The most usual form of out-of-home care for children in Sweden is foster care. The responsibility lies with the municipalities' social services, while implementation can be handed over to independent foster care agencies, IFA. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the unit managers’ experiences with IFA, with a focus on support towards the foster parents. The thesis was conducted through semi-structured interviews with eight unit managers from various parts of the country and analyzed through qualitative thematic analysis. The results showed that the quality of the service varied between different providers, and that most municipalities wanted to become independent again with the management of foster homes, due to excessive costs and a lack of transparency. The result also showed that support such as high availability of the consultant could be a contributing factor when engaging the service, especially in more difficult cases. The unit managers often experienced a competition for the few available foster homes, while at the same time they believed that the recruitment work of private actors was deficient as they approved unsuitable foster homes. This result creates uncertainty about whether the children's needs are met in a legally secure manner.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-228299 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Gustafsson, Sara, Drammeh, Nyanya |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för socialt arbete |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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