The 1st of July 2006 Sweden made a change of authorities in the system concerning the reception of separated asylum seeking children. Prior to the change, the Swedish Board of Migration was held completely responsible for the reception of these children, who arrives in Sweden without their parents or any other relatives to care for them. Since the alteration of the law (1994:137) the responsibility for the housing of these children now lies within the Swedish municipalities, while the Board of Migration still handles their legal commissions. The change was intended to fundamentally improve the conditions under which these children were taken care of. However the implementation took a severe wrong turn when the municipalities weren't prepared for their new responsibilities and the immediate result was alarming. This qualitative study is based upon interviews with the people responsible for the reception of the separated asylum seeking children in the municipalities of Kronobergs County, as well as one of the two people in charge of the new system at the Swedish Board of Migration.

This study is about a guardian ad litem mission, role and relation to unaccompanied children. On the basis of qualitative interviews the study aims to understand the trustees? role and relation to unaccompanied children. We chose to interview nine trustees to achieve a better insight of the trustees roll. We analyzed the interviews and tried to gain a better knowledge about a guardian ad litem mission, role and relationship to unaccompanied children with role theory and concepts off pastoral power and trust.

In 2006 there was a change in LMA (1994:37) that clarified the division of responsibility be-tween the Migration Board and the municipalities, concerning unaccompanied children. The social services should now be utmost responsible for the housing and care of these children, to assure that they gain the same standards and rights as all other children. The aim of this essay has been to examine how the division of responsibility has influenced the work of the social services and how they interpret their responsibility for the unaccompanied children. How do the social services investigate and make decisions concerning these children? Do these chil-dren have the same rights as other children? To answer these questions a legal study was made, followed by qualitative research interviews with four social services that receive unac-companied children.

Identity and immigration                                                                                                            - A qualitative study with unaccompanied refugee children Jennie Hamberg Larsson and Matthew McNeillThe main purpose of this study is to illuminate and describe how unaccompanied refugee children experience changes and reconstructions to their identity after immigration to Sweden. Using qualitative interviews this study looks at how social relationships in Sweden and a foreign background influence the reconstruction of unaccompanied refugee children´s identity. The base for our analysis is identity theory while roll concepts, social identity theory and concepts of ethnic and national identity are used to give deeper insight into the experiences of three unaccompanied refugee children. Important results found included a connection between the way that identity is formed in relationships, especially with significant others, in the country of origin and how reconstruction of identity develops in the new country with new social relationships. Furthermore the results showed how this reconstruction of identity can be linked to different acculturation strategies that incorporate the importance of an ethnic identity and a national identity.Keywords: identity, ethnic identity, unaccompanied children, immigration.

The purpose of this study is to see what obstacles and opportunities the staff on a residence for unaccompanied children experience when trying to integrate these children into the Swedish society. I was also interested in how the integration of these children worked. I have interviewed the staff with a qualitative method. The result was analyzed with the help of Diaz integration theory and Bauman´s theory "us and them", and also with the previous research in the subject. My conclusion is that integration is a complicated concept that is experienced and interpreted individually. There are both obstacles and opportunities in the work with the integration of unaccompanied children. The result shows me that the schools? role and the legal guardians function should have been better planned and framed from the start.

The purpose of this study is to describe and understand how the principle of the child?s best interest in the asylum process for families with children is interpreted and implemented in practice by the asylum bureaucrats at the Swedish Migration Agency. Our questions are:?How is the best interest of the child in families with children interpreted by the asylum bureaucrats at the Swedish Migration Agency??"How are asylum bureaucrats at the Swedish Migration Agency reasoning about the implementation in practice of the child's best interest in families with children?The essay rests upon semi-structured interviews with eight asylum bureaucrats at three different asylum units. The interviews are based on an interview guide together with a vignette, which purpose was to see how the interviewees are implementing the best interest of the child in a specific case of a potential application.

The paper aims to examine how well a small group unaccompanied children have established themselves in Swedish society. In order to determine how well they have established the empirical material which is primarily based on quantitative data has been measured with a theoretical model developed by the theorists Nancy Fraser and Alistair Ager and Alison Strang. Based on the theoretical framework the unaccompanied children establishments have been measured in example income, education, debts with Kronofogdemyndigheten and social network. It was found that the unaccompanied children had not achieved the establishment in the society that was expected from the theoretical framework. Their results were also generally below the national average for young adults in Sweden who are the same age.

The purpose of the essay is to examine the views on sexuality that guide the Swedish Migration board and court?s judgments and decisions in asylum cases. The essay investigates seven cases from the Swedish Migration court regarding asylum seekers from seven different countries seeking protection in Sweden due to their sexuality and/or gender identity. By applying discourse analysis, along with the theoretical perspectives of Judith Butler and the postcolonial critique of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, the essay discuss what kind of criteria and/or practice is demanded of the asylum seekers to be rendered as trustworthy. The essay concludes that the asylum seekers are considered untrustworthy by the migration authorities when not acting according to a (hetero)normative sexuality.

This study analyses social age as a phenomenon and if unaccompanied refugee children has a social age that, according to the Swedish culture, do not correspond with their biological age and if so is, the reason for that. Furthermore, our study has discussed the potential consequences of the effects for the unaccompanied refugee children and the social age when interacting with Swedish society. According to our study, the social age is effected by other factors besides cultural norms, values and role expectations that a society has on a specific biological age. The results in this study shows that social age is a vital component to someone?s identity.

The purpose of this paper was to examine social workers' experiences of integration of unaccompanied children. We aimed to study which factors in the individual and the community social workers experience affect the integration and how they, based on their understanding, work to promote integration. The essay has a phenomenological approach and focuses on the social workers' own experiences of the phenomenon. The empirical data was obtained from qualitative interviews conducted with five social workers, all administrators in cases involving unaccompanied children. The result shows that the social workers feel that the desire to integrate is the most important presumption that must be present in the unaccompanied children.

Background and aim: The number of refugees and unaccompanied children are increasing in Sweden and these people belong to one of the groups that are at higher risk for developing suicidal behavior. At the same time the lack of research on the subject is mentioned several times by different sources. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate suicidal behavior among young refugees between the ages 13 to 18 years in Sweden, from personnel experiences in social services.Method: We have chosen a qualitative approach with seven narrative interviews that each lasted for about one hour and were recorded. The interview guide was semi structured. The respondents in this study consist of one student counselor, workers from two child psychiatry departments and four different residential care homes for unaccompanied children and young persons.Results and conclusions: The respondents had the understanding that young refugees have been through a lot, lost their families and experienced difficult traumas and a tough refuge.

There are an increasing number of unaccompanied children coming to Sweden. Sweden is one of the countries in the world that receive many of them. This awoke my interest to investigate the assessment of financial assistance and ?other living expenses? considering unaccompanied children. My approach was a qualitative study including interviewing five social secretaries working in five different districts in Malmö.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what competence social workers have, don´t have and ask for in the work with unaccompanied children, how a lack of competence and guidelines has been compensated in the practical work and how the social workers view the future work with unaccompanied children. This has been done through eight semi-structured interviews with social workers who work with unaccompanied children. The result has been analyzed with help of the theoretical perspective globalization connected to social work and showed that none of the social workers felt not having the competence to work with the children. However, everyone mention one or more areas where they ask for competence development. The study showed that lack of education has been compensated through practical experiences, knowledge exchange with others and that guidelines now have been formed.

Because of the situation around the world with war and poorness many people need to leave their homeland and find safeness in other countries. A big amount of this group is children without company of an adult, so called unaccompanied children. The numbers of unaccompanied children who seek safeness in Sweden grow every year. The aim of this study was to investigate how social workers in four municipalities in south of Sweden experience their work with investigating the needs of unaccompanied children. The aim was also to investigate how the social workers experience their opportunities to meet the children?s needs with personalized interventions.

1 252 unaccompanied refugee children have disappeared in Sweden since 2007. These children have never been found. Nearly one unaccompanied refuge child disappears per day. This happens during the time they are within the Swedish authorities' responsibility. This thesis uses the framing theory of the mass media regarding the missing unaccompanied refugee children and what the mass media considers to be the cause of their disappearance, the moral aspects of the articles and the solutions to the problem.