This is a qualitative study based on two focus group interviews with a total of six social workers who work with assessing financial aid in two municipalities. The study aims to examine how the social workers experience and handle their ambiguous professional role, on the basis that they are expected to support and control the client. The theoretical framework is the theory about discretion and role theory. The results show that social workers find it difficult to combine these different approaches. Two different groups of strategies that social workers use to manage their professional role have been distinguished, the first is used to combine the different approaches (combination strategies), which are: empathy, to be distinct and to "blame" the organization.

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.

Imagine not being able to choose who you are going to be in an intimate relationship with. It used to be like that but the situation has changed - these days we have a lot of different options available to choose for ourselves how to live our lives. We have a lot of different ways to influence how we want to live our lives and with whom we want to share them with.The aim of this study was to examine how individuals feel about their relationship and why they choose to stay in a relationship with their current partner. How do individuals in a relationship feel about aspects including for example conflicts, communication and trust? Is Anthony Giddens theory about the pure relationship applicable on relationships today? To find the answers to these questions we made a quantitative study and used a questionnaire to collect empirical data.

The purpose of this essay was to examine the experience of the judicial process concerning domestic violence from the perspectives of abused females and from some of the authorities and organisations which meet these women. The essay investigated several views of the judicial process in order to obtain a wide perspective. It responded to the following questions:- How are abused women treated by the authorities and organisations?- Are there enough resources and knowledge among the authorities and organisations?- Is there any collaboration between the authorities and organisations which the female meets in the judicial process and if so, how does it look like?- What does the aspect of security of person look like for the women which have been exposed to domestic violence?- What in the judicial process is important for the women's ability to move on in her life after experiences of violence in a relationship?This study was based on a qualitative method, where the interviews constituted of empirical material. The essay was based on interviews with two females who have experiences of violence in a relationship, two social workers from Kvinnojouren in Lund, two social workers from Kriscentrum in Lund, one lawyer, one prosecutor, one policeman and one social worker from Kvinnoforum in Lund.

This study aims to further Work-family conflict research for Social Workers by providing insight into what kind of impact the job role of social workers in Sweden has on their private lives and how they deal with it. The study operates from a qualitative approach and is based on three focus group-interviews and three semi-structured interviews with people working in different fields of social work. The empirical material has been analyzed through the Dramaturgical Perspective and Frame concept of Erving Goffman. The results of this study show that the job role impacts the psychological well-being of social workers, their family life and their social life to varying degrees, mainly due to organizational and client-based aspects, often resulting in role-conflicts and a lack of energy in their private lives. The primary strategies were found to be conversing with colleagues, spending time alone, embracing hobbies and having a clear understanding of individual responsibility. .

The purpose of this study was to understand how social workers experienced working with Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in relation to the goal set by the National Board of Health and Welfare. The method is spread nationwide and therefore it is of great importance to examine how the social workers themselves experience the demands and the resources surrounding ASI. We choose to do a qualitative study interviewing eight social workers at six different occasions. The result was analyzed using Max Weber?s ideal type bureaucracy and Michael Lipsky?s thesis on street-level bureaucrats.

We have chosen to focus on the meaning of long-term income support dependency regarding health, goal setting and motivation for the recipient of economical aid. We have chosen to use semi structurized interviews to achieve our goal of reaching the clients experience of long-term income support dependency. The study consists of interviews of six clients whose answers have been analyzed through appliance of Kielhofner´s Model of human occupation, Scheff´s Shame in self and society.   Our results show regarding, 1) the factor health that long-term income support dependency may elevate the risk of illness and less experienced options of possibilities to act. 2) regarding the factor goal setting, that goals may be inefficiently used during social work with long-term income support dependent clients and may result in a disorganized relationship between client and social worker in the sense of making the parties pull in opposite direction. 3) regarding the factor motivation, that long-term income support dependency and the living with the emotion of shame elevates the risk of maintaining a negative image of oneself that limits the willpower to assimilate new knowledge and/or skills.

The objective of this study was investigating social worker?s perspective of how alcohol consumption can affect, and what elements in the social environment that may be of significance for, alcohol consumption and development of identity. The questions at issue were: Do social workers experience any positive effects from alcohol consumption in 16-17 year-old girls with problematic alcohol consumption and what influence do the effects have on self esteem, self image and development of identity? What do social workers experience are the negative effects from alcohol consumption on self esteem, self image and development of identity? How important do social workers find the social environment and how do they believe the social environment affect the alcohol consumption and development of identity? This was investigated with a qualitative approach from a social worker?s perspective, hence social workers were interviewed. The study?s theoretical basis was Symbolic Interactionism and Erikson?s theory of Psychosocial Development.

The aim of our study is to deepen our understanding of how both social workers and clients describe how user influence within substance abuse care for adults can work. What difficul-ties do they describe meeting, with regards to possibilities to influence the care? To achieve our purpose we had a qualitative approach for this study. It?s based on open thematic inter-views with 3 clients who have substance abuse problems, and with 3 social workers, working at Social Services in Stockholm.

The purpose of this study was to examine how social services in Örebro working with young people vulnerable to honor- related violence and oppression. Further the purpose was to investigate recognition of guidelines that could act as support in the work with honor- related violence and oppression, and also however the work with these honor-related cases could have an emotional impact on the social worker. To answer these questions a qualitative study using interviews was performed with four social workers in Örebro. The results have been analyzed and interpreted in relation to previous research conducted in the field of honor research. Further three theoretical perspectives have been used in the interpretation of the results; implementation theory, sociology of emotion and coping.

In the last couple of years changes in the legal systems treatment of young offenders has given the social worker more legal responsibility. In view of this, our purpose with this study was to examine how social workers and prosecutors apprehend the role of the social worker during the legal process. The study was delimited to look into the handling of young offenders between the ages of 15 and 18 years old. The questions we intended to look at were: How do the social workers reason when trying to see the need of a child within a legal context; Do prosecutors and social workers experience that they have different approaches when looking at young offenders, as a consequence of their different professions; What is the opinion among social workers considering the duty of the social services to administrate community service for young offenders; How do the social workers argue when determining whether or not a young offender has a "special need for care". These questions were answered through empirical studies where six social workers and two prosecutors were interviewed.

Our purpose was to investigate if Swedish University educated social workers, living as active Christians, in any way might be influenced by Christian values. The main questions; Can Christian values be a factor in the choice of career to become a social worker? How does a personal belief in Christ impact the relationship towards the clients? Is Christian belief a support in the work? In this paper we used a qualitative method and interviewed eight persons, with a background as above, four of them employed by a church organisation and the other four working in the social sector. The result we present is that the eight Christian social workers Christian belief influenced their work very individually. How much this supported them was a choice about how official and open they wanted Christian values to be.

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.

The thesis is aiming to investigate what happens in the customer-service worker interaction when the service worker is wearing religious attributes. In order to operationalize this the Muslim head scarf, hijab, is chosen as stimuli. Reviewing previous research and theory in this field, it is clear that people have a preference for people that they perceive to be like themselves, this is referred to as homophily. Further on, the study investigates the ethnicity dimension of the service worker customer interaction. Theoretical areas of attractiveness and color are also investigated.

The purpose of this essay is to find out what experiences three preschool teachers, two preschool directors and a social worker (BSc) from the social service have of reporting suspicion of child abuse done by preschools. What perceptions do these individuals have of each other, what experiences do they have regarding cooperation and how do they perceive their responsibilities regarding filing reports on suspicion of child abuse? This investigation is based on qualitative interviews with open ended questions on the basis of an interview guide. The theoretical approach of the essay lies in the phenomenology philosophy, which revolves around the individual?s experiences and perceptions of a phenomenon.