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- Sallnäs, Marie, 1952-
(författare)
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Barnavårdens institutioner : framväxt, ideologi och struktur
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study presents an overview of the historical growth and deve-lopment of residential care for children and youth in Sweden as well as an analysis of the present-day structure and organisation. The empirical material consists of official statistics, government reports and data from a questionnaire addressed to all registered residential homes in the child welfare sector at the end of 1995. The history of residential care for children and youth is marked by a period of establishment and expansion in the first decades of the last century, followed by a process of major de-institutionalisa-tion in the period after the Second World War. A third phase was introduced with the Social Service Act of 1980, which laid down new premises for child welfare. Traditional concepts of children’s homes were replaced in the legislation by the “HVB-home” and the dividing line between institutions and foster homes became blurred. The study shows that contrary to what was intended, a growing part of out-of-home placements during the 1980:s and 1990:s where into residential care. In fact, residential care has taken over “market shares” from foster care in Sweden. Analysis of the range of alternatives shows that residential care today is relatively small-scale and that nearly all of the smaller units are privately run. Approximately half of the homes have teenagers as their target group and most homes work with longer-term pro-grammes of treatment and care. Educational background among staff varies considerably, but in general the level of educational is low. So far, no professional forces have proved strong enough to organise the field on a mutually knowledgeable, normative ground. A problem is the lack of unanimous concepts and a common language with a terminology that can be used for a systematic de-scription of the care or treatment given. What is clear, however, is that a new form of residential care can be identified – so-called hy-brid homes that are somewhere in between extended foster homes and small institutions – and that these homes have gained a con-siderable position in the field.
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| 2. |
- Spånberger Weitz, Ylva, 1975-
(författare)
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Ungas erfarenheter av skola, samhällsvård och vuxenblivande : En studie av fem livsberättelser
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Avhandlingens syfte är att fördjupa kunskapen om skolsituationen för barn och ungdomar i samhällsvård samt att fördjupa kunskapen om de processer varigenom de unga finner vägar genom skolan och samhällsvården mot ett självständigt liv som unga vuxna. Studien har genomförts i fem svenska storstadskommuner. Materialet består huvudsakligen av upprepade intervjuer med unga som själva har erfarenhet av att vara placerade i samhällsvård. Som en bakgrund genomfördes en kartläggande aktstudie gällande alla de ungdomar från dessa kommuner, som under 2003 hade placerats i samhällsvård. Intervjudeltagarna valdes ut från denna kartläggning. I analysen av intervjuerna användes en narrativ livsberättelseansats. Fokus i analysen har riktats både mot att förstå de ungas erfarenheter av att leva i skola och samhällsvård och mot att förstå hur de unga, genom sina berättelser, tolkar dessa erfarenheter och på så sätt skapar en meningsfull berättelse om sig själva och sina liv. Resultatet visar att livet i samhällsvård för de unga är präglat av utsatthet på flera nivåer. Socialtjänstakterna pekar mot ett samband mellan svårigheter i hemmet och svårigheter i skolan för de ungdomar som placerades i samhällsvård. Livsberättelserna synliggör hur skolan, familjen och samhällsvården utgör en komplex helhet i de ungas vardag och hur utsatthet inom någon av dessa praktiker därmed tenderar att spridas vidare i en process av överförd utsatthet. I sin kamp för att undkomma denna utsatthet navigerar de unga mot arenor där de kan finna hemmatillhörighet, det vill säga en upplevelse av att förstå och ”höra hemma” i en socialt delad vardagsverklighet. Ett viktigt redskap i de ungas strävan efter hemmatillhörighet är deras förståelsearbete, det vill säga det kontinuerliga tolkningsarbete varigenom de – inom ramen för socialt delade hemmatillhörigheter – knyter ihop sina erfarenheter till en sammanhängande förståelse av sig själva och sina liv.
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| 3. |
- Berg Eklundh, Lotta
(författare)
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Kontaktfamilj : En förebyggande stödinsats eller mellanvård?
- 2010
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The contact family is a special intervention for supporting children in families with social problems. The child receives an ‘extra family’ with whom he or she can spend limited periods, like one or two weekends every month, one or two weekday nights and some holiday weeks during the year. The concept is that sharing this ‘extra family’s’ everyday life helps the child to build up resiliency and become better able to handle everyday life in the biological family. The members of the contact family can serve as role models and provide good examples of how to handle such situations as family and sibling conflicts. Sometimes the child finds ‘a significant other’ in the contact family, i.e. an adult who understands the child’s needs, listens to the child’s thoughts and worries and assists in evaluating the child’s cognitive abilities. This form of social support is decided on and paid for by the Social Welfare Service in the community where the child lives with the biological family. This study concerns 50 children living in four municipalities in Sweden who had received contact families in year 2000. It is a longitudinal study conducted over a period of seven years comprising both interviews and analysis of the social service offices’ documentation on each of the 50 children in the study. The empirical material was collected on four occasions (2000, 2003, 2005 and 2007. Interviews were conducted with a number of social workers involved in the cases, 15 of the children, their biological parents and the contact parents. The theoretical foundation for the study is the ecological model of human development, which places the child in the centre surrounded by the four systems and with the contact family as a possible ‘proximal process’. The analyses were made from the perspective of the social workers’ scope of action and that of the participating children’s perspectives. The results showed that the parents who applied for a contact family (often a single parent, usually the mother) did so in order to obtain some relief from their parental duties and/or because they lacked a social network. The majority of the children had parents with social problems, such as substance addiction, a mental disorder or other health problems. As many as 30 of the children had experienced domestic violence. Nearly 40% had also experienced being placed with a contact family that in periods functioned as a short-term emergency children’s home or foster home. Only two of the children had the possibility to participate in choosing whether or not to have a contact family. Several of the children participated in the ongoing process of arranging for the contact family and in making the decision to terminate the arrangement, or to move in with the contact family as foster children or with the contact family functioning as a form of supported housing.
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| 4. |
- Sjöblom, Yvonne, 1952-
(författare)
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På väg ut : När ungdomar rymmer och kastas ut hemifrån - ur socialtjänstens perspektiv
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to discover and understand how caseworkers in the social services view and present the phenomenon of young people who run away from and/or are thrown out of their homes. What images of these young people do they entertain and how do they articulate their work with this group?The data were collected through 20 qualitative group interviews with caseworkers who in 1997 were working with young people between the ages of 12 and 20 at Individual and Family Care sections in all the social districts of Stockholm Municipality. Simultaneously, a quantitative background study of 96 problem cases was also conducted. Following analysis of the initial group interviews, two of these were chosen for detailed case study. To provide a complementary perspective, the thesis also contains two case studies of accounts of running away/being thrown out from a runaway’s and a parents’ respective points of view.Leaving home in this way is seen to be more common among girls than among boys and the most usual cause a problematic family situation with elements of violence, assault, and substance abuse. A particularly vulnerable group is girls in immigrant families who are exposed to authoritarian upbringing and often suffer rough treatment. Dominant among these young people’s own individual problems is difficulty in school. Other problem areas mentioned are substance abuse, truant behaviour, staying out late and sexual promiscuity. A small number of runaways were able to return home after counselling; but the conditions leading to running away/being thrown out were described by the welfare workers as complex, and accounts of the same situation given by parents and runaways often differed widely.The caseworkers’ view of the phenomenon is informed by a relationship and family oriented perspective, where the paramount goal is “working home” the runaways/thrown outs and restoring them to the bosom of their families. When that avenue has failed, as often was the case, the alternative is to place them in family homes or institutions. Running away and being thrown out are seen as deviant attempts at accomplishing the process of separation from parents that is normal at this stage. In the case of girls of immigrant background who run away/get thrown out of their homes, the tendency is to explain the phenomenon as a ‘culture collision’ between incompatible value systems and traditions. When young people and even the parents come to the social services needing practical help with accommodation and economic support so that the children can leave home, the caseworkers described this as presenting a dilemma.The main technique relied upon by the caseworkers is counselling intended to lead to reconciliation between children and their parents. The thesis discusses the importance and consequences for these youth in their development towards adulthood of the lack of a young people’s perspective within the social services and the emphasis on the sanctity of the family. A clear contradiction lies in the fact that while the youth units have been established expressly for the purpose of helping young people, a social services dominated by a family perspective with the aim of reintegrating runaways into their often dysfunctional families takes on a mainly controlling and disciplinary role, where the young people’s individual survival strategies are not paid attention to or taken seriously.
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