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- Alexanderson, Karin, 1952-
(author)
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Vilja, kunna, förstå : om implementering av systematisk dokumentation för verksamhetsutveckling i socialtjänsten
- 2006
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this study is to analyse conditions that either promote or hamper the implementation of methods for systematic documentation, follow-up and evaluation in social-work services with individuals and families. The theoretical framework consists of organization theories. Human Service Organizations (HSO) theory is complemented with concepts from the new institutionalism, domain theory, implementation theory, and theory about interventions.A concrete case, a project has been studied. The purpose of project was to implement methods for systematic documentation in public social services. With the notation “integrated” is meant that the methods should be built in and adjusted to the social-work practice. The methods were ASI (Addiction Severity Index) and IUS (a locally based model for integrated evaluation by inspiration from Göran Sandell).Data has been captured in a pretest/ posttest design (Marlow 2000). This means that “state of things” has been described before the intervention and after. The methods used were surveys and interviews (individual and group). The process has been documented through research notes proceeding records, protocols and some diaries written by social workers. Four municipalities from the middle of Sweden took part with five working groups. Two groups contained social workers acting with children and families and three groups were working with drug abusers. The population consisted of the social workers, the managers responsible for the individual and family entities, the politicians and the clients who were affected during the time of the project.The implementation of ASI and IUS has not occurred in the extent that was stated in the intervention theory. This means that ASI and IUS were not used in all new cases that occurred during the time of the project. The interviews supposed to be done in the beginning of the clients contact with the agency tended to be done more often than the follow-up interviews. After the project ended, three of five working groups decided to continue to use ASI (one group) and IUS (two groups). The overall impression is that the respondents comprehend, they have the willingness but they do not have the capability of using ASI and IUS. The organization does not seem to have the capacity of imposing requirements and giving resources. The outcomes do not seem to be the most important issue for the social services. These conditions are discussed in the study by means of the theoretical concepts. In the end, there is an effort to adjust the implementation theory to human service organizations.
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| 3. |
- Aronsson, Pia, 1950-
(author)
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Det professionella projektets framväxt inom ramen för en forskningscirkel : en manipulativ eller frigörande praktik?
- 2022
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis looks back on an important transitional period for the municipal social services, a transition between different social models and ideals. During this transi-tional period, in the mid-90s, there was a process of change from the community ideal to market liberalism, the latter being characterized by the client-provider model as a form of governance for the municipal organization. Users of social services were becoming customers and professionals were moving towards increased specialization and centralization of social work. The process of change within the municipal organization is a recurrent theme giving this thesis present timeliness although the process of change presented in the thesis took place almost three decades ago.The overall aim of the thesis was to contribute with in-depth knowledge of the professionals' possibilities to exert influence over a process of change in a politically controlled organization using an empirical example as a starting point. The research approach was based on the action research tradition and primarily towards critical action research.The empirical example, the research circle, where professionals met with the prac-tice of social work and the practice of research for a mutual knowledge formation became a temporary action arena where the “professional project” was developed during the years 1994 to 1996.In the thesis politically adopted policy documents are analyzed, the content of which outlined the direction for the future organization and the content of social work, the "Political Project". The analysis reveals the power relations where the political and administrative domain worked to separate and centralize social work while the professionals worked to maintain a decentralized and integrated individual and family care using new working methods and approaches such as open social counseling, group-oriented social work and city district networks as a basis for social service.The thesis shows that the professionals' influence in the process of change was limited by politically adopted decisions in accordance with the conditions of representative democracy, and that only parts of the professional project, which did not challenge overall organizational structures, could be implemented.Before future reorganizations, it is recommended that those affected by the reorganization should be involved in the process early on in order to expand the decision makers knowledge base by including the professionals' opinions, knowledge and will.The development towards a market-liberal form of organization was a lengthy process but has today become the dominant form of organization within municipal administration.
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- Baianstovu, Rúna Í, 1961-
(author)
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Mångfald som demokratins utmaning : en studie av hur socialtjänsten som välfärdsbyråkrati och moralisk samhällsinstitution förstår och hanterar kulturell mångfald
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation deals with how Swedish society is confronting the democratic challenge of finding ways to integrate individuals and groups with a diversity of cultural and religious beliefs and social practices. The idea that democracy must include all members of society is central in contemporary welfare states. In Sweden this idea is closely related to a concept of social justice and equality. This means that this study deals with aspects of integration processes. Social services are one of the societal institutions that institutionalize the moral conceptions of how life should be lived. Therefore, its function in the integration processes mirrors the ethos of society as a whole. The chief characteristics of a democratic state are that it represents every member of society and that it is transparent, communicative, and reflexive. But this is not easily performed. The State may exercise oppression in the form of forced assimilation through the culturally detached design of law and policy, and with the politics of diversity, minority groups may exert internal oppression of vulnerable elements within the group. This tension expresses a tension that is called the Paradox of Democracy in this thesis. Social workers deal with the paradox while handling society’s moral panic regarding “others’” traditions that are perceived as difficult to comprehend. Therefore, their investigative work is of great importance in a society that aspires to treat all citizens as equals. But the framework for such investigations is narrow and tightly controlled. A qualitative change in the scope of social workers’ ability to work in the service of communicative action within the complex areas discussed in this study could be a step towards broadening and deepening democratic practices. When the public institutions take their clients’ diverse wishes and needs seriously, and treat them as indicators of the actual needs of members of society, the public institutions receive a foundation for reciprocal and communicatively anchored integration work.
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| 5. |
- Brauer, John, 1988-
(author)
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Labour Market Policies : Structure and Content, Space and Time
- 2022
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Labour market policies has two aims: cushioning the economic hardship caused by unemployment and increasing employment rates. In many welfare states, responsibilities for such policies are divided between different political-administrative levels. This dissertation aims to enhance the understanding of labour market policies and especially the involvement of sub-national governmental actors, by analysing the role of municipalities in the Swedish context. The dissertation also investigates the involvement of social work and social workers within labour market policies. A theoretical framework consisting of four pillars, structure, content, space, and time, is used to analyse labour market policies. The analysis combines a historical review with empirical data. The findings show that the involvement of municipalities, in active labour market policies, has taken place against the background of three processes: the multi-level governance of financial support, the shifting role of active labour market policies, and the dialectic relationship between financial support and active labour market policies. The divided responsibility for financial support generates incentives for municipal measures that qualify social assistance recipients for nationally funded social insurances. The fear of work disincentives has also been a driving force in the development of municipal activation. The reliance on municipalities to design and deliver active labour market policies opens for greater crossmunicipal differences. An ongoing reform of the Public Employment Service, the national agency that provides active labour market policies, that decreases the number of local offices and increases the reliance on private service providers, is likely to change the role of municipalities within active labour market policies. Many scholars criticise the involvement of social workers, within labour market policies, given the use of conditionality through activation. This criticism calls for further empirical investigation, not least in terms of how practicing social workers position their work.
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| 6. |
- Brunnberg, Elinor
(author)
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Vi bytte våra hörande skolkamrater mot döva! : Förändring av hörselskadade barns identitet och självförtroende vid byte av språklig skolmiljö
- 2003
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study is a comparative study with the aim of finding out whether the identity and self-confidence of hearing-impaired children changes when they attend schools with a different language base. The focus of the study was the interaction of hearing-impaired children with other children of the same age. The number of hearing-impaired children in this study was 29. The children were aged between 7 and 14 when the study began. In autumn 1994 special classes for hearing-impaired children in Örebro moved from a mainstream school to a special school for Deaf children. In the classroom, the hearing- impaired children in both the mainstream and the special schools were educated in spoken Swedish with signs as support. However, the dominant language outside the classroom changed from spoken Swedish to Swedish sign language. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the hearing-impaired children in 1994, before the move, and in 1996, after the move. At the same time the children's self-confidence was examined. In both the mainstream and the special school the children's play in the playground was video recorded. This study shows that several of the hearing-impaired children were socially isolated. Some even felt little solidarity with their classmates and were solitary. Most of the children were longing to meet more children in their spare time. The playground seemed to be the social arena where children with impaired hearing mainly met other children. The hearing-impaired children as a group were socially excluded and marginalized in the mainstream school. Most of the hearing-impaired children did not describe the same feeling of being outsiders in the special school as in the mainstream school. Most of the hearing-impaired children's confidence improved after the change of school. However, the hearing-impaired children's social situation was not perfect in the special school either. The playground is a central arena for hearing-impaired children in trying out their identity. In forming their identity children seem to look for other similarities. The hearing-impaired children experienced affiliation, equality and fellowship with other hearing-impaired children. They also expressed the opinion that Deaf children were "almost similar" to hearing-impaired children. The school situation that strengthens the identity of hearing-impaired children seems to be the school where they feel most at home with their schoolmates. That happened in the special school. However, some of the hearing-impaired children with multi-disabilities had difficulties in both the mainstream school and the special school and failed to find a secure identity as a hearing-impaired child. Unless school arrangements address their social needs, hearing-impaired youngsters could experience an identity crisis.
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| 8. |
- Dag, Munir, 1968-
(author)
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Unga människor med rörelsehinder : förankring, marginalisering och social exkludering
- 2006
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of the thesis was to describe the specific barriers young people with disabilities experience in their ambition to get a job. The aim was also to investigate how these young people’s social and economic situation has been affected by their disability. The results are based on two reports: one qualitative, consisting of interviews with 12 individuals with physical disabilities, and one quantitative in the form of a questionnaire answered by 706 persons. In the case of the questionnaire, the response rate was 48 per cent. Both reports are based on the same criteria, namely, that the respondents should have a physical disability, be 20–35 years of age and be participating in some form of employment policy program. The results from both studies show that individuals with physical disabilities encounter different types of barriers on the labour market, which can be categorised as being either at the individual level or at the social level. The barriers at the individual level are low education, long-term unemployment, grave physical disability and lack of work experience. The barriers identified at the social level are primarily poorly adapted workplaces, a too high working pace, employers’ negative attitudes, insufficient knowledge of the competence of disabled persons and an overly generous social welfare system. All these factors constitute a direct obstacle to employing persons with a physical disability. The results from the interview study show that the respondents have few social relations. The majority of the respondents have social intercourse solely with family members or parents. Most of the respondents in the questionnaire study state that they have frequent social relations with friends and acquaintances. Both the interview study and the questionnaire study reveal that the respondents’ financial position has worsened as a result if their physical disability. Conclusions that can be drawn from this thesis are that young people with physical disabilities encounter different barriers in their attempts to get a job and to maintain social relations. Based on the results, some of the respondents can be regarded as being socio-economically marginalised.
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| 9. |
- Dag, Munir, 1968-
(author)
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Unga människor med rörelsehinder utanför arbetsmarknaden : om barriärer, sociala relationer och livsvillkor
- 2003
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Syftet med studien har varit att beskriva de specifika barriärer som individer med rörel-sehinder i åldrarna 20-35 år upplever att de möter i sin strävan att komma in på arbets-marknaden. Syftet har också varit att beskriva individernas livssituation under arbets-löshet och jämföra detta med livssituationen i någon form av sysselsättning. Metoden som har använts är kvalitativ, intervjuer med 12 individer med rörelsehinder.Resultaten från intervjuerna visar att individer med rörelsehinder möter barriärer inom olika områden. Barriärerna uppkommer via ett komplext samspel mellan den so-ciala och fysiska miljön, regelsystemen och individen. Studien tyder på olika orsaker till att individer med rörelsehinder möter barriärer i sina försök att få arbete. Exempel på sådana hinder är själva funktionshindret, graden av anpassning i den fysiska miljön, samhällets fördomar och rådande lagar. Utifrån detta har studien kunnat särskilja tre huvudkategorier av barriärer - individrelaterade, miljörelaterade och regelrelaterade.Resultatet visar att barriärer på individnivå är låg utbildning, avsaknad av yrkeserfa-renhet, lång period av arbetslöshet och dåliga kunskaper i regelsystemet. Ytterligare barriärer på individnivå är låg motivation att söka arbete.De miljörelaterade barriärer som identifieras är främst dåligt anpassade arbetslokaler, avsaknad av tekniska hjälpmedel och dåligt fungerade färdtjänst, bristande information samt rådande attityder om funktionshindrade i samhället. Dessa aspekter innebär di-rekta hinder för anställning av rörelsehindrade.Studien tyder också på att regelsystemen kan fungera som barriärer. Dels uppger un-dersökningsgruppen att de har bristande kunskaper i gällande regler, dels uppges att det inte är lönsamt att arbeta, eftersom inkomsten inte förbättras med ett arbete.
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| 10. |
- Degner, Jürgen, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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Placerad utanför sitt sammanhang : en uppföljningsstudie av 46 institutionsplacerade ungdomars privata och formella relationer
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- When young people are placed in residential treatment centres (RTCs), it is important that facility staff involve parents and other social network members (PSMs) (private relations) in the residential treatment program. This involvement process depends on both PSMs’ willingness and capability to take part in the youths’ treatment, as well as the residential staffs’ attitude towards promoting this process. The overall aim of the dissertation is to explore obstacles to and opportunities for involving PSMs in the youths’ treatment process. One key question is to investigate how the youths describe their parents’ emotional attitude, and support from other significant members of their network. At times of tension between youth and family, other formal relations with professional and non-professional support persons could serve as mediators between the youth and his or her family of origin. Accordingly, the aim is to investigate whether, and if so how, these support persons are included in the treatment process. Further, a positive treatment alliance between residential staff and the youth (resident) is important for the treatment outcome. Two further issues are to explore how the residents view the staffs’ personal involvement with the resident, and, from a gender perspective, to investigate the residents’ descriptions of the treatment received at the facility. Semi structured interviews, including a social network map and a Feeling word checklist, were conducted with 46 youths (23 girls/23 boys) placed at 10 different state RTCs run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (SiS). The residents were interviewed three times, at approximately one-year intervals. This thesis is based on material from the first and second interview with the residents. Interviews were also conducted on one occasion with 23 support persons. Paper I deals with the PSMs’ involvement in the residents’ treatment process. Paper II explores obstacles to and opportunities for establishing a therapeutic alliance between key staff members and residents in a one year perspective. Papers III and IV investigate the residents’ (paper III) and support persons’ (paper IV) views of possibilities for the support persons to take part in the treatment program. Finally, Paper V aims, from a gender perspective, to study the residents’ descriptions of their psychosocial problems, their need for help, and their experiences of the help received from the staff at the facility. The main results show that the majority of the youths describe their parents as having a negative emotional attitude, with a desolate or family-oriented social network system. At the first interview the residents described the key staff members as mainly having little personal involvement, but this staff involvement had increased, according to the residents, by the one-year follow-up. Obstacles to and possibilities for involving PSMs as well as support persons is mainly related to staffs’ encouraging, or not encouraging attitude, attitudes of social welfare agency personnel (regarding support persons), and PSMs’ capability and willingness to participate in the program. With regard to gender, data indicate that there is reason to nuance the proposition of girls being more relationship oriented, and boys autonomous – at least in treatment settings – since, for example, the boys in the study to the same extent as the girls desired more trustful conversations with the staff. The importance of making an inventory of the youths’ social network and focusing on support persons’ involvement in the treatment program is discussed.
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