The academic underachievement of looked after children is well known. By involving foster carers in a Paired Reading intervention a Swedish project tried to address this issue, replicating a successful British trial. The aim of my thesis was to study the variations in the foster carers? experiences of this literacy intervention. Reading reports from 100 children were collected and qualitative interviews with 15 foster parents were analyzed using concepts from motivational psychology.

SammanfattningSyftet med studien var att belysa hur familjehemsföräldrar uppfattar sina biologiska barns behov av stöd från socialtjänsten i familjehemsprocessen. De frågeställningar som legat till grund för studien är vilket stöd familjernas egna barn blir erbjudna från socialtjänsten och vilken form av stöd föräldrarna önskar för de egna barnen. Vidare på vilket sätt de egna barnen i ett familjehem är delaktiga i familjehemsprocessen.Metoden som använts i studien är kvalitativ. Via information från familjehemsföräldrar har de biologiska barnens behov av stöd från socialtjänsten undersökts. Det skedde genom att intervjua fem familjehem som hade haft hemmaboende egna barn, under en period av minst tre till fem år, samtidigt som en fosterbarnsplacering.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

Military dogs in Sweden spend their first 18 months after weaning with a foster owner that has volunteered to care for its upbringing. The foster owner is advised by a consultant and offered three opportunities to train the dog together with other foster owners. There is a positive correlation between the number of attended training opportunities with the consultant, or other professional dog trainers, and the results of the dog in the temperament test at the end of the 18 months. The test results are in turn positively correlated with the likelihood of the dog to enter service. This thesis aims to investigate why the number of training opportunities is important for the dog?s chance to enter service by identifying foster owner factors that influence the success of the dog and which temperament test items the factors have the strongest impact on.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family.

The purpose of our study was to investigate whether national adoptions could be an option within the childcare system in Sweden. We wanted to create an understanding of how the professionals agree to this. We have implemented a comprehensive literature review as well as a qualitative study, taking benefit of a phenomenological method of analysis. The result of our study shows that national adoptions cannot replace foster placements but be a good addition to foster homes. Adoption gives the children a more secure and stable life..

This qualitative study is about motivation and experience of support among non-kinship fosterparents in a child welfare agency (NGO), in Paraguay. The empirical data where collectedthrough out six semi-structured qualitative interviews, with totally eight foster parentsparticipating. The aim of the study was to describe and analyze what motivates foster parentsand how they experience support from their formal and informal network. Further theobjective was to investigate how support (may) affect motivation and enable good foster care.Theoretical concepts such as solidarity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as well as socialsupport where used to analyze the data.The results show that there are many different motives and motivations (intrinsic andextrinsic) that correlate in the decision to become and continue to be a foster parent. Amongthem social involvement, the wish to make a difference in a child?s life, have something tooffer as a family and personal satisfaction seems to be the most frequent reasons.

The proportion of elderly people in Sweden is increasing. Many of these live at home and as their age increases so does the likelihood of health problems and the need for support, medical attention and care. Personnel working with home help provide a large part of this care, including areas of home-based care that are the responsibility of the district nurse. The purpose of this paper is to describe how home-help personnel perceive their work in the area of home-based care, as their views are an important factor in the ability to provide a care system that funktions successfully. The method employed here is phenomenografic and nine subjects from a home-help group have been interviewed.

The purpose of this essay was to examine and compare what attitudes Swedish and Belgian social workers may have towards residential care and foster care for children and young people. To answer the purpose eight qualitative interviews with four Swedish and four Belgian social workers were made. The results were analyzed by theory of organization and professional acting space. The results of the study show that the social workers in both countries preferred foster care, especially for small children, and that the Swedish social workers had a more negative attitude towards residential care than the Belgian social workers. Even though the Belgian social workers preferred foster care, they found themselves forced to choose residential care due to lack of available foster care facilities, something that did not seem to affect the Swedish social workers.

Our purposes with this essay was from the perspective of young people that has completed a stay at HVB-home, their parents and the social welfare secretaries get an apprehension on their way of looking at the purpose of placement in a HVB-home agrees with the comprehensive view of the placement. We also wish to get a picture of what is of important to change in this matter. How do they experience the reasons for the placement, goals and purpose? What positive and negative experience do they have from their placement? What is relevant to change when you look at the different parties' ways of looking at change/progress in this matter? In what different ways do the parties look upon collaboration and how does that effect the treatment? Our qualitative study is built upon interviews with the persons mentioned, upon educational visits to HVB-homes and upon interviews of staff at HVB-homes. The staffs opinion has also been compared with the other perspectives.

The purpose of this study was investigating the means which rule the social worker?s choice of institution placing youths and how they match the youth?s individual need compared with the type of home. The questions were: Which significance has the characteristics of the youth and their family for the placing? Which significance has the characteristics of the institution? Which significance has the social workers? way of working, investigation, theories, economy etc.? A qualitative way of interviewing has been used. Eight interviews were done; six with social welfare secretaries who place youths and two social workers who work with coun­selling and placement.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge and understanding regarding which institutional demands can be identified by social welfare secretary?s in their work with juvenile offenders. The study uses organizational theory to try and find different institutional strategies that social workers use to handle such demands. The study takes a qualitative approach and consists of six semi-structural interviews with social welfare secretary?s who work with juvenile offenders.The results of the study show how institutional influence comes from various organizations and institutions such as media, legislation as well as the police and justice system.

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.

The educational underachievement of children in foster care has been known for a long time. This study aimed to compile and analyze the current knowledge about interventions, intended to improve foster children?s school achievements. The method used was a systematically undertaken narrative review. Despite a comprehensive searching strategy, only ten relevant studies were found, indicating that little has been done to improve the educational outcomes for children in public care.

AbstractThe intention of our study was to examine the meaning of home of elderly women and men and how they experience their getting older. We also wanted to see how elderly women and men experience to receive home-help-service in their own home. The study was based on qualitative interviews with elderly women and men. The informants were five women and four men between the ages of 60-84 years. They all had everyday help from the home-help-service.