This thesis is a case study that examines what political decisions have been taken and how these policies have been implemented. Further this thesis discusses how legitimacy of local policy makers and implementors is affected. The subject studied have been the social service of Jönköping municipality and the intervention of safe-housing aimed at women who have been, or are subject to violence by person close to them. In our study we have examined local policy within the territory of the intervention and how this policy is implemented. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in combination with quantitative methods to examine protocols from the social welfare board and an action program named "Skydd och stöd för misshandlade kvinnor och deras barn? [Protection and support for abused women and their children].The purpose of this study has been to highlight how the social services implemented the local policy of safe-house accommodation in Jönköping municipality from the legitimacy and discretion perspectives.

The study aims to describe and analyse the relationship between norm and practice regarding social services casework on honour-related problems. The relationship between norm and practice involves the difference between the way it is intended that social workers shall operate in these cases and how they perceive that this works in practice. We interviewed two focus groups of eight Swedish social workers, four in each group. We also held an individual interview with a social services business developer. Focus group interviews were based on two vignettes; one depicting an honour-related case and the second an "ordinary" case.

This study examines implementation from national law in to local practice in the district of Kalmar to assure newly arrived immigrants orientation in civics. The study takes its starting point in Lipskys theory about street-level bureaucracy.  Questions that are discussed are about how  the education is understood by refugee?s coordinators, civic communicators and the new immigrates, how the organization has been and what role the demography and economic structures has played for the organization. It is a case study where interviews and enquete has been used.

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.

The aim of this essay was to describe how school social workers can help and support students with parents who abuse alcohol or other drugs. We wanted to see how school social workers room for action is presented and how it affects their work with students living with parents who are abusing. We used a qualitative method to elucidate how school social workers handle this issue in a more profound way. By conducting semistructured interviews with six school social workers in one province in southern Sweden we gained exhaustive and detailed answers. In the analysis we used street level bureaucracy and theory of recognition.

This study discloses Swedish human service organizations and their methods of integrating unaccompanied children into the Swedish society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how social workers at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children depict their experience in and knowledge of how the unaccompanied children are integrated into Swedish society. The method of investigating the questions raised by the purpose of this thesis has been qualitative analysis of answers derived from interviewing personnel at HVB-homes for unaccompanied children. In doing so we have made use of a semi-structured method of interviewing the above-mentioned personnel. The data derived from these interviews has thereafter been analysed and filtered through the concept of integration and the theoretical formations human service organizations and street-level bureaucrats.

The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the phenomenon that there are so many young people placed in institutions in Sweden despite the valuable knowledge regarding the problems and risks of doing so. The questions that follow in the essay were what guided the social workers to choose institutional placement for youngsters. It went on to also ask if this knowledge could contribute to an increased understanding of why there were so many young people placed in institutions despite the criticism from scientists. To accomplish the goal of the essay, former science in the subject was reported and six social workers within social services were interviewed. The material of the interviews was analyzed with help from the theory of human service organizations, street-level bureaucrats work situation and the new institutionalism.The result of the investigation showed that the social workers choices to place young people in institutions is guided by specific work and organizational factors connected with a belief in the helping function of the surroundings.

This study discloses home-care organizations in one municipality in Sweden and five units work with implementing the social services legislated value base for elderly people. The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of personnel and managers perception of the value base and its implementation in the practical work with the elderly. A qualitative method has been used to analyze the questions raised by the aim of this study. The empirical data was retrieved by semi-structured interviews with managers and their personnel in homecare service The empirical data was analyzed on the basis of the neo-institutional theory, Michael Lipsky?s theory concerning street-level bureaucrats and previous research regarding implementation of social policy and the practical home-care work.

AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Line Säll, spring semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton.?To do things by the rule of law -A study in the discretion of front-line bureaucrats?This essay has it´s starting-point in the theoretical problem of social science to unite democracy and bureaucracy. The purpose is to illustrate the problems with the discretion of front-line bureaucrats in a democratic state. The theoretical approach is front-line bureaucracy-theory. Certain characteristics of the work of street-level bureaucrats makes it impossible to severly reduce discretion.

The purpose of this study is to understand how street-level bureaucrats, working with clients with mental illness, are implementing their statutory obligation of support for family carers who are caring for or supporting relatives with mental illness. The study are based on vignettes and qualitative interviews with social workers in three different municipalities in southern Sweden. The questions of this study are:? How do the social workers communicate their statutory obligation of support to family carers?? How do the social workers distinguish the family carers?? How do the social workers distinguish the family carers who are in need of support? Metod: Vignettes and qualitative interviews has been used as methods to gather empirical data.Theory: Theories of street-level bureaucracy has been used as theory in the analyses of the empirical material.Results: The result of this study concludes that the social workers, in lack of policy introduction, communicate their obligation to support family carers within their discretion. The result shows that the majority of the municipalities do not have formalized support for family carers supporting relatives with mental illness. The study also concludes that the social workers have different understandings of which family carer who is a carer in need of support.

Automatisering inom socialtj?nsten aktualiserar en diskussion om hur teknikens p?verkan p? m?nniskobehandlande organisationer ska f?rst?s. Den r?dande diskussionen inom forskningen ?r delad, d?r automatiseringen b?de beskrivs bidra till enhetliga och mer r?ttvisa bed?mningar samtidigt som andra menar att den hotar det professionella handlingsutrymmet och d?rmed kan utmana den individuella behovspr?vningen. Den teknologiska utvecklingen v?lkomnas av kommuner och regioner och beskrivs som en n?dv?ndighet f?r att m?ta framtida behov.

This is a study about employment officers at the Swedish public employment service. The aim of this study was to examine how they understand and use their discretion in their daily work. We used a qualitative method and the data was gathered by semi-structured interviews with eight employment officers working at the same office in a small town in Sweden. Lipskys theory about street-level bureaucracy and Lazarus description of coping theory are applied to analyze the empirical data. The work for the Swedish employment officers have changed over the last years with an increasing focus on control and administration.

The aim of the study was, through qualitative interviews with school counsellors in Swedish primary schools, to study what the counsellors are experiencing condition their ability to work proactively according to the Swedish Education Act provisions on student health. During the study, six interviews with school counsellors who worked in the same suburbs, was conducted. The theoretical approach that was used is Michael Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucrats and the term discretion. The overall outcome of the study was that the interviewed school counsellors felt that they did not have good opportunities to work preventively as the Education Act requires. The main reason for this was the school counsellor?s heavy workload.

The study consist of an investigation regarding the implementation of reassurance policing in Sweden and include a survey conducted among some of the local police offices in Stockholm County. The aim of the study is to investigate how the police officers working in the local polices offices experience the implementation of the local police offices and if the implementation of local the polices offices matches the police authority´s purpose with the project. The study uses the theoretical framework from political scientist Michael Lipsky calledStreet-level bureaucracy - Dilemmas of the individual in Public services which discuss the role of street-level bureaucrats and their influence in the implementation. Included in the study is also two different perspectives on governing in public sector called top-down perspective and bottom-up perspective. The findings of this paper shows that the police officers are in general positive towards the implementation and that there´s a duality among the police officers regarding the proximity to the citizens..

The aim of this study is to create an increased understanding of shared leadership and how it takes shape in the relationship between first-line managers in human service organizations. Shared leadership is seen as a complement to the traditional one-man leadership and briefly means that two managers share the role that usually is held by a single leader. The study has a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with managers in human service organizations. The interviews mention the mangers thoughts and experiences about shared leadership and gain approval in the hermeneutic science field. The study is analyzed based on symbolic interactionism where perspectives from the theoreticians Mead and Goffman are used.