This thesis in sociology was based on a qualitative research strategy. Its intention was to analyze how a specific county in the middle of Sweden work to make the integration process of the unaccompanied refugee youths, with a Swedish residence permit, as good as possible, the other intention was to find out the possible following of this work. Interviews were done and statistics were found, this later on became analyzed together with the theories. The basic theories were integration and class theory. The mainly finding in this study was that that the integration of the unaccompanied refugee children leads them into a lower society class of the Swedish community. This since these youth are more of less forced to follow some steps in the education, which for many of them will lead to that they are too old to apply to the national gymnasium in Sweden, and therefore they only get education though the introduction program, which is not leading to a graduation from the gymnasium. Because of this they are not getting the same chances to succeed with the same kind of education as youth on other programs in the Swedish gymnasium.

The aim with this study is to examine and analyze how the employees at two residential care homes for unaccompanied refugee children work with the children during their pending decision for asylum in Sweden. The purpose is to gain insight into the employees’ daily work with the target audience and how they handle decisions with the children. The method to collect data is to carry 6 interviews with the employees at the residential care home. The interviews were semi-structured with purpose of letting the interviewee lead the content of the interview. The results of the interviews show that the employees have very varied types of duties within their profession. The employees must also maintain many different roles, for example family, teacher and friend. The employees do often have to face very difficult situations with the children during their wait for a residence permit decision. The result was analyzed with theories as Integration Theory and Coping theory. The conclusions of this study are that the employees at the residential care homes for refugee children have very multifaceted work tasks with a very important target group. The increased amount of unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents escaping to Sweden has led to a situation that the Swedish society haven’t had time to adjust to. Clarifying how the employees work and treat the unaccompanied children can contribute to spreading this knowledge to other community stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to examine how unaccompanied refugee children living in a care-institution are being prepared for a independent life in Sweden. The study wish to pay attention to how the treatment assistants perceice their work with these children. To create a deeper understanding from the staff's perspective, the study is also focusing on their personal experiences of working with the children. To analyze the results, we have using the theoretical perspectives empowerment and systems theory, so called "systemteorin". The results showed that the treatment assistants are in first place working to build a secure and reliable relationship with the unaccompanied refugee children. The results also show that the staff at the care-institution serves as "extra parents" for the children seeing that they come to Sweden without their biological parents. This also means that the staff are teaching the children everyday skills such as cooking and how to manage an economy, and how the swedish society is formed.

This study researches how communication provided by supervisors working in homes for unaccompanied refugee children about gender equality, sex and sexuality should be conducted and executed for children acclimating to Sweden. This studied topic was founded in the desire expressed by RFSU to demand sexual education for unaccompanied refugee children coming to Sweden. This desire was expressed after unaccompanied refugee boys were discovered to have sexually abused and harassed a number of girls during a youth festival in Stockholm. RFSU, and the president for the Unaccompanied Children’s Union in Sweden, brought to the attention that the cultural backgrounds URC commonly have differ from the Swedish culture concerning gender equality and sexuality. Thus, the issue with communication about gender equality, sex and sexuality intended for unaccompanied refugee children is that it needs to be befitting and susceptible to them according to their usual and previous context.  The method used in this study was to implement a qualitative research method of phenomenological nature. Data were mainly accrued through a questionnaire that was answered by supervisors that currently work with unaccompanied refugee children. These answers provided with an understanding, together with the compiled frame of reference, of how to befittingly and susceptibly communicate about gender equality, sex and sexuality with unaccompanied refugee children acclimating to Sweden. Keep in mind, not all unaccompanied refugee children who come to Sweden are in fact refugees. However, to distinguish these children who come from other countries from other children in general, the choice was made to continue calling them unaccompanied refugee children throughout this study.    The conclusions drawn from the result of this study ended up being four. The first is that not all unaccompanied refugee children are alike, and can therefore not be seen as one identical target group. The second is that unaccompanied refugee children’s previous cultural and religious contexts, with their previous experiences about gender equality, sex and sexuality, need to be considered, along with the suitability of how to execute such information. The third conclusion is to naturally, and clearly, discuss and debate on a regular basis with a suitable supervisor. The fourth is that media, for instance pornography, can provide misguided and biased information. The practical recommendations that these conclusions resulted in are also four, and are as follows; 1) to create multiple communication materials as to satisfy most children’s needs and attitudes, 2) to learn about URC’s previous cultural and religious contexts, and their previous experiences, and have different suitable information sessions based on the needed level of privacy, 3) to discuss and debate gender equality, sex and sexuality on a regular basis in a natural setting through a suitable supervisor, and 4) to include media, especially pornography, when discussing and debating about gender equality, sex and sexuality.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to get a better understanding how professionals working with unaccompanied refugee children perceive and reflect on their emotions evoked by their work and on their preparedness to handle them. Therefore, I chose to investigate how the sample of professional recognised, expressed and managed their emotions at work; what role did support and self-reflection play in exploring emotions; how the professionals saw the role of emotions in their work with unaccompanied refugee children; and how the participants described their preparedness to handle their emotions from the social work education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine professionals working directly with unaccompanied refugee children. The findings indicated a lack of consistency in the views; where some said emotions could be utilised as a tool in social work, others viewed that expressing emotions might be seen unprofessional. Self-reflection and support of the colleagues and the counsellor in handling emotions were valued by the participants; it was seen to be helpful in working on emotions and becoming a better professional. Another emerging theme was the lack of discussion about emotions in social work education.

Abstract The purpose of our study is to reach an understanding of the situation of unaccompanied refugee minors in school. Thus the study aims to investigate what sort of possibilities and limits they encounter when going through their school education. We have chosen a qualitative method and conducted interviews with four persons between the ages of 18 and 21 years. The result of the study shows that unaccompanied refugee minors experience numerous limitations and lesser possibilities than other students, which prevents their educational and social development. The limitations partly depend on the school personnels lack of knowledge about this target group, and partly on the difficulty of dealing with a new culture which is different from the students original culture.  An important conclusion that our study has shown is that the educational system has a great impact on how well the students manage to function in the new society later on.  Therefore it is of great importance that the teachers have access to competence development , since this is of substantial importance for the  unaccompanied refugee minors development and socialization. / Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka ensamkommande flyktingbarns situation i skolan, främst med avseende på de begränsningar och eventuella hinder som barnen möter under skolgången.  Det insamlade datamaterialet har analyserats med hjälp av en tematisk tolkande ansats, där framförallt begreppet socialisation varit vägledande i tolkningsprocessen. Resultatet visar att ensamkommande flyktingbarn upplever många begränsningar och färre möjligheter i skolan. Detta försvårar deras möjligheter till kunskapsutveckling och socialisation. De hinder som ensamkommande flyktingbarn brottas med kan i relation till en övergripande nivå ses som en konsekvens av omfattande begränsningar inom skolan som institution. Inom den svenska skolan råder brist på resurser av varierande slag. Det saknas kunskap och insyn i ensamkommande barns livssituationer, vilket i sin tur begränsar elevernas förutsättningar att smälta in i och socialiseras i de nya förhållandena. En viktig slutsats i vår studie är att skolan har stor påverkan på hur eleverna klarar sig senare i livet i det nya samhället. Det är således av stor vikt att lärarna har tillgång till kompetensutveckling, eftersom lärares kapacitet i mötet med eleverna i en förlängning får stor betydelse för ensamkommande flyktingbarns lärande och socialisation.

This study analyses social age as a phenomenon and if unaccompanied refugee children has a social age that, according to the Swedish culture, do not correspond with their biological age and if so is, the reason for that. Furthermore, our study has discussed the potential consequences of the effects for the unaccompanied refugee children and the social age when interacting with Swedish society. According to our study, the social age is effected by other factors besides cultural norms, values and role expectations that a society has on a specific biological age. The results in this study shows that social age is a vital component to someone’s identity. Therefore, the social age is an important factor for individuals when it comes to meeting and handling new social environments such as new countries.

Abstract Background:Sweden has in the past year received several thousand unaccompanied minors. The workload for district nurses in primary care has increased drastically . Many of these children have complex needs for healthcare , which places high demands on the district nurse. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe district nurses experiences of caring for unaccompanied refugee children in primary healthcare. Method: The design of the study is qualitative. The data was collected through a convenience and snowball sample and then conducted eight semi-structured interviews . The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis in which the latent content is the core.Results: Three categories were identified ; " The experiences of caring for an unaccompanied refugee children ", " Obstacles in everyday work " and "A desire for change ." The most prominent results was that the district nurses wanted to give a good and equal health care despite many obstacles, and that they had desires of several organizational changes .Conclusion: It takes a lot of a district nurse to care for unaccompanied refugee children. They have both physical and mental injuries, and many of them suffer from severe mental illness as a result of traumatic experiences they had to undergo. By making small changes of the organization the district nurse's work environment would improve and the patients would also get a more secure and equitable care . / Abstrakt Bakgrund: Sverige har det senaste året tagit emot flera tusen ensamkommande flyktingbarn. Arbetsbelastningen för distriktssköterskor inom primärvården har därför ökat drastiskt. Många av dessa barn har komplexa vårdbehov vilket ställer höga krav på distriktssköterskan. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att belysa distriktssköterskors erfarenheter av att vårda ensamkommande flyktingbarn inom primärvården. Metod: Studiens design är kvalitativ. Datan samlades in genom ett bekvämlighets- samt snöbollsurval och därefter genomfördes åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer. Datamaterialet analyserades med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys där det latenta innehållet är kärnan. Resultat: Tre kategorier identifierades; ”Erfarenheter av att vårda ett ensamkommande flyktingbarn”, ”Hinder i det dagliga arbetet” samt ”En önskan om förändring”. Det som genomsyrande resultatet var att distriktssköterskorna ville ge en god och jämlik vård trots många hinder samt att de hade önskningar om flera organisatoriska förändringar. Slutsats: Det krävs mycket av en distriktssköterska som ska vårda ensamkommande flyktingbarn. Barnen har både fysiska och psykiska skador och många av dem lider av svår psykisk ohälsa tilll följd av de traumatiska händelser de tvingats genomgå. Genom små medel kan förändringar av organisationen göras vilket förbättrar distriktssköterskans arbetsmiljö, men patienten får också en mer säker och jämlik vård.

The purpose of this study has been to identify how the work is conducted in five municipal homes for care and accommodation for unaccompanied refugee youths. Five qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with six respondents who work as staff in the youth accommodation for unaccompanied refugee youths. The results were analyzed based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The results showed a spread among the youths where some had difficulties with the most basic needs such as eating and sleeping, while other young people had worked their way up in the hierarchy and were on the top of the stairs working for self-actualization. / Syftet med den här studien har varit att kartlägga hur arbetet ser ut på fem kommunala hem för vård och boende för ensamkommande flyktingungdomar. Fem kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med sex respondenter som arbetar som personal på ungdomsboenden för ensamkommande flyktingungdomar. Resultatet analyserades med utgångspunkt i Maslows behovstrappa. Resultatet visade en spridning bland ungdomarna där en del har svårigheter med de mest grundläggande behoven såsom matintag och sömn, medan andra ungdomar har arbetat sig upp till behovstrappans högsta punkt och arbetar för självförverkligande.

ABSTRACT UNACCOMPANIED REFUGEE MINORS AND THEIR STRATEGIES TO NAVIGATE A NEW WORLD: A GROUNDED THEORY By Justin Scott Lee A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012 Chair: Pamela J. Kovacs, Ph.D. Associate Professor This study explored how unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) define success. The population of URMs consists of individuals who, through forced migration from their country of origin, were resettled in the United States through the URM program. Little is known about the ways in which refugee adolescents view the resettlement process once they have left the URM program. Through a traditional grounded theory method, 15 interviews with former URMs were conducted with the aim of laying the groundwork for a theory that would explain how success is defined, the unique challenges URMs face, the mechanisms for overcoming challenges, and the role that culture plays in the resettlement process.