Placing children in foster care is today considered the best alternative for children unable to stay in their biological environment. A nuclear family consisting of a father, a mother and a child is the most common family structure within foster care today. The purpose of this thesis is to gain insight on the family norms that control the foster care system. It's a qualitative study based on interviews with six professional social workers within the field of foster care. This method gave us empirical material, that was later analyzed from two main theories and one theoretical concept.

Earlier quantitative entrepreneurial studies with a focus on poverty rate has centred their arguments and analyses entirely on income differences which has resulted in a high poverty rate among self-employed. Their results shows that variables such as age, gender, hours of labour and structure of the household significantly affect the poverty rate among self-employed. In this study we aim the focus on material living standards instead of income differences, thus using a more representative approach while studying entrepreneurial poverty. The purpose of the study was to examine how personality traits (big five) affect the material living standards among the self-employed in Sweden, using a group of employed as a control group. Variables earlier known to affect the poverty risk among self-employed where used as control variables together with education and household income.

Background:Persons living with a mental illness often have to put up with a financial disadvantage. Their ability to work is often limited and because of that they have to rely on the welfare reform to get an income. This income is often low compared to other citizens which by itself is something strongly associated with mental illness. Purpose: The purpose in this study was to describe how people living with a mental illness experience that their economic situation has an impact on their daily life. Method: This study is a literature review containing nine scientific articles from previous research.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.

Meeting the pupils at work it is important to endeavor an adjustment of the education with the purpose of developing the individual person. To make this possible it requires, except for the intentions of teaching with an individual adjustment, the teacher to make oneself acquainted with the schools work and liability. This is especially important in the work with students with difficulties. for this group of students perhaps an alternative form of education would be to prefer.As method of investigation I used a qualitative case study with a teacher who uses, what I would call, an alternative way of teaching. as a teacher you should pay attention to, and be aware of, how you effect your pupils and with this as a starting point conduct oneself.

In the field of municipal services there are a wide range of aspects a small community must consider, especially considering that the circumstances in which a municipality operate continuously are changing. The changes include, for example, migration, individual lifestyles, the political governance and environment. Especially the latter might have a big impact on a town based on tourism such as Borgholm. We particularly have taken an interest for how this might affect the internal branding and internal brand communication of Borgholm municipality.Through our research we have found that Borgholm municipality in no particular extent is working with living the brand or any similar concepts. Also, we have found that the success of the internal branding of the organization in a great extent depend on the individuals of the different branches of the municipality?s work rather than on a coherent communication structure which reaches the whole organization..

ABSTRACT Background: Aging and losing cognitive and physical functions is difficult. To also be affected by dementia means that you lose some part of your identity and the ability to take care of yourself. It is important to find alternative, non-pharmacological ways to increase health for the elderly and those who are affected by dementia. When dogs are used for therapeutic purposes in health care it is roughly divided into two different forms; AAA (Animal Assisted Activity) and AAT (Animal Assisted Therapy). AAI (Animal Assisted Intervention) is also used as a term, in which AAT is included.

The purpose of the essay was to discover how homeless persons want to live. Does it matter what it looks like? The method used was a qualitative study including literature and 10 interviews with ten homeless persons, of which seven lived outdoors and three in temporarily residences. The central questions were the following:How do homeless people want to live?In what sort of houses do they want to live and where?How do they look upon their situation and their future?What obstacles can occur if they for example got an apartment to live in?Are there any proposals to solve the problems?Most of them had been living outdoors for five to ten years, perhaps more, and they were worried and sad about their future.

The habits of living are seen as important factors for public health, and are related to the primary socialization. Exercise and food habits are two main factors for development of health or ill health and are both related to the overweight epidemic. The overweight increase among children and youth has been given particular attention. The aim of this study is to examine how 15 year olds Body Mass Index, food- and exercise habits are connected to each other and also how they are related to socialization. The study is a cross sectional survey among 208 pupils in ninth grade, Kristianstad.

Background: Elderly people with visual impairment increases in the society. To measure vision with visual acuity charts doesn?t indicate how patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) experience their disease. Aim: The aim of the literature review was to describe patients? experiences of living with age-related macular degeneration.

When the producers? responsibility for packaging was introduced in Sweden in 1994 the industry set up public recycling stations to facilitate the collection of the waste material. In order to establish recycling stations at suitable locations the municipalities assist the industry?s service organization for operation of the recycling stations, the Package and Newspaper Collection Service (Förpacknings- och tidningsinsamlingen, FTI). The objectives of this thesis are to improve the service of the public recycling stations within Lidingö town and to increase the accessibility to these stations for the inhabitants of Lidingö.

Ravelsmarks gård have now reached the stage when there are few options for the future. The options are either a construction of completely new farm buildings or a winding up of the milk production. Present on the farm today there is 65 dairy cows plus recruitment. 44 cows stand in long-stalls and 20 cows stand in short-stalls. The objective of this study was to examine the profitability of a completely new cowshed. In order to get costs for investments different milking systems and equipment for feedstuff have been compared. The systems in the investment budget have been chosen on recommendations from advisers, salesmen and on the basis on what is suitable for the farm. One system where a so-called mix feeder wagon is used for the roughage seemed to be best suited for Ravelsmark. The different prices obtained for the manure well show that there are possibilities to decrease the investment costs.

This degree project aims to evaluate alternative methods to the unanaesthetized castration of piglets. Castration of piglets is performed to prevent the development of boar taint. Boar taint can cause great financial losses for the pig manufacturer. Unanaesthetized castration of piglets is not regarded to be satisfactory from an animal welfare perspective and the procedure will for that reason be outlawed in the near future.Several alternative methods are used in countries all over the world with promising result. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if this methods could be applied in Swedish pig production.A literature study has been combined with interviews; field studies, questionnaires and a small study on male pig production.To be applicable to and applied in Swedish pig production the alternative method must be financially accepted by the manufacturers but also accepted from an animal welfare perspective.Castration is the only way to guarantee a meat free of boar taint.

The objective of this master thesis was to study the relation between public green open space and health among adolescents in Uppsala municipality, Sweden. The aim of the study was to investigate if there is an association between the access to green open space in the living environment and adolescent´s health, in terms of fysical activity, self- reported health and overweight. The public health questionnaire ?Liv och Hälsa Ung 2009? provided data together with a map over public green space, where the measure taken into account is the proportion of public green space in the living environment. The study includes 3423 adolescents, 12-19 years old.

Background: Living with stroke not only means coping with physical limitations, but a stroke also leads to other losses, which in various ways may change an individual?s life. A nurse can play a significant role in regards to consequences in the ordinary day of life for patients with stroke. Aim: The aim of this literature study was to describe patients? experiences living with stroke.