The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the participation of immigrant organizations to the partnerships in the Equal program in Sweden. The focus of the study was on the significance of the participation for the organizations and its impact on them. The point of view of the participant organizations has been object of study through interviews with the persons who, on behalf of the organizations, have been in charge for the work with Equal. Interviews have been conducted with people representing 10 of the 21 immigrant organizations that have been identified among the Swedish Equal partners. Many organizations have experienced that the participation has strengthen the awareness of target groups about their needs and their possibilities.

The purpose of this essay was to illustrate professionals? reflections on the concept early attachment between guardian and infant, within different family support activities, and how professionals encourage early attachment between guardian and infant. The mental health state of infants is an important field of knowledge to explore. Attachment between guardian and infant is of the utmost importance for the development of children. The questions we had were: What contains the concept early attachment between guardian and infant from a professional point of view? Which factors have influence on early attachment between guardian and infant? How do professionals work with early attachment between guardian and infant? The essay is a qualitative study based on six interviews with two female district nurses, two female social welfare secretaries, a female psychologist and a female social worker.

The purpose with this thesis was to form an opinion of how the animal welfare in Sweden is experienced by both farmers and animal inspectors. A great part of this work consists of an inquiry concerning the south and the middle of Sweden. We sent the inquiries to milk and meat producers and to animal inspectors. The response was high, which indicates that this is a subject that affects many people. Our literature study is mostly made on the library bases LIBRIS and LUKAS. The facts we found there were directed towards animal experimentation and furred animal breeding. In order to compare with earlier results we used investigations that had been made by Riksrevisionen 2003. There is a difference in opinions about the new Swedish animal welfare agency that started first of January 2004.

This thesis aimed to describe how the ideological dividing line concerning the welfare state has changed between the two largest governmental parties in Sweden, the Social Democrats and the Moderaterna, during 1990 to 2010. The scientist Mark Blyth points out that ideas are important instruments for structural and institutional change by identifying ideas as weapons, blueprints and cognitive locks, which were being used in the theoretical framework. The empirical data was made by a qualitative analysis of the parliamentary speeches and debates from both parties held every year. The results shows that the budgetary law passed in 1997 became a new institutional blueprint, which changed the political conditions for the Social Democrats. Furthermore, the results point to a change in the Moderaterna?s rhetoric concerning the welfare state to a more pragmatic view. .

The purpose of this essay was to examine whether there were any differences in social workers way of investigating boys and girls, age 13-15. The main questions we wanted to answer were; which were the factors that the social workers focused on? Did the investigations lead to a measure and if so, which one? How were risk and protection factors described and ana-lysed?To answer our questions we read and analyzed 22 reports, written by social workers 2004 at the department for teenagers and families at a social welfare service in Sweden. We came to the conclusion that there were some differences, but these were few and not extensive. Recreational activities was mentioned in a higher degree in the boys reports while health, housing conditions and network were mentioned more often in the girl´s reports.

This bachelor thesis aimed to explore, in a qualitative manner, the relationship and the interaction between the hospital welfare officer and the rest of the nursing staff. We chose this subject because we wanted to explain the phenomena of being a medical outsider in the nursing team. Our questions at issue were the following three: How does the hospital welfare officer define his occupational sphere and how do the rest of the nursing staff define it, according to the welfare officer himself? Is the welfare officer's relation to his own professional role and to the rest of the nursing staff affected by where his office is placed - secluded from or within the clinic? How does the welfare officer himself value his profession in relation to the rest of the nursing crew? To answer these questions we interviewed eight welfare officers, placed in two different hospitals. We used three different theories to explain the primary information.

Our purpose was to investigate the schools and the social welfare´s experiences of Roman children´s school situation in a Scanian town. We have done a qualitative investigation, interviewing 14 persons from both school and social welfare. Through the interviews we wanted to find the factors which influences the Roman pupils schooling and which efforts the professionals has to their disposition to influence these children´s school situation in a positive direction.The main result of our study is that the majority of the Romans is an isolated group, both in the Swedish school system and in the society. The Romans got access to the Swedish comprehensive school first in 1965, which implies that the Romans have a young school tradition. Most of the Roman pupils have a high absent, which is grounded in a complex of problems.

The aim of this study was to examine what knowledge social workers express about home visits in child welfare investigations and how they know what to do. Sixteen social workers who work with social investigations concerning children were asked to discuss the topic home visit in three focus group interviews in three different municipalities in southern Sweden. The social workers in our focus group interviews mainly discussed the purpose of the home visit, what social workers do during home visits and furthermore their opinions about guidelines and policy documents regarding the home visit.  To get an understanding of what type of knowledge is the basis for social workers use of the home visit, we used Polanyi's concept of 'tacit knowing' as well as the Aristotelian theory of knowledge containing three forms of knowledge, that is, episteme, techne and fronesis. We found that the displaying of ?tacit knowing? was a consistent feature in all groups, as they had difficulty expressing their knowledge use.

Malmö, like many other bigger cities in Europe, faces a double undertaking when facing the challenges the future. Not only must the municipal be able to provide its citizens with welfare and a high standard of living, it must also establish a level of economic growth that allows the city to act as catalyst for the surrounding area. In order to provide the population with welfare and the economy with a qualified working force, these two challenges have been combined into one plan for the future called Welfare for Everybody. As part of this plan, new organisations have been created with the purpose collaborating with the social services office and support people in their transaction from welfare recipients to self-providing workers. The purpose of our thesis is to build on Michael Lipsky's classic work "Street-level Bureaucracy" and by conducting interviews with a number of front line workers study how they view their role, the client group and how they motivate the working line.

The aim of this study was to compare educational systems in Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy and Scotland. In the light of the Bologna Declaration signed in 1999, I was particularly interested in comparing social work educations in these four countries. Especially to clarify how far they have come to fulfill the goals of the common European educational policy.Central questions asked were: How do the educational systems look like in each of the four countries? How are the social work educations organized in each of them? In what ways do the social work educations differ? How can we explain such differences?Each country in this study represents a different welfare regime, and therefore I was challenged to find out if this has an impact on the implementation of the incentives of the Bologna Declaration. By studying various documents from the European Union, documents from each country and presentations of various social work programmes, I have come to the conclusion that the differences found mainly depends on the historical and socioeconomic traditions in the countries.

The purpose of this thesis is to expose the political myth in the West about the ageing population seen as a threat against the welfare society. To do so I have described what a political myth is, and showed how it is presented in the most influential newspapers and organisations in the West. I have also presented alternative perspectives to the dominating view on the ageing population and it's impacts on welfare. In this way I have tried to point out that the subject has a political dimension. In the thesis last section I compare the message presented in the newspapers and the organisations with the characteristics of a political myth.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how professional social workers work with follow up foster home placements. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten professional social workers from different municipalities in Skåne in an attempt to answer the following questions:* What routines exist for the follow-up work with foster care?* What factors have an impact on how the follow-up is formed in the particular case?* How can the follow-up affect outcomes of the placement?* In what way could the work with follow-up foster home placements develop?The theories we chose to analyze our material from was the ecology of human development formed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and the theory of civil courage formed by Lennart Lundquist. The interviews were semi-structural which gave the respondents a chance to talk in a free way about the questions we presented.The result of the study showed that there is a difference in the way social workers form the follow-up work of foster care. The greatest difference is in whom the social workers include in their follow-up.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate affecting factors concerning social workers in social services assessments with cases of abuse. We wanted to see if social workers in social services tend to make different assessments of the need of substance abusers care. Our survey was carried out as a vignettesurvey with complementary interviews as means to deepen the outcome results.Our survey showed that the included social workers in social services in some senses make different assessments when it comes to choice of effort put in for the client. We shed light on different factors and circumstances, which could bear meaning for the social workers in social services assessments. Examples of factors were the social workers in social services age, gender, working experience and attitude towards substance abusers..

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social worker?s perspective on working for the government as a professional in care of children, in relation to the family's right to self determination. The essay's empirical material is gathered from qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social workers who work with children and youth in communities and districts in Skåne and Stockholm City, Sweden. The analysis was conducted in line with theories of social constructivism. The results and analysis show that the interviewed social workers did not believe that the state has too much power over the citizen.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the success of theconcept of empowerment in the field of social science can be explained by referring to it as the new paradigm replacing the former paternalistic era. Therefore, I investigate if the character of its history, domicile and practice has the same distinguishing features as the scientific progress. The analysis is based on Thomas Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm through the concepts of consensus, crisis and revolution. I also look for alternative ways to explain the sudden appearance of empowerment at the world agenda. Due to the lack of a uniform definition of the concept and the absence of common approaches in the stimulation of empowerment it's difficult to argue that the situation is marked by consensus.