The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the employability of newly graduated social workers is affected by the Supervised Practical Work Experience performed during the educational program. Four main questions were developed in order to establish an educated and concise theory: Does the newly graduated social worker?s choice of a specific Supervised Practical Work Experience affect their employability? Does the structure of the Supervised Practical Work Experience affect newly graduated social worker?s employability? What specific skills do employers within social work consider important for their organization? Is there a difference in how the representatives of various organizations within social work answer the aforementioned questions? The study was conducted through six qualitative semi-structured interviews. The people being interviewed work either as employers or recruiters in organizations from different areas within social work. Theories concerning organization and symbolic interactions were used during the analysis of the results.

The purpose of this essay was to study how school welfare officers cooperate with other school staff, regarding children in vulnerable positions, and how the school staff apply their obligation to report to the social services if they have concerns regarding children at risk, according to the law of social service, SoL.We have especially focused on questions concerning cooperation, both between the school staff, and between the school and the social services. We also wanted to identify some of the restraining factors and dilemmas that could come up during the process of reporting children at risk to the social services. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten school welfare officers from the same municipality.Our conclusions of our study are that there exists a well-developed cooperation between several organizational levels, including the school welfare officers, other professions in the schools and the social services. There were though opinions among the school welfare officers that they wanted to increase their professional claims in relation to the school nurse, due to their larger competence in talking to children. Regarding the formal responsibility to report to the social services, a majority of the school welfare officers felt they had access to the support they needed from both their principal and the students healthcare-team, and that they were not left alone in the process..

The overall aim of this study is to investigate how social workers who are dealing with financial assistance are experiencing discretion in their daily work. The aim of the study is also to examine how social workers who are dealing with financial assistance relates to the controlling and the supporting functions of their daily work and how this in turn affects the attitude to the client. In order to examine the aim of the study, qualitative method was used. Eight social workers have been interviewed and presented with two fictitious cases that they have been able to discuss. Theories regarding the street-level bureaucrat and its discretion have been used to interpret and understand the collected material.

The aim of this study is to investigate a number of social worker views on long -term drug abuse and how they feel that this group of individuals should be treated. Our purpose is also to examine these social worker discretion in terms of decision-making under the Socialtjänstlagen (SoL) and Lag om missbrukare i vissa fall (LVM ).We conducted two focus group interviews and assumed a number of open questions. Our empirical data have been categorized by the study's purpose and issues and by recurring themes in our individual stories.Our results shows that all social workers believe that one should always look at the big picture in estimates related to drug users. They also believe that the process of long -term addicts occasionally feels hopeless. Social workers felt that their room for maneuver in terms of decision-making was fairly limited.

The aim of this study is to illustrate, and analyze how social workers are able to more effectively pursue operative possibilities within their own particular organizations. The main question concerning this issue is: How are social workers, working within the same district organization able to realise any potential for co-operation with other social workers, in different locales and units, yet working within the same organization? Following on from this question, further issues arise such as: 1. How do the varying demands of the clients affect the workload of the social worker? 2.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether social counselling via chat conversations could meet the criteria for a professional conversation, and how the six social workers who were interviewed felt that it had affected the profession and the clients who are seeking their help.Communication, professionality, power, roles and regions are the key topics of this study. A hermeneutic approach has not only influenced the interviews but also the content analysis that was used to encode the results.The interviews revealed that the chat conversations was a successful tool but not entirely without difficulties. The initial contact making between the client and the social worker favours the client, since she/he remains anonymous and that was the main advantage of the method. The biggest concern however was that in the anonymity it is not possible to report cases that the social worker are obligated to. The changing of forum does not necessarily affect the professionality but due to the faceless chat conversation an entire dimension of communication disappears because the loss of body language.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether social counselling via chat conversations could meet the criteria for a professional conversation, and how the six social workers who were interviewed felt that it had affected the profession and the clients who are seeking their help.Communication, professionality, power, roles and regions are the key topics of this study. A hermeneutic approach has not only influenced the interviews but also the content analysis that was used to encode the results.The interviews revealed that the chat conversations was a successful tool but not entirely without difficulties. The initial contact making between the client and the social worker favours the client, since she/he remains anonymous and that was the main advantage of the method. The biggest concern however was that in the anonymity it is not possible to report cases that the social worker are obligated to. The changing of forum does not necessarily affect the professionality but due to the faceless chat conversation an entire dimension of communication disappears because the loss of body language.

With this research we aim to examine foster parents and social workers perceptions about the relationship between foster parents and the foster child?s biological parents and their perceptions about the support to the foster parents in the contact with the child?s biological parents. The research will provide a deeper understanding of the actors? perceptions and explain possible differences in their opinions. This study has a qualitative approach and contains eight semi-structured interviews with foster parents and social workers in a smaller town in the south of Sweden.

Purpose: To explore how the changes in work life, here represented and depicted through the concepts of knowledge work and knowledge worker, have been incorporated in the official psychosocial work environment discourse in Sweden. Methodology: Critical discourse analysis, contrasting the official psychosocial work environment discourse to literature on knowledge work and knowledge worker, to explore how employees, employers and their relations are constructed within these two discourses; focusing identity, autonomy and power. Using the constructions to make visible how they are articulated, used and dealt with in a real life case from the Work Environment Authority. Theoretical perspectives: Our social world is socially constructed and language is the main tool for constructing it. Discourse analysis is thus not just a tool for deconstructing texts but also for enhanced understanding of our construction of the world and our ability to communicate about it.

The aim of this study is to understand and describe school staff´s view on the legal obligation to report child maltreatment. With this approach I will get a better understanding how child maltreatment can be caught up in the Swedish community. Previous research shows that school is one of the authorities who report most children to social services. Previous research indicates that cooperation between school and social services reduces the time of the investigations, and gives a better understanding of what is to be reported. The result shows that a functional cooperation between school staff´s as well as between school and social services is important for children to be caught up in the community.

This study focuses on the use of animals in social work from the perspective of social workers. The purpose of this study is to examine social workers? experiences of animal assisted social work and how social workers view the integration of animals in various fields of social work. The research is based on a qualitative method and four semi-structured interviews were conducted with social workers. The theories incorporated in the study are Attachment Theory and Sense of Coherence (SOC).The following results are presented: Social workers are considered to have a more comprehensive understanding of clients compared to their associates who do not hold a degree in Social Work.

Social workers in the Social Services are seen as professionals and they are associatedwith a substantial degree of freedom to carry out their work in order to interpret theSocial Services Act and make decisions. This freedom is referred to as discretion andis a central aspect of the role of the social worker. But the social worker is employedwithin an organisation that exists in an environment influenced of political decisionswhich sets boundaries to how far the freedom stretches. The general aim with thisthesis is to gain insight in how social workers within the Social Services experiencetheir discretion. Secondary this thesis also aims to explore how discretion is shapedand negotiated.

The purpose of this study was to understand school counselors´ and teachers´ perspectives on the prevention of bullying in relation to social capital. The study was based on a qualitative process with semi-structured interviews from three teachers and three school counselors from three different schools. The main question was to find out teachers and school counselors perspectives of bullying in relation to social capital. The analysis was based on a theory that focuses on social capital, where trust and confidence as well as universal and selective interventions are important. Today, bullying is considered a serious and significant problem in school.

The connection between body, soul and social surroundings and their influence on health has, in the western world, been known for over a hundred years. The hospital social worker with tasks within the area of the psychosocial perspective is therefore now a part of Swedish healthcare. Yet both international as well as national research and literature show that social workers have a slow professionalizationprocess and difficulties describing their area of tasks and methods. This study aims to explore hospital social workers line of work, what they believe becomes help in their work with patients and put results in relation to professionalization in the medical environment. The results are problematized from perspectives like professionality, power and role.The study includes 86 hospital social workers at Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset in Gothenburg Sweden and it contains both quantitative and qualitative parts.

The purpose of this essay was to find out whether the students, which had moved from the school of Gustaf Adolf to the school of Elineberg, had been integrated into their new environment. We chose to analyze the degree of integration concerning their schoolwork, how they interacted with the students from the new school, the school of Elineberg, and their level of wellbeing in their new school. We have used two methods, surveys and interviews, to be able to obtain the general picture of how the integration of the students has succeeded.Our conclusions are that the student has adapted well in their new school despite many obstacles along the way. Our essay shows that the students get along well with their new school friends during class, but they don´t socialise in their spear time. Although they seem to have accepted the closure of their old school some students express that they wish the school would be reopened.