AbstractThe purpose of this essay was to study the parental education for adoptive parents. It´s provided by law since 1/1-2005 that parents have to participate in this education-program before they adopt. We wanted to look at what caused the change and made the education compulsory and to find out where the initiative came from, what purpose the education is supposed to fulfil, if it can facilitate for adopted children during their growth and whether the parental education can support the idea of what is best for a certain child always has to come first, according to the UN convention on the Rights of the child and the Haag-convention.The study was based on eight qualitative interviews, four with social workers, three with representatives of adoption-organisations and one with a representative of the public authority of international adoption (MIA). The conclusions of our study are that there is a risk that the education can not fulfil its purpose to prepare parents for their task, that it looses the idea of what´s best for the child and focuses on the parent instead. It seems to be more of a try out to not violate conventions signed and thereby fulfil a symbolic purpose..

Swedish farmers have the possibility to be subsidized by EU rural development programme for grazing animals on pastures to promote the biodiversity of flora and fauna. The environmental remedy sometimes does not allow supplementary feed and at the same time the Swedish Animal Welfare Act and the Swedish Agricultural Board?s regulations for animal welfare and protection states that animals, in this case horses, shall be fed with food of good quality and adapted for the species. The regulations also state that they should have an individual feeding regime that enables them to maintain a normal body condition. The aim with this master thesis has been to investigate if it is possible to keep Gotland ponies on extensive pastures, during late spring and summer and still maintain animal welfare. The horses were assessed every fourth week using a welfare assessment protocol developed in line with the Welfare Quality® project (submitted, Viksten et al) where physical, behavioural and resourcebased parameters were observed. Twelve one-year old stallions of the breed Gotland ponies purchased from different breeders were used in the study.

The purpose of this study was to inquire how social workers perceive and describe financial abuse of older persons. Six qualitative interviews were carried out and the assembled data was then categorized and analyzed using a theory considering exercise of power and ageism as a theoretical frame. Previous research has shown that at least 10% of older persons have been exposed to some form of abuse or violence; however, there is a lack of research carried out in a Swedish context regarding financial abuse specifically. The six persons interviewed in this study all presented financial abuse as some kind of violence and as previous research has shown the study suggests that this is an increasing problem. Further research ought to be carried out to increase the awareness of this particular form of abuse and to facilitate discovery and development of measures to prevent financial abuse of older persons.

This is a qualitative study on bachelor level at the School of Social Work. The aim of the thesis was to describe how selected municipal commissioners and social workers in Malmö view the complex of problems, and different solutions, concerning homelessness.Malmö, the third largest city of Sweden, is struggling with serious problems concerning homelessness. Possible solutions are being debated, and the opinions differ widely, depending on ideological standpoint. We wanted to find out how selected municipal commissioners and social workers view the complex of problems, related laws and local guidelines, and measures to improve the situation. In order to have a free discussion, but within limits we used semi-structured interviews.Our results show that both the municipal commissioners and social workers regarded homelessness mainly as an individual issue, related to dissocial aspects of the individual.

Summary:Teenage girls? choice of dropping out or complete a treatment.The purpose of this study is to investigate, from a client?s perspective, why teenage girls (age 13 to 17) drop-out or complete a treatment at Familjehuset in Karlstad, Sweden. We also want to investigate if the teenage girls? experiences coordinate with the social workers opinion of why the teenage girls choose to drop-out or complete the treatment. Earlier research shows that many factors influence the client?s choice.

The purpose of this essay was to describe the opinions of different religious and non-religious ideologies and aspects of treatment, concerning use of drugs and drugsaddiction, and with a special focus at Narconon. We also wanted to try to understand the connection between professionalism and ideology in their treatment.Our central questions where;· How does the treatment Narconon's provides, look like?· What is Narconon's opinion on use of drugs and drugaddiction?· What is Narconon's connection to the Scientology?· Is there any scientific proof that Narconon's treatment is functioning?· How can we understand the connection between professionalism and ideology in treatment?We made intervjues with six social workers and six intervjues with staff at Narconon. Added to the intervjues, we studied articles and Internet research.From our work and through information we have got from Narconon, we have discovered the need of further research concerning their treatment. Narconon does continuous following-ups when the treatment is finished.

Every year more than 6000 thefts, to a value of 1.5 billion SEK, are reportedwithin the Swedish building trade. Plus all the indirect costs of having theconstruction site standing still.SafeTool is a newly started company that will try to prevent this problem witha modern technology solution.The key to SafeTool?s solution is RFID ? Radio Frequency Identification ? andthe solution looks like this;All tools are stored in a container on the construction site. Every tool isequipped with a RFID-tag that uniquely identifies the tool. With antennas in thecontainer it is possible to detect when a tool is leaving the container and whenit comes back.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka konstnärsyrkets legitimitet och avgränsning vid inkomstlöshet. Undersökningen bygger på en teoretisk distinktion mellan konstnärskap och konstnärsyrke, där vinstsyftet blir det centrala i konstnärsyrket. Vinstsyftet förstås som en vilja att försörja sig via inkomst från konstproduktion. Utifrån vinstsyftet undersöks hur konstnärsyrket avgränsas i kontakt med arbetslöshetsförsäkringen. Då få konstnärer har hela sin försörjning via konstskapandet blir resultatet ett mycket litet antal yrkeskonstnärer.

Children are said to be the future of our society. Hence, how we take care of our children is a cause of concern. This is evident in much of the social work that is carried out in Sweden. One of the times when we find children to be the most vulnerable is when they, for different reasons, are separated from their biological families and placed in foster care. Based on the fact that Sweden over the last century has experienced an increased immigration intake we wanted to take a closer look on how this change of the population dynamics has influenced foster care in the country.

The object of this study is the female user of amphetamines and the characteristica which she is often described by. Many of these descriptions regard the female amphetamine user's sexuality which also have come to form the assumption that these women make a living from having sexual relations with men in exchange of drugs.In order to be able to draw any kind of conclusions regarding this, we found it necessary to investigate how the stereotypical female user of amphetamines makes a living and also whether it is possible for a female drug user to decide for her self how to support her habit.The disposition is a qualitative study of literature and the perspectives that we focused on in this study are gender roles, relationships and sexuality, criminality and finally the drug using woman as a victim. The theories used deal with social constructivism, respectability and shame.The main discussion of our study has been how women amphetamine users are moulded to become victims through interaction with other people but also with the society as a whole..

The object of this essay was to illustrate and analyse what determines that a contract treatment investigation for a drug addict is initiated and what factors influence the investigation itself, from the probation service officer's perspective.We selected the following two questions:- What does the probation service officer see as being the deciding factor for a contract treatment investigation to be initiated?- What questions appear in a contract treatment investigation and how do they influence the investigation, according to the probation service officer?To find answers to these questions we conducted interviews with 11 probation service officers, during November and December 2005, at three different locations across Skåne. We decided to use the qualitative method for collecting the data we needed.In our essay we came to the conclusion that the will and motivation of the client is a deciding factor whether or not a contract treatment investigation is to be initiated. An important collaborator in this process is the social services. According to the probation service officers, many of the problems that may appear in the co-operation are due to the tough economic constraints experienced by the social services.

Our surroundings are currently vulnerable. People can not know when or how to expect nor prepare for a disaster or an accident. The purpose of this essay was to perform a study of the organization and accessibility of psychological and social support in a crisis situation within the community of Lund.To be able to carry out this study we put up a couple of questions that we hoped would guide us, for example; how do the community prepare and set up the service for people in need of support in connection to a crisis situation? As a method we have used qualitative interviews and literature.The results of our study have shown a discrepancy between the ways the community organizes their service for people in a crisis situation caused either by a catastrophe or an untimely death. In case of an untimely death, ordinary resources are estimated to be sufficient while in case of a catastrophe, extraordinary resources are required.

The intention of this essay was to describe and analyse the participant's experience in a work project based on a holistic model. The main purpose of the project was to integrate homeless people back into society. My main questions were: 1. What meaning did the project have in the participant's life? 2.

The purpose with our essay was to examine what favourable factors there are for women to get out of drug abuse and from a gender aspect interpret how these factors are used in the treatment of female drug-addicts, regarded from the treatment personnel view. The questions we have focused on are: What are the favourable factors for women in the way out of the addiction. How can the use of favourable factors be interpreted from a gender aspect. In what way is the knowledge about these favourable factors used in the drug abuse treatment.To fulfil the purpose whit our examination and to get answers to our questions we performed an explorative examination and applied a qualitative method in the form of a half structured interview with five persons.The main features of the results in our examination were that unisexual treatment, the group and the friendship between women, children and pregnancy and professional and private social network were considered as the favourable factors for the women out of their addiction. Certain factors were used in the treatment as a way to socialize or resocialize the female drug-addicts to predominant social models of how a woman should be like..

Urban planning is not only a matter of architectural trends; it is first and foremost political. This thesis seeks to understand the links between political ideas and visions for the city and the physical structure of the city. The study aims to construct a model to help understand these links, a helpful tool in analysing a city, focusing on the one hand at the physical structure of what I call "The City as a Welfare Provider" and on the other hand at "The City as a Growth Engine". It also sets out to test this model in an empirical study of Stockholm and the soon-to-be built district of Norra Station in the same city.The analysis shows that Stockholm has ambitions to be a welfare provider to its citizens, but have also adopted to a discourse of interurban competition which stresses the importance for the city to enhance economical growth. What is interesting is that the physical structures promoted in the planning documents of Stockholm are nearly exclusively those associated with the model of "The City as a Growth Engine"..