During the last part of the 20th century many companies has started to build their organizations on knowledge and information instead of manufacturing of products.  Today it is easier to communicate and spread information. At the same time the numbers of untraditional employments like temporary employments and workers from staffing agencies are increasing. Many organizations have higher employee turnover now than before. This allows more people to have access to confidential information, whose spreading might cause great damage for the employer.

The aim of this paper was to examine how social workers' comprehension of the need of financial aid exists in, and is influated by, the organisation they work in. To investigate this, we asked ourself questions concerning how the social worker view the way that the finicial aid-system and work surrounding it is formed, whether the social worker's understanding of the need of financial aid co-exists with the percieved common understanding of the work place (do the understandings coincide, do the social worker adjust his or her understanding or is it possible to have a separate understanding), whether the social worker feel that he or she have discretion to influence the organisation and how possible conflicts between different views are handled. We felt that a qualitative method would best help us answer these questions. We therefore interviewed seven social workers working in the same organisation. We then looked at our material from an organisational theory perspective, focusing on the individual in the organisation.We found that the social workers were socialised into the organisation and adapted the norms and values that existed there.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about how a group of newly graduated social workers reflect on the practical daily work and their positions working with clients who are in need of social and/or economic resources. More precisely the purpose is to find out how these seven newly graduated social workers viewed working with clients during theoretical and practical studies. The aim is to analyze which techniques and methods could be seen in these narratives. Furthermore the aim was to find out if and how these seven social workers reflected on the power relation between social worker and client.The material of this study consists of seven semi-structured interviews. Throughout gathering the data and analyzing it, the qualitative method in form of narrative approach was used.

Earlier research has shown that generational differences between younger-supervisors and older-workers may cause tensions that lead to team ineffectiveness. There is however still a lack of research in this area. This thesis presents possible tensions that might occur between a younger supervisor and an older worker due to their age and generational affiliation, and how these tensions affect the team dynamics. The empirical data collection was limited to the boundaries of the dental care industry where these generational/age differences between younger supervisor and older worker are common. The thesis looks at the tensions from a qualitative perspective and data was collected in the form of in-depth interviews with selected dentists and nurses.

The law (1988:870) concerning care of substance abusers is constructed in a way that gives the social workers room to interpret and apply the law individually. This may contribute to differences in treatment between female and male substance abusers. The purpose of the essay was to investigate whether the client's gender had any significance to how the social worker interpret and apply the law (LVM).The specific questions we worked around were:- What significance does the client's gender have in the decision-making?- Does the social worker's opinion about the law have any significance?- What factors can effect the social worker's interpretation and application of the law?- What importance do the social workers attach to prevailing norms about men and women when they interpret and apply the law?We chose to use a qualitative method to answer the above questions. Six social workers were interviewed and 39 LVM sentences were analysed.

This study is investigating what conditions can strengthen an alliance and which obstacles there are. Coercion aspects can also influence an alliance and are therefore also written about. The asymmetrical relationship between the social worker and the juvenile delinquent is investigated also with in regards to the tacit and explicit coercion when they are entering care. The study is focusing on the consequence/influence programs that the juvenile delinquents can be sentenced to because of their crimes. Counseling is a major part in these programs.

The aim of this study is to examine social workers' and social work students' attitudes towards people living with hiv in Sweden. I will also examine if there is a connection between knowledge and attitudes. The questions at issue are how social workers' and social work students' attitudes can assume to influence on their professional practice and what causes can affect their attitudes towards people living with hiv. The study is based on a qualitative method. The methods have been: conversational interviews with five social workers, who work with family issues and integration, and a focused group interview with four social work students.

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the worldThese words sum up my account of social worker expertise. How does one become skillful?a master?in the profession? I answer this question by exploring how social worker proficiency can be developed and grow with the help and support of supervisors, clients and colleagues. Development through professional supervision and in the encounter with clients is an essential part of the work. I also discuss what it means to be new in the field (a novice) in relation to being experienced (a master).

The aim of this study has been to highlight how school social workers experience their discretion, and furthermore how they feel about working in a context mainly dedicated to teachers. The study is executed with a qualitative research method where ten interviews with school social workers, in eight schools in the area of Stockholm have been conducted. The theoretical framework used to analyze the results was discretion, street-level bureaucracy and human service organizations.The main findings of this study imply that the most important ambition of the social work that was conducted in the schools was to help the students reach their knowledge goals. The assignment is, however, not clearly defined, which has lead to school social workers defining the mission and goals themselves. They all have wide discretion and great possibilities to decide how to execute their work, but how they use the freedom that was given seems to vary among them.

The aim of this essay was to examine what kind of help and support social services departement can offer gamblers and their relatives. We also want to examine what the relatives to the gamblers think about the help and support they have got from the social services departement. Central questions we asked were: What kind of help and support can social services department offer the gamblers and there relatives? What kind of help is there to get for children respectively adult relatives? Do the relatives consider that the social worker have enough knowledge about the problem? Do the social workers consider that they have enough knowledge about the problem? This is a qualitative study of three women relatives to the gamblers, three social workers and one specialist in this problem. We have delimited the study to one big city in Sweden.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

The purpose with this essay is to describe how the principal, social worker and the teacher work to prevent bullying at school. The following questions have been discussed:Does the school have an action plan for bullying, and if so, what does it say? Who has the practical responsibility for making sure that the plan is followed, and how does that responsibility work? How is the responsibility divided between the different professions? Are the children in any way active in the planning of the work against bullying? What does the children think about who has the main responsibility for stopping bullying?The method I have used in the essay is individual interviews with principals, welfare officers and teachers from two schools.My results show that the schools have different ways of handling bullying, and different forms of cooperation within the staff. One school have active students in the work against bullying in the form of classmate support (kamratstödjare). The social worker is used in different ways in the work against bullying.

The aim of this study was to examine how clients who have or have previously had a drug- and/or alcohol addiction experienced interchanges with social workers. In this study, eight semi-structured interviews were made with respondents from an out-patient clinic in a small town in Sweden. Questions were asked regarding clients? experience of the social workers' attitudes during the initial meeting as well as all continuing meetings. Other possible variables that affected the interchanges, either positively or negatively, including how the clients wanted to be treated, were also explored.

The aim of the study is to describe social workers discretion when it comes to the relation between children placed away from home and their biological parents.The study describes how the social worker designs the contacts with the biological parents, for instance the extension for the actual meeting. The results are based on six interviews conducted with social workers who work with foster children. They have responded to questions related to the contact between children and their biological parent. The questions are based on eight vignettes. The contents of the vignettes show different conditions that affect the contact, for example age and foster care attitudes The results of the study have been compared to other previous research in discretion of the social worker and contacts between children and their biological parents.In summary the study shows that there is  high degree of independence for the social workers designing their work and that their level of discretion.

A large number of children and teenagers are placed in foster care for various reasons. Social services have a responsibility to follow up youths and ensure that they have the same opportunity for positive development as other young people. A qualitative study was conducted with an abductive perspective by gathering material from social workers in this particular field. The research design of this study is an interview study. The theoretical premise was Bronfenbrenners ecosystem theory and Maslows hierarchy of needs theory.