1.
Ahlgren, Thorbjörn, 1959-
(författare)
Institutionalisering på hemmaplan : En idés resa i den sociala barnavården
2014
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis describes and analyses in three substudies how home-based measures for children are expanding and why an open care idea are established as part of the Swedish child welfare. The first substudy describes the national increment of what today can be considered as a treatment policy – non-institutional care in child welfare. The results are analysed with Kingdon's agenda setting theory and shows that the factors of what Kingdon describes as problems-, politics- and policyflow influenced the national increment. Significant mechanisms have primarily been, the profession, the society's concerns for socially disadvantaged children, negative experiences of institutionalisation and a political position to deinstitutionalise all care. The second substudy focuses on how knowledge and research contributes to ideological, professional, and organizational change in child welfare by analysis of Research & Developments reports and articles from the professional journal Socionomen. Based on the neo-institutional concepts of organisational fields and isoformism the study's results shows that a consequence of adaptation strategies and "rationalized myths" are a number of similarities in how home-based measures are organized and which measures that are used. The third substudy, a case study, analyses how we can understand a local development of ideas in social services for children with concepts from neo institutional theory. Interviews and municipal documents are analysed and shows that the local translation of an open care idea is characterized by discretion, personal preferences and action and affects the choice of method and organization. The study also shows a political mistrust of institutional care while there is at the same time political confidence in the individual social worker's ability to find solutions that allow non-institutional measures to be an alternative to institutional care.An overall conclusion of the thesis is that there is now a treatment policy in social services for the children, which involves extensive efforts at home and it has led to that more children receive support from social services. One result of non-institutional care increment is that it led to increased costs for municipalities for intervention for children and young people when out-of-home care has not decreased. Another general conclusion is that translation and adaptation of ideas to local contexts is something that generally fits street-level bureaucrats need for discretion.
2.
Enell, Sofia
(författare)
Transit i samhällsvården : När unga utreds på särskilda ungdomshem
2015
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis is about assessments of young people in secure accommodations. Institutional assessments relate to the paradox in child welfare of combining control and care. The procedure raises questions about their implications for young people, their caseworkers and evolving care trajectories. Although institutional assessments of young people have a historical heritage, research about their implications is lacking. The aim of the thesis is to explore young people’s and their caseworkers’ experiences of assessments in secure accommodations and their implications for young people’s care trajectories. Methods used are primarily repeated interviews with 16 young people during a period of two years and one interview with their caseworkers. Surveys about 85 youths, participatory observations and written assessments are also included. This thesis takes an interactionist approach and the material has been analysed with the main concept of care trajectory along with the concepts of self-presentation, total institution, institutional identity and texts as coordinators.The results are presented in four papers. The concluding analysis shows that assessments in secure accommodations can be divided into three elements: the practice, the text and the placement. These three elements have different implications for the young people and the caseworkers. For the young people the practice and the placement converge into an assessment universe that, with the text, intensifies their shaping of self-identity. The young people’s experiences are characterised by lack of control over their self-presentations, the present and the future. For the caseworkers, the practice has implications for their understanding of the young people’s individual troubles, the text for negotiating with other actors and the placement in their efforts to achieve change in the young people’s troublesome situations. The assessments’ implications for stability and foreseeability in the young people’s further care trajectories are limited. Moreover, the procedure of assessing young people in itself contains instability through involving several professionals in different parts of the assessment and decision-making process. Despite lack of stability, the thesis reveals that some young people experience the assessment as a place for self-development and where the course of the care trajectory changes to the better.
3.
Skillmark, Mikael, 1982-
(författare)
Uppdrag standardisering : införande och användning av manualbaserade utrednings- och bedömningsverktyg i socialtjänsten
2018
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt) abstract
This thesis addresses the issue of standardization in social work. Standardization is a necessary and fascinating, though underestimated, phenomenon, which governs, regulates and calibrates social life. In Swedish social services, we have witnessed an increased use of top-down imposed manual-based tools for investigative and assessment work. In human service organisations, such as social services, this raises questions about social workers’ control in terms of how work should be executed as well as the implications of standardization for professional discretion. The aim of this thesis is to investigate and understand standardization as a phenomenon, focusing on its consequences for social work as a profession and a field of practice.The thesis consists of four papers investigating the implementation and execution of manual-based assessment tools (BBIC, FREDA and SARA) in social services. The empirical material is based on interviews with a total of 68 social workers, managers, politicians and officials as well as documents and observations of risk assessment events. Each paper results from the analysis of an exclusive data set, with the concepts used in the analysis coming from theories of professions and organisations.The results show that increased standardization is a way for social workers to seek legitimacy as well as to claim jurisdiction and increase professionalism. The execution of the tools in social work is conditioned by significant key implementation factors in organisational contexts as well as the compatibility between the construction of tools and users’ needs and expectations. Along with previous research and theory, the results from the four papers are used to develop a tentative taxonomy of different discretionary positions that social workers can take with regards to standards in their practice. Those positions illustrate that it is not straightforward how the increased standardization of investigative and assessment work will impact professional discretion. It is argued that a balance between standardization and professional discretion is possible.
