The objective of this thesis was to study how parents of adult drug addicts experience their contact with the social welfare office, what elements affected the parents degree of satisfaction with the contact with the social welfare office, and whether the contact meant any help for them. Six parents of adult drug addicts were interviewed..

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ongoing changes in German family policy. It explores the issue of whether the German welfare state, in this policy field, can still be regarded as a conservative welfare model or rather approaches a more liberal or social democratic model. A qualitative method is used to analyze the material, especially from the German government, including press releases, other public documents and also articles from the political weekly magazines Der Spiegel and Die Zeit. The changes analyzed are the new parental benefit, the expansion of child care, the concept of whole-day schools and the system of joint taxation. The point of departure is Gösta Esping-Andersen?s categorization of three types of welfare states: the social democratic, the conservative and the liberal.

The purpose of this study was to examine divergences in assessments of social assistance in one big and one small social welfare office in the municipalities of Malmö. To examine this we used a qualitative method. We held interviews with social workers and their superiors. At the end of the interviews with the social workers we presented two vignettes, describing different cases of first time applications of social assistance. The social workers was asked to assess whether the application should be granted or not, and motivate their decisions.

How does a social welfare officer know when a parent with mental illness or behavioral symptoms is harmful to the children? As a social you are confronted with different ethical dilemmas on a daily basis. The social welfare officers have to follow their own authorities, laws, guidelines and regulations while at the same time do everything to satisfy their clients? needs. This inconsistency can sometimes be difficult to handle.

The purpose of our study is to examine whether social welfare secretaries experience obstacles in work to do their tasks in a way that they, from their own values, thinks is right. And if so, what are the reactions and what strategies do they use to manage this. The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consist of interviews, with five social welfare secretaries, which all work in southern Sweden. The social welfare secretaries both work at a children- and youth department and at a social allowance department.

The focus of this thesis is on social workers? knowledge in assessing and making decisions in child welfare cases. The primary aim is to identify what skills or knowledge social workers find most useful within child welfare agencies in Swedish municipalities. Six different types of knowledge, social policy and the approach of child welfare cases are perspectives considered in the analysis. The interviews with social workers were held in three agencies in southern Sweden, in 2014.

The purpose with the essay was to study the school and the social welfare personnel respectively along with their perspectives and views on their collaboration in the work with socially exposed children and how the collaboration was formed.To get answers to my questions, I interviewed three teachers and three social welfare secretaries. The questions and the analysis were divided into themes: the collaboration between school and social services now and in the future, development of collaboration, and facilitation and difficulties.When analysing the interviews I found a consensus in some questions. All interviewed agreed on the importance of collaboration for the welfare of the child through continuous meetings. The relationship and dialogue between school and social services was vital. Both teachers and social welfare secretaries found it essential not to be seen as a hidden authority.

The purpose of this essay has been to study the different discourses that are expressed in social welfare secretaries? assertions when they assess cases with elements of honour-related violence, intimidation and oppression. To do so I have used a discourse analysis theory and technique, based on three qualitative interviews with social welfare secretaries. The interviews were focused on vignettes, which were all fictitious cases with various elements of honour-related violence. One of the interviews was a focus groupinterview with four participants, while the other two interviews were individual.

AbstractSocial welfare workers employed in the same county base their assessments on the same laws, routines and guidelines, yet it seems that they sometimes come to different decisions. It's the discretion that enables the social workers to make individualized decisions adapted to each clients unique situation.The purpose of this paper is to examine social welfare workers reflections on discretion and what influences their discretion in the professional role.Six qualitative interviews were conducted with social welfare workers in three communitys i the middle of Sweden.The main result shows that it is primarily four factors that affect the social welfare workers discretion in the professional role :External factors such as other organizations change of regulations and cooperation with other organizations.Organizational factors such as routines, rules and guidelines .Professional factors such as the opportunity to use experience and professionalknowledge to determine which measure works in different situations.Individual factors like the workers ability for initiative and the clients individualcircumstances. Social welfare workers feel that they have a relatively wide discretion in their profession. They believe they have the ability to make individual evaluations of each client, however they also believe that their discretion often is limited by lack of time.Key words: social welfare workers, clients, discretion, assessments. .

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 North-American sociologist Michael Lipsky has characterized social workers as street-level bureaucrats with a substantial discretion in the relationship between the welfare state and its citizens. Within Lipsky´s theoretical framework social workers appear as a powerful group that socializes the citizens to uphold certain expectations towards the welfare state and its (re)distributional programs. From this point of view, it is important to learn more about social workers and the attitudes they express towards the welfare state. The aim of this study is to analyze how the welfare-political attitudes of future social workers are affected by their social background (e.g. class background and ancestral homeland).

The increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within the government and across party political boundaries. Furthermore, what is problematic in this context is the fact that the discussions on the subject tend to be relatively uncritical and often it seems as if though the expansion itself is the main objective. The emphasis on cooperation and the third sector in terms of welfare production implies a set of risks in relation to state responsibility, democracy and the autonomy of civil society. This paper aims to explore those risks and how they can be dealt with within the Swedish context..

This qualitative study is about the individual supportive conversation with the school welfare officer in upper secondary school. The main aim of the study was to find out what the pupils get out of a series of conversations with the school welfare officer and what it means for the pupils that the welfare officer belongs to the school organization. Six qualitative interviews were held with pupils who had conversation contact with the school welfare officer during their time at upper secondary school.I found that these pupils and welfare officers were oriented towards change and solutions. I found that the most important thing for the pupils was to achieve a good and trusting relationship with the welfare officer. After this the pupil starts a process of change in cooperation with the welfare officer, with the aim that the pupil should be happy and satisfied with the current life situation.

The purpose of this essay was to examine six high school welfare officers' experiences and work with students suffering from social phobia and discuss the welfare officers' view on social phobia from a psychiatric, cognitive and a knowledge theory. The study consists of qualitative interviews with welfare officers from several different high schools and attempts to answer the following questions: What previous experiences do welfare officers have of students with social phobia? How do welfare officers become aware of students with symptoms of social phobia and bring forth their problems? How do welfare officers describe their social work with students suffering from social phobia?The welfare officers' experiences of students with social phobia varied but turned out to be less salient than the amount of research in the area would suggest. The theoretical knowledge also varied, as did the acquiring and use of theory. These findings were then analysed on the basis of Rosmari Eliassons thoughts on knowledge, leading to the conclusion that the interviewed welfare officers do not construct their work on praxis-knowledge.

Social enterprises make up one of the groups of participants that provide welfare services financed by public funding. The object of this study is to describe and analyze from a theoretical point of view which conditions, in what fields, by which division of responsibility and finally through what decisions these social enterprises are allocated a place in the market for social welfare services. The company that has been the object of study offers services in the field of social welfare and in employment. In the study a triangulation of qualitative methods has been used: studies of literature on the subject, recurrent interviews and observations and also reviews of documents. The results have been analyzed from theories on the space available on the market for social services, on social economy and on social capital in the form of strong, weak and bridging bonds.