Children who experience violence is one aspect of the work of social secretaries and is a complex assignment in their work. The purpose of this essay has been to understand how social secretaries describe their work within their discretion on children who experience violence. More specifically focus has been on cases where there is a lack of consent to voluntary interventions according to the Social Services Act and when compulsory care is not possible. Previous research about this specific situation is limited which makes this study necessary. The questions of this study had a focus on how social secretaries use their discretion in these cases, which challenges they meet in their work and also their reasoning on today´s legislation regarding children who experience violence. The method of this study has been qualitative semi-structured interviews with five social secretaries in three different municipalities in Sweden. Our results have been analysed with previous research and two theoretic starting-points, discretion and caring power. This study shows that knowledge about children who experience violence is an important part in the work of social secretaries and is a crucial factor in children’s right to protection. It also shows that parental rights to refuse interventions is a major aspect that prevents the possibilities of social secretaries to protect children who experience violence which the social secretaries describe as a difficult challenge. Another difficult challenge described was when parents deny that their children are experiencing violence and there is a lack of proof in the same time. The social secretaries in this study expressed a wish to have a possibility in the law to force parents of children who experience violence to receive interventions even though there is a lack of consent.

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The aim of the study was to create a greater understanding concerning social workers'experience and their discretion to balance between voluntary and compulsoryinterventions in child welfare. Furthermore, we wanted to investigate social workers'attitudes regarding the implementation of an intermediate compulsory care accordingto the law regarding compulsory care of children and adolescents. Previous researchhas identified a problem where the child is between voluntary and compulsorylegislation which can lead to the child continuing living in harmful conditions. Theempirical data is based on nine interviews with social workers in child welfareinvestigations units in Sweden. Lipsky's (2010) theory of street-level bureaucrats andthe term discretion were used to analyze the data and interpret the results obtainedfrom the study. The results showed that social workers' experience limited discretion.Strategies that were most successful were the relationship-building between socialworker and caregivers, communicative skills, and the application of the law. Thestudy also revealed that social workers had different points of view regarding animplementation of an intermediate care. Some find the implementation hard toenforce in practice, even though it could result in increased child protection. Theconclusion of the study was that the social workers would rather add moreinterventions than an implementation of an additional compulsory law. / Syftet med studien var att skapa en förståelse för socialsekreterares erfarenheter och deras förmåga att balansera mellan frivilliga och tvingande insatser inom den sociala barnavården. Dessutom ville vi undersöka socialsekreterares inställning till implementeringen av ett mellanvårdstvång enligt 2 § i lagen om särskilda bestämmelser om vård av unga. Tidigare forskning har identifierat ett problem där barnet befinner sig mellan frivilliga- och tvångsinsatser, vilket kan leda till att barnet fortsätter att leva under skadliga förhållanden. Empirin baseras på nio intervjuer med socialsekreterare inom den sociala barnavården i Sverige. Lipskys (2010) teori om street-level bureaucrats och begreppet handlingsutrymme användes för att analysera data och tolka de resultat som erhållits från studien. Resultaten visade att socialsekreterarna upplevde ett begränsat handlingsutrymme. Strategier som var mest framgångsrika var relationsskapande mellan socialsekreterare och vårdnadshavare, kommunikativa färdigheter och tillämpning av lagen. Studien visade också att socialsekreterare hade olika inställningar om implementeringen av ett mellanvårdstvång. Vissa tycker att det är svårt att genomföra i praktiken, även om det skulle kunna leda till ökat skydd för barnet. Slutsatsen av studien var att socialsekreterare hellre vill ha tillgång till fler insatser än en implementering av ytterligare en tvångslagstiftning.