The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the various factors that influence the balancebetween the working lives and family lives of social workers. The research questions posedwere: Do social workers consider there is a conflict between their working lives and familylives? Which factors make maintaining a balance between working life and family life moredifficult and which make it easier to do so? How do social workers describe equality betweenthe sexes in their own family? Regarding methodology, the selection method is strategic andcombines data sources with quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The material collectedand via online survey, targeted to 120 municipal employees social workers in a district councilin a big city, and through interviews with four social workers in a rural community. The studywas performed using gender theory and the demand-support-control model.

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.

This masters degree was a study of some social workers in Gothenburg Community and their expectations of leaders in general, their opinions of work and the leaders influence. The city of Gothenburg will within a few years recruit about 500 leaders. Depending on large pensions among leaders. It is important to have knowledge of the social workers expectations of leaders, their opinions of work and the leaders influence. It is also interesting to see if different generations have similarities or if they have different opinions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between physical activity and perceived stress, energy and musculoskeletal disorders among office-workers and warehouse-workers and also to see if there were any differences depending on work-place and gender. The method that was used to collect data was three different validated questionnaires that measured stress and energy (the Stress-Energy questionnaire), musculoskeletal disorders (intensity and localization of pain, a Pain Drawing questionnaire with a VAS-scale) and physical activity (IPAQ ? the short version). Eighty-eight workers participated in the study. Forty-seven of them were office-workers and forty-one were warehouse-workers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how social workers who worked with financial assistance perceived their work situation and the impact work-related stress had on their health and quality of work. Further, the study intended to find out if they felt that they received support from their employer that could prevent stress-related sick leave. The following two research questions were to be answered: In what way does work-related stress affect social workers? health and job quality according to their own experience? What kind of support and help experienced social workers were available within their organization? To receive answers to the questions semi-structured interviews with five social workers were conducted, analyzed and interpreted. The results showed that when social workers have a heavy case burden, high stress and a risk of deteriorated job quality occurred.

The aim of this study is to examine what social workers consider as ?challenging behaviour? among adolescents, but also to examine the connection between investigation and intervention in cases where such behaviour is being displayed. The questions of the study are to examine what social workers think of the instrument of assessment BBIC (Children?s Needs in Focus) and how the usage of BBIC affect social workers understanding of challenging behaviour. Moreover, it is a qualitative study and the respondents are all social workers with various length of professional experience who work with making decisions in juvenile welfare cases.

The main purpose of this study was to examine, and illustrate, highschool social workers experiences of pupils with self-injurious behaviour. Self-injurious behaviour in this study refer to individuals who harm them-selves, with physical injury as consequence, without purpose to commit suicide. A qualitativ method was used and five highschool social workers, in the south of Sweden, were interviewed.The main questions were:- What kind of experiences have highschool welfare officers of pupils with self-injurious behaviour?- What view, and personal opinion have the welfare officers at the problem, and how do this affect them in their work with these pupils.The school social workers experiences of pupils with self- injurious behaviour, were for instance that the pupils often feel ashemed over their behaviour and that they often have lowe self-esteem. The social workers seemed to imagine the behaviour as a copingstrategy.It turned out that the social workers personality and their personal opinion regarding self-injurious behaviour, were of great importance in their work with these pupils..

The purpose of this thesis is to achieve a greater understanding of how the social workers at the family unit in one of Stockholm municipalities comprehend the work environment at the workplace. Our aim is also to find out how the work environment can affect the health of the social workers in the form of their wellbeing and comfort at the workplace. In order to answer our purpose we conducted interviews of all social workers at the family unit in one of Stockholm municipalities that describe how they experience the work-environment in the workplace and how it influences their health.  We have analyzed the interview material in a thematic analysis based on three theoretical perspectives; SOC, claim ? control - support and Human relations. We have also coupled the interview material to the background chapter in this thesis that describes how a good working environment should be structured.  The chosen method characterizes an abductive process.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between physical activity and perceived stress, energy and musculoskeletal disorders among office-workers and warehouse-workers and also to see if there were any differences depending on work-place and gender. The method that was used to collect data was three different validated questionnaires that measured stress and energy (the Stress-Energy questionnaire), musculoskeletal disorders (intensity and localization of pain, a Pain Drawing questionnaire with a VAS-scale) and physical activity (IPAQ ? the short version). Eighty-eight workers participated in the study. Forty-seven of them were office-workers and forty-one were warehouse-workers.

The overall purpose of this essay was to provide a better understanding of the importance of discretion for social workers in direct social services. To answer the purpose three questions were formulated: (1) How do social workers define and describe their discretion and their ability to independently accomplish their work? (2) How do social workers experience that workplace organization, policies and economic conditions interact with their discretion and (3) How do social workers experience that the interaction with the client can affect how they use their discretion in the individual case? The method used was qualitative interviews. The theoretical framework was Michael Lipskys (1980) Street-level bureaucracy and the four themes organization, professional role, skills and interaction.The results showed that the respondents, although they did not consider themselves to be affected by the economy still adapted to budget restrictions when they said that they were cost conscious in their work. This adjustment to budget framework could possibly be what made them not feel limited in their work.

The aim of this study was to enlighten social workers experiences of social networks direct influence in Swedish social services, and in which ways those influences are manifested. Some of the issues that are being explored in this study are: The separation of the private sphere and professional duties; boundaries and dual relationships that occurs inside social networks; the use of social networks as a control-instrument in authority exercise towards clients; and social networks arising impact on social work. The empirical material was collected with nine qualitative interviews with social workers stationed at different social service departments in a Swedish municipality. Also one qualitative e-survey was sent out to, and answered by four social workers with a managerial position in the same municipality.The results reveal that several informants have experienced different problematic situations involving clients within the social networks. This study shows that the informants are very restrictive with what information (text and pictures) they publish on their facebook-profiles, because of their position of authority and the awareness of the possibility of always being watched.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between physical activity and perceived stress, energy and musculoskeletal disorders among office-workers and warehouse-workers and also to see if there were any differences depending on work-place and gender. The method that was used to collect data was three different validated questionnaires that measured stress and energy (the Stress-Energy questionnaire), musculoskeletal disorders (intensity and localization of pain, a Pain Drawing questionnaire with a VAS-scale) and physical activity (IPAQ ? the short version). Eighty-eight workers participated in the study. Forty-seven of them were office-workers and forty-one were warehouse-workers.

The purpose of our thesis has been to study Social Workers view of children?s needs and how they work with children?s needs when they are orphaned because of HIV/Aids in South Africa. The question formulations we used to answer our purpose are:? What needs do the Social Workers consider the children to have?? How do the Social Workers work with children?s needs?We have a qualitative methodological approach in the thesis, where we have performed four interviews with four Social Workers on different organizations in and around Cape Town, South Africa. The presentation of the empirics is made as a summary with representative quotations, which we have interweaved with earlier research and theoretical conceptions.

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.

 The aim of this study was to examine how social workers perceive and interpret the term ?barnets bästa? (?The best for the child?), within the framework of investigatory work and enforcement of Swedish law, which is carried out by the Social Services. We wanted to investigate if the interpretation of the term had any causal effects on the work carried out by social workers. Seven social workers from two municipalities participated in this study in which we used qualitative semi-structured interviews based around two vignettes. We focused on age, experience, legislation, and external circumstances to gain insight into how these factors alter social workers? perception of the term ?barnets bästa?. Our theoretical approach was based on two theories on social constructivism.