Be prepared and do the best you can: a focus group study with staff on the care environment at Swedish secure youth homes

• This study focuses on the care environment of secure youth homes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care, where youths up to 21 years old are placed according to law due to extensive care needs or sentences. Purpose This study examined staff members' experiences of the institutional care environment within secure youth homes. Methods Data were collected through three focus group discussions with 17 staff members at two secure youth homes. Subsequently, a thematic analysis was conducted. Results The analysis indicated two main themes: risk management and damage control in a restricted environment and compensating and reconstructing ordinariness-trying to make the best of it; each theme had three subthemes. The care environment seems to be experienced by staff as characterized by conflicting demands, thus constituting a gap between needs and what is possible to achieve-a balancing act that constitutes a constant struggle. Conclusions The staff members' constant struggle could be interpreted as conflicting moral and instrumental demands; they know what the youths need, but the environment of the secure youth homes demands the decorous behaviour of sociomaterial control practices-rather than care practices.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Arbetsmedicin och miljömedicin (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Occupational Health and Environmental Health (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisation, hälsopolitik och hälsoekonomi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Institutional youth care

sociomateriality

focus group discussions

thematic analysis

care environment

Erving Goffman

patients perceptions

meanings

quality

design

Public

Environmental & Occupational Health

Nursing

Biomedical Social

Sciences

sociomateriality

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)