<p>The objective of this licentiate’s dissertation is the developing occupational role of ‘personligt ombud’ (PO), a case manager for persons with severe psychiatric disabilities. The purpose of PO, put forward by a government’s commission (Psykiatriutredningen) 1992, was to implement a new way of providing support and to coordinate interventions with an aim to improve the life conditions of persons with severe psychiatric disabilities.</p><p>The aim of this licentiate’s dissertation is to characterize PO as a phenomenon within disability politics.</p><p>The empirical data were collected in three counties, viz the counties of Blekinge, Kalmar and Kronoberg. All POs within these counties were inter-viewed as well as influential managers. Clients of the POs were also interviewed.</p><p>The results imply that POs construct their understanding of their clients’ problems within a medical discourse, individualizing the problems as a result of illness. However, in their actions to solve problems they take social measures relating to a citizen discourse, focusing on citizen rights and living conditions. The occupational role of the PO develops within these discourses in conflict.</p><p>The POs’ courses of action were analyzed as four stylized patterns that can be identified with methods and theory in Social Work: rehabilitation, paternalism, empowerment and advocacy. Empowerment and advocacy can be seen as new courses of action used by POs as professionals within the public sector for sup-porting this target group.</p><p>Conclusions indicate that while formulating medical explanations to their cli-ents’ problems, the lack of language to formulate and analyze the structural and social problems is creating a risk of POs strengthening the exclusionary proc-esses. Nevertheless, the occupational role of the PO has developed a new ex-pected function as society integrated support, built on empowerment, advocacy and user control.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:vxu-795 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Järkestig-Berggren, Ulrika |
| Publisher | Växjö University, School of Health Sciences and Social Work, Växjö : Institutionen för vårdvetenskap och socialt arbete |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Licentiate thesis, monograph, text |
| Relation | Rapportserie i socialt arbete : Växjö universitet, Institutionen för vårdvetenskap och socialt arbete, 1652-8573 ; 2 : 2006 |
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