| 1. |
- Andersson Vogel, Maria, 1980-
(författare)
-
Särskilda ungdomshem och vårdkedjor : Om ungdomar, kön, klass och etnicitet
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis follows a group of youths placed in secure unit care who have participated in a chain-of-care project aiming to better plan their discharge and aftercare. The overall aim of the thesis is to link a detailed description of these young people with an analysis of the project they participated in, and to undertake one- and two-year follow-up studies. Analytic focus is on the significance of gender, class and ethnicity. The study is mainly based on structured interviews performed at the secure units upon entry into care, discharge and at a one-year follow up. Data have also been used from criminal records and interviews with project staff.When entering care, these youths exhibited extensive problems in both family conditions and own behaviour. The major problem in boys was criminality while girls reported poor mental health. Professionals judge youth of foreign background as more criminal than youth of Swedish background despite a lack of difference in self-reported data. Some difference is also noticeable regarding class.Analysis of the project shows that out-of-home care was the most frequent intervention after leaving secure unit care, while other interventions were difficult to uphold over time. Few girls received help with their mental health problems. At the one-year follow up, the youths reported an overall better situation, although extensive problems still remained. Above all, girls’ mental health problems remained as before. At the 2-year follow up the study group was compared with a control group in order to investigate effects of the project regarding criminality and recommitment to secure unit care. The comparison shows that the project had no effect. This is discussed in relation to poor organization and the difficulty of adjusting a project like this to the target group, along with the substantial part played by gender, class and ethnicity in how the youth are construed and treated.
|
|
| 2. |
- Berg Eklundh, Lotta
(författare)
-
Kontaktfamilj : En förebyggande stödinsats eller mellanvård?
- 2010
-
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.
|
|
| 3. |
- Erlandsson, Sara, 1979-
(författare)
-
Hjälp för att bevara eller förändra? : Åldersrelaterade diskurser om omsorg, stöd och service
- 2014
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis analyses the categorisation of adult persons who need help to cope in everyday life as either older persons or persons with a disability. Despite the development of social services in the Scandinavian countries being guided by the principles of universalism and equality, adults in need of care have different rights to support depending on their current age and at which age disability occurs. This thesis aims to explore how age-based differences in access to care, support and service are legitimised. In the thesis, the concept of help is used to refer to care, support and service.Using a discourse analytic approach, Swedish elderly and disability policies and websites through which providers of help market their services were examined. The analysis, inspired by the theoretical framework of governmentality, draws attention to how users of help and helpers are constituted in two age-related discourses on help. The first discourse, help to maintain, is used mainly in relation to older persons. In this discourse older persons are constituted as subjects in need of safety, comfort and company while the helpers are represented as caring and knowing. The second discourse, help to change, constitutes younger persons with a disability as citizens in becoming. Help aims to improve the situation for younger help users in varying ways: the opportunity to fully determine the tasks performed by helpers is essential to users of personal assistance whereas personal development as regards both practical and social skills is the key to change for persons with an intellectual or mental disability. While help for younger persons is represented as a means to enhance the individual’s self-determination and ability to participate in society, help for older persons is represented as aiming to maintain past patterns of life, not aspiring towards change or improvement. It is argued that these representations support a lower ambition for eldercare than for disability services.
|
|
| 4. |
- Grosse, Julia, 1982-
(författare)
-
Kommer tid kommer tillit? : Unga vuxnas och medelålders erfarenheter
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Even though Sweden is considered a high trust society, research on this topic is primarily based on a few standardized survey questions. It is also known that there is a robust pattern of less trustful young people compared to older ones. Still, a satisfactory explanation of this fact is lacking. Thus, the first aim of this dissertation is to map trust among young adults and middle-aged individuals. The second aim is to examine by which factors and in what way different dimensions of trust are determined, focusing on individuals’ life course and consequently experiences. Analytical principles from the life course tradition are used as a theoretical framework.Data is derived from a Swedish cross-sectional nationally representative postal survey on trust, and qualitative interviews using a mixed-methods approach.A multi-dimensional concept of trust is suggested. Participants report relatively high levels of trust in known and unknown people, confidence in institutions, normative notions of trust, security, and trustful behaviour. Trust also seems to be structured according to a closeness principle. Young adults display lower trust levels in general. However, in some respects the pattern is reversed, particularly regarding domains they are expected to be more familiar with.Contrary to the well-established idea of generalised trust derived from predispositions and primary socialization, and particularised trust originating from experiences in adulthood, the results of this study suggest that unique combinations of factors, both individual characteristics and experiences, might explain each of the different dimensions. Often there is a sphere-specific relationship between experiences and later trust, i.e. experiences from one sphere of life seem to exclusively affect trust within the same sphere. It is suggested that as people grow older they accumulate what is called experience capital, which might benefit trust and contribute to an explanation of the age differences.
|
|
| 5. |
- Nybom, Jenny, 1967-
(författare)
-
Aktivering av socialbidragstagare - om stöd och kontroll i socialtjänsten
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to examine activation, including support and control, among different groups of social assistance (SA) recipients. Assessments and activation related decisions during one year are analysed for 372 social randomly selected assistance claimants from four municipalities. Data was collected 2002-2003 through structured interviews with the clients and their social workers. Income from work and social assistance was followed up with national register data after two years.The first study focuses on social workers conception of their claimants work barriers. Conceptions vary systematically across groups of claimants. The second study examines elements of activation, finding that extent and content of activation, and use of support and control, vary between municipalities and programs. The third study analyses associations between participation in activation programs and exposures to sanctions and exemptions (indicators of support and control) on the one hand, and claimants’ characteristics on the other hand. Traditional work-test logic seems to be common in social work, and linked to stereotypic gender logic. This implies a systematic selection to activation based on sex, and on social workers opinion about the claimants work motivation. The results question the linkage between work barriers and activation, since claimants without formal resources (education and work experience) do not participate in resource activation (aiming to increase formal resources) more often than others. The fourth study analyses association between combinations of activation programs and sanctions and self support outcomes for SA claimants. Results suggest that a combination of resource activation and sanctions has a positive association with income from work, and that a combination of job activation and sanctions is associated with continuing SA.
|
|
| 6. |
- Spånberger Weitz, Ylva, 1975-
(författare)
-
Ungas erfarenheter av skola, samhällsvård och vuxenblivande : En studie av fem livsberättelser
- 2011
-
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.
|
|
| 7. |
- Stranz, Anneli, 1971-
(författare)
-
Omsorgsarbetets vardag och villkor i Sverige och Danmark : Ett feministiskt kritiskt perspektiv
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present study analyses the welfare state as employer by studying eldercare workers’ experiences of their work in Sweden and Denmark. The Nordic welfare states are often described as potentially women-friendly due to the availability of publicly provided services that enable women to combine paid work and caring responsibilities. Whereas this might be empowering for a large group of women, paid care workers are often neglected in the discussion. The theoretical point of departure is Nancy Fraser’s dualistic model of gender justice, which encompasses redistribution (of material resources) and recognition (in the form of social status).By utilising survey-data (NORDCARE) on Swedish (n=532) and Danish (n=732) eldercare workers, the study shows that care recipients have larger needs and working conditions are more arduous in Sweden. However, in both countries workers report deficiencies with regard to insufficient resources, such as lack of staff, limited opportunities for development and training, and lack of necessary equipment for lifting service users, of support from managers and of reasonable time for the tasks to be performed. The pressure at work makes the care workers feel inadequate in relation to quality of care they are able to offer.The differences in job strain between the countries turn out to be of little importance when the care workers’ experiences of bodily and mental fatigue are compared. The bodies of the care workers are their main working tool and thus the bearer of the working conditions. More than 60 per cent of the respondents state that they often are physically tired after the day's work, and two-fifths of the respondents have seriously considered leaving their job during the past year. In both countries, the experience of physical and mental fatigue and the number of sick days over the past year are important factors behind thoughts about quitting the job.Using a dualistic model of gender justice, where redistribution and recognition are theorised as overlapping analytical dimensions, the results are interpreted as continuous organisational shortcomings which make the care workers’ everyday work invisible, and in the long run imply a risk for their health.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Östberg, Francesca, 1952-
(författare)
-
Bedömningar och beslut : Från anmälan till insats i den sociala barnavården
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The focus of this thesis is on social workers’ role in assessing and making decisions in child welfare cases. The primary aim is to identify factors that influence decisions concerning reports assessed, investigated, dismissed or processed to intervention within child welfare agencies in Swedish municipalities. Social policy, professional and organisational factors are perspectives considered in the analysis. All reports and requests for support for children and adolescents in the 0–19 age group were collected during two months in two local agencies, in 2003 (n= 260) and followed by interviews with social workers. Factors connected to social workers’ assessments at different stages in the process were tested in regression models and grounds for their assessments explored. Main results: two-thirds of reports are sorted out without investigation. One-fifth led to interventions. The highest probability for a report to be investigated was if it was assessed as acute, concerned abuse, came from a professional (not the police) concerned a girl and handled in the integrated agency. The most common problems, such as family conflicts and antisocial behaviour were investigated the least. A majority of the children came from underprivileged families, mainly poor single mothers. The process draws the pattern of a heavily tapered funnel with few interventions at the end. Children are not in focus and the attitude is to keep them out of the system for their own good. Social policy and organisational factors restrict social workers’ discretion. Contradictory demands are solved by a ‘consensual ideology’. Parallel tracks appear on risks in a narrow perspective and on voluntary counselling mainly directed to mothers. This forms child welfare into a rejecting practice, where hard social conditions are individualized. Legislation gives municipalities considerable leeway to produce a variety of services and interventions, but practice works on the basis of another kind of rationality.
|
|
