the study is to gain an understanding regarding the implementation of New Public Management in the public sector’s human service organizations. New Public Management (NPM) originates from the private sector and began at the early 1980s to permeate the public sector. NPM had a huge breaktrough and currently form many organizational bases and structures in the public sector. The implementation of NPM in public organizations has resulted in various problems. Old structures were demolished to be replaced by new structures, which resulted in a change of circumstances for everyone involved in the organization.   The study has a qualitative approach and was designed as a case study. To obtain empirical material I used semi-structured interviews. I analyzed the empirical material using New Public Management, which is included in the new institutional theory. The result made it visible that public reforms are inevitable. Organizations are dependent on its environment and as the environment change the organization must change with it to survive. The result also showcased the conflict, affected by the reform, in which difficulties with leadership, communication, employees’ involvement and adaptability arose. Preventing these negative effects requires an organization that is structured in a way that advocates change and reforms.

Studien ämnade söka förståelse och kunskap om biståndshandläggarnas yrkesroll inom äldreomsorgen. Utifrån detta fördjupade vi oss i de svårigheter som kan uppstå under handläggningsprocessen och vilka stödresurser som finns tillgängliga. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ forskningsansats med hjälp av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med biståndshandläggare som arbetar inom äldreomsorg i olika kommuner i Stockholms län. Resultatet analyserades utifrån teoretiska referensramar som belyser olika typer av dilemman på både individuellt och strukturellt plan. Dessa teorier var Lipskys teori om Gräsrotsbyråkrati, konsekvensetik, dygdetik samt begreppen äkta dilemman och skendilemman.  Studien kom fram till att det finns ett flertal svårigheter som biståndshandläggare möter i arbetsvardagen. Vidare framkom att biståndshandläggarna upplever att de är alltför styrda av riktlinjer och lagar vilket minskar deras inflytande. Studien bekräftar tidigare forsknings resultat inom området. / The study aimed to seek understanding and knowledge about care managers professional role in elderly care. Whit that basis we went in-depth of the difficulties that can occur during the process of care managing and what kind of support resources that are available. We used qualitative research approach and performed six semi structured interviews with care managers in the elderly care in different municipalities in the county of Stockholm. The result was analyzed with the basis of theoretical reference frames that illustrate different kinds of dilemmas on both an individual and a structural level. The theories we used were Lipskys theory about street level bureaucrats, consequence ethics, virtue ethics and the concept of real dilemmas and deceptive dilemmas. The study shows that there are a number of difficulties that care managers face in their everyday work environment. Furthermore it emerged that care managers experience that they are too controlled by guidelines and laws which would therefore diminish their influence. The study is verifying of earlier research made in the same field.

The aim of the study was to understand how the family home secretary reasons and thinks and how they express themselves in their actions towards the family home’s biological children. The method used is qualitative semi-structured interviews, involving six family home secretaries from four different municipalities. The results were analyzed with the help of two theories – the theory of grassroots bureaucracy and the sociology of childhood theory. From the collective views of all informants, the biological children’s attitude towards the family home mandate is considered important. However, participation from the biological children is limited. Education and guidance is directed solely towards the family home parents, without any active involvement from the biological children in these efforts. Some of the informants stress that they as professionals must be better at paying attention to the biological children than what prevails today. The collective results show that family home parents are expected to take great responsibility for their biological children as well as their participation and well-being within the family home mandate.

The aim of this study was to reach a deeper understanding of the process that occurs within the social services after receiving a notification according to Chapter 14, section 1, The Social Services Act. More specifically the focus of this study was to illustrate how social secretaries reason about children’s participation in the process, as well as to examine whether the legislative change, Chapter 11, section 1 a, The Social Services Act, has affected the process in any way. The study’s results reflect interviews with five social secretaries who are active in four different municipalities in southern Sweden. The results in this study were analyzed with the help of two theories, Lipskys theory about street-level bureaucrats and the theory of childhood sociology. The results show that the social secretaries experience some changes due to the legislative alteration; they feel an increased time pressure that for some of them lead to fewer meetings with the child and more encounters with parents by telephone. Throughout the interviews the social secretaries mentioned their sense of intuition or the feeling in the room as an assessment instrument to assess whether to open an investigation regarding a child’s vulnerability. The majority of the social secretaries did not express that the child’s participation in the process was unconditional. They expressed that whether they would involve the child or not depended on how they experienced the meeting with the parents.

No description available.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur massmedia och regeringen framställer socialtjänsten samt att undersöka om och hur de massmediala framställningarna korresponderar med regeringens framställningar. För att besvara studiens syfte har 37 stycken artiklar som publicerats i Dagens Nyheter under perioden 2017-07-01 – 2017-12-31 och 21 stycken av regeringens egenproducerade artiklar som publicerats på regeringens hemsida under perioden 2017-01-01 – 2017-12-31 analyserats med hjälp av kritisk diskursanalys. Anammandet av den kritiska diskursanalysen innebär att analyser (kvalitativa och kvantitativa innehållsanalyser) genomförts inom tre olika dimensioner av texten: text (textens innehåll), diskursiv praktik (textens produktion) och social praktik (hur texten knyter an till en bredare samhällsmässig struktur). I studien framkommer det att framställningarna av socialtjänsten i Dagens Nyheter har utgått från tre olika diskurser: handlingarnas diskurs, den organisatoriska diskursen och förpliktelsernas diskurs. Hur socialtjänsten framställs beror på vilken av diskurserna skribenterna i DN aktualiserar när de gör sina uttalanden. I de flesta fall är det handlingarnas diskurs som framträder. Detta innebär att socialtjänsten oftast framställs som en kontrollerande, vårdslös, likgiltig och maktfullkomlig verksamhet. Dessa egenskaper måste, enligt skribenterna, ifrågasättas och förändras.     I regeringens artiklar framkommer det att samtliga uttalanden inom ramen för artiklarna har utgått från en enda diskurs: den socialpolitiska diskursen. Utifrån diskursen framställs socialtjänsten som en verksamhet som är en del av en bredare välfärdsapparat som finns till för att hjälpa människor när behov för det finns. Det framkommer emellertid också att socialtjänsten för närvarande omfattas av en rad problem som är upp till politiken att lösa. När diskurserna i Dagens Nyheter relateras till den socialpolitiska diskursen så framträder ett mönster. Två av diskurserna i Dagens Nyheter (den organisatoriska diskursen och förpliktelsernas diskurs) framställer socialtjänsten på ett likartat sätt som regeringen medan den tredje diskursen (handlingarnas diskurs) förmedlar en motstridig bild. / The purpose of this study is to explore how the mass media and the government represent the social services as well as explore if and how the mass media´s representations correspond with the government's representations. 37 articles from the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter who were published between 2017-07-01 and 2017-12-31 as well as 21 of the government´s own articles who were published on the governments website between 2017-01-01 and 2017-12-31 have been examined to answer the purpose. The form for examination have been critical discourse analysis which means that the material has been analyzed (with qualitative and quantitative content analysis) within three different dimensions of the text: text (the content of the text), discursive practice (the production of the text) and social practice (how the text relates to a broader societal structure).  The study shows that the representations of the social services in Dagens Nyheter have been based on three different discourses: the discourse of action, the organizational discourse and the discourse of obligations. How the social services are represented depends upon which discourse the different authors base their statements on. The majority of the statements can, however, be found within the discourse of actions. This means that the social services in most cases are represented as controlling, wreck less, careless and autocratic. These are characteristics that, according to the authors, need to be questioned and changed.   In the government's articles it´s shown that all statements within the articles have been based upon one single discourse: the discourse of social policies. This discourse describes the social services as an organization that´s only one part of a wider welfare apparatus, which solely purpose is to help individuals when needed. It also shown, however, that the social services nowadays are subject to a number of problems and that it is up to the government to resolve them. When the discourses in Dagens Nyheter are compared to the discourse of social policies, the study argues, that a pattern appears. Two of the discourses in Dagens Nyheter (the organizational discourse and the discourse of obligations) represent the social services similarly to the discourse of social policies. However, the third discourse (the discourse of actions) conveys a contradictory and different picture of the social services.

The statistics shows low quantity of custody transfer while it shows a high number of children in long-term foster care placement in Sweden. This qualitative study examines how social services work with custody transfer and the challenges that comes with it. Questions under study were; Which factors makes social services initiate a custody transfer? What argument stands for and against custody transfer after three years? Which dilemmas and difficulties are related to a custody transfer?   The aim of the study was to study what obstacles and possibilities a custody transfer contains according to social workers, and to try to understand the social workers process in working with custody transfer. The group under study consisted of five social workers with a variety of experience within the field. The material from the interviews was analysed by two steps using a phenomenological method. The result shows that many actors can make application of custody transfer difficult. The perspective of the placed children seemed to have a low value when deciding about the children’s staying and what’s best for them. Furthermore, the informants described social services today as in constant change, the staff has less experience and the guidelines is deficient. In accordance with earlier research, the result indicate however that custody transfer means many advantages for the children in foster care. Based on research and theoretical perspectives along with the findings of this study, the discussion is about the importance of children attachment, stability and participation in decisions about their own lives. Further, social services experiences of children worry and other emotions in foster care when custody transfer is discussed. There were also various dilemmas and difficulties according to the informants when assessments of custody transfer were made.

Barn som upplever våld i nära relationer riskerar att drabbas av svåra konsekvenser. Ångest, depression och traumasymptom är bara några av de konsekvenser forskning har påvisat. Syftet för denna studie är att undersöka hur våld och konsekvenser av våld synliggörs i socialtjänstens barnavårdsutredningar. Detta för att kunna analysera vilka eventuella konsekvenser våldsframställningen kan få för barnen samt för att kunna identifiera utvecklingsområden inom socialtjänstens arbete med utredningar där barn upplever våld. Resultatet bygger på en kritisk diskursanalys, enligt Faircloughs tredimensionella modell, av 16 barnavårdsutredningar där barn upplevt våld i nära relationer. Tidigare forskning inom området, Foucaults teorier om makt samt Berger och Luckmanns resonemang om hur social verklighet skapas ligger till grund för analys av resultatet. Av resultatet framgår att socialsekreterare påverkas av och påverkar diskurser om våld som förs i samhället. Uttryck för våld reduceras ofta till mindre laddade ord och konsekvenser av våld tenderar att osynliggöras, vilket kan ge konsekvenser för utgången av barnavårdsutredningarna. I många fall saknas våldsanpassade insatser för att lindra barnens utsatthet. Insatser för våldsutövande samt våldsutsatta föräldrar saknas helt i studiens utredningar. / <p>2018-06-05</p>

Social welfare - A study on the introduction of robotic techniques in social services We have studied how administrators in social services experience the new work method with robotic techniques. Based on a focus group interview and two deep interviews, the finding shows that it is important to provide information and time when making a reorganization. The new work method has caused concern among the administrators about the future of social work. They are critical of how the implementation process has been addressed. The results we gained show that the administrators look forward to the future regarding robotic techniques, even though their attitudes have been negative. Based on our findings we have concluded that the decision of implementing robotic techniques has been made at higher level and that the administrators lacked influence in the decision-making process. We have also made observations of what have been published in the media to see how the attitudes of the administrators were influenced by what is written.    Keywords: Social welfare, robotic techniques, attitudes, mass media, social services

The aim of the study was to investigate how social service administrators collaborate around persons that has dual diagnosis. In this study, we refer to people with mental disabilities along with addiction problems. We have used a qualitative method and collected our material using semi-structured interviews. The theoretical framework we have used to interpret the degree of collaboration is Ann Boklund's model of collaboration. We also proceed from Ervin Goffman's dramaturgical perspective to interpret parts of the material. The material is divided into two main categories: collaboration between social service administrators and the prerequisites for collaboration. The result shows that the collaborative process can vary and is linked together to how the administrators communicate, were they are geographically placed, and how well they know each other. The result also shows that there is a lack of guidelines and a common approach to collaboration issues. The obstacles to collaboration that was raised by the interviewees were the confidentiality, delegation succession and problems that may arise when the chemistry between the administrators doesn’t work. The conclusion in our study is that the administrators see there is a need for collaboration and a comprehensive view when it comes to persons with dual diagnosis, but also that there is lack of guidelines to direct collaboration. When guidelines are lacking, it’s up to each administrator to decide when and if a collaboration is needed.