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.

This study is about the child?s perspective when it comes to work with financial assistance. The purpose of the study was partly to describe how social workers regard the child?s perspective in their work with financial assistance and partly to look into whether they impose a child?s perspective in their practical work. To fulfill this purpose the authors used a quantitative method and sent out a web based survey to all the social workers actively working with financial assistance in Stockholm town.

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.

Different forms of organization in the field of social work, creates different conditions of the individual social workers occupation. This affects not only the people who carry out this work, but also the clients who come in contact with social services.   This survey was based on six interviews executed during spring in the year 2010. The respondents were social workers within economic aid and their nearest executive manager at two municipalities in Kalmar County. The overall aim for this survey was to examine how these social workers were influenced by various ways to organize the municipal work activity. This through following questions:How was respective social service in the municipalities organized?How were the social worker effected in their daily work by the organization?Where there any specific up- or downsides in the way that economic aid was organized in the aspect of the social workers daily work?  The result of this survey was synonymous with a lot of the previously executed research in the area in the sense that the larger municipalities were more specialized in its organization than the smaller.

The purpose of this study is to identify and make attitudes among social workers towards homosexual and bisexual people visible, examine how these attitudes relate to their actions in their professional role and how these attitudes and actions can be understood by theories of heteronormativity and power. The study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey in the form of a questionnaire completed by social workers. The result shows that there are two groups among the social workers. One larger group that reproduces a norm of acceptance toward homosexual and bisexual people and one smaller that reproduces a heterosexual norm. This reproduction of heteronormativity increases the risk for homosexual and bisexual people to be made invisible and treated more negatively in contact with social workers, which in turn can lead to worse health among the clients..

The competitiveness and profitability of swedish farm enterprises is frequently discussed in agricultural media. Increased exposure to the surrounding world with greater competitive pressure and considerable price fluctuations in the agricultural markets demand new ways of acting to secure the agricultural sector?s long-term survival and profitability. Structural change and/or diversification leads to increased numbers of stake-holders around the farm enterprise and thereby also the expectations of the farmers ability to lead and coordinate resources. Lean is the name of a management model developed by Toyota, influenced by the lack of resources in Japan during the post WWII period.

The purpose of this study was to examine how the needs of social assistance for people with substance abuse are assessed in accordance to The Swedish Social Services Act 4th chapter 1§. The purpose was also to examine how substance abuse is assessed as a social problem by social workers, how the municipal guidelines concerning social assistance for substance abuser were constructed in relation to the Social Service Act and finally how social workers made their assessments of the need of social assistance to people with substance abuse in relation to the legislation. The sample was made among the municipalities in the county of Stockholm. Municipal guidelines were studied in 18 municipalities by content analysis. A sample of 11 social workers was chosen from 5 municipalities.

In Sweden prostitution is by many considered to be a social problem that primarily affects women. To counteract prostitution is a political priority and as a result the purchase of sexual services is prohibited by law. Since the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services entered into force it has been continuously debated and widely disputed. The aim of this thesis is to compare the image of prostitution found in the travaux préparatoires of the law with four sex workers? view of the phenomenon.

The aim of this study was to examine how social workers relate to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, regarding their cultural background and potential social issues. In order to achieve a more profound and comprehensive view of the social workers views regarding the separated children, we selected to execute semi structured interviews with social workers. These interviews were aimed at those social workers who performed assessments and investigations concerning unaccompanied children. We completed nine interviews which we recorded and transcribed in a strict manor. When we analyzed the empirical material, certain themes where identified as more protuberant and thus we our selection was based on what we regarded as the most relevant topics, in accordance to the aim of the study.

The aim of this study is to investigate and analyze the potential effects on a number of social workers that may arise from listening to stories of domestic violence, and how these social workers deal with the potential effects. The study is based on qualitative interviews with seven social workers that work with domestic violence. The theoretical perspective that we used was the theory of coping. The results of this study have indicated that the respondents have been affected of listening to the stories of domestic violence. Examples of different impacts that the work has had on some of the social workers is that they avoid movies and/or books with elements of violence, they are more aware of the domestic violence in the surroundings and there has also been changes in their cognitive schemas.

The aim of this study was to look at introduction for staff in a social service office and the social workers experience off the first period at a new workplace. Qualitative interviews have been used as a method of investigating how social workers look at introduction in the workplace and how social workers have experience the first period at the workplace. The empirical material have been analysed by using the theory of Human Service Organizations, street-lever bureaucracy theory and theory concerning work environment. This papers first chapter presents the methodological preferences, the second chapter the theoretical perspective and the results of the study are presented in the third chapter followed by a discussion and ending comments in chapter four. My study showed that introduction is necessary in a complex organisation and could be a way to improve the social workers situation in social service organisations..

According to statistics, a significant increase in sickness has occurred in the public sector in recent decades in Sweden. Human therapeutic professions is the area where the illness is most prevalent. The purpose of this study was through a qualitative method and hermeneutic approaches explore how conscious six social workers in the social services are on stress and how they cope with it. Further it investigates and analyzes how these results affect their daily work.One important result due to stress is that the social workers ability to treat their clients is impaired and they are less able to be empathetic. Inadequacy in the work environment leads to a sense of insufficiency by social workers, and a reduced quality of life.

According to statistics, a significant increase in sickness has occurred in the public sector in recent decades in Sweden. Human therapeutic professions is the area where the illness is most prevalent. The purpose of this study was through a qualitative method and hermeneutic approaches explore how conscious six social workers in the social services are on stress and how they cope with it. Further it investigates and analyzes how these results affect their daily work.One important result due to stress is that the social workers ability to treat their clients is impaired and they are less able to be empathetic. Inadequacy in the work environment leads to a sense of insufficiency by social workers, and a reduced quality of life.

With this research we aim to examine foster parents and social workers perceptions about the relationship between foster parents and the foster child?s biological parents and their perceptions about the support to the foster parents in the contact with the child?s biological parents. The research will provide a deeper understanding of the actors? perceptions and explain possible differences in their opinions. This study has a qualitative approach and contains eight semi-structured interviews with foster parents and social workers in a smaller town in the south of Sweden.

Our curiosity was awakened when we became aware that many social workers use "mindfulness" methods in their profession. In this study, we used qualitative methodology in our desire to examine and understand why the mindfulness approach, with its roots in eastern philosophy, is becoming established in society at large and, simultaneously, being used in the social work field. We were interested in when and why social workers choose to use mindfulness with their clients. Our prior research has revolved around development and use of methods in social work, and on the human reaction to stress.We conducted seven semi-structured interviews, which incorporated four comprehensive questions:1. Why has the mindfulness method become established in the social work field and in the culture in general?2.