Animal welfare is of increasing concern in present society. In commercial pig farming, animal welfare problems are common. One of the causes for these problems is the barren environment in which pigs are housed, which can cause oral manipulation of pen mates. Providing straw might be one solution to this problem. Another solution could be reached through genetic selection.

Transportation of pigs might be a welfare problem. Stress during and after transportation can negatively affect the meat quality or cause carcass damages, which leads to major economic losses every year. The transportation chain can be divided into several stages; loading, transport and unloading. This literature review focuses on unloading of pigs from a transport. When arriving at an abattoir pigs can be fatigued and need to be as smoothly unloaded as possible.

Each year 225 million pigs are transported within the European Union (EU) for slaughter, fattening and breeding. This results in poor animal welfare due to the fact that animals are exposed to several numbers of stress factors in the vehicle during loading, transit and unloading. Animal welfare can be defined as how well the animal attempts to cope with its environment and during transport there is often severe difficulty for the pigs to cope properly. There is a growing societal concern for animal welfare. This resulted in that the European Union enacted a law called the EU-regulation with certain directives of how to improve the welfare of the animals during transport.

Sweden?s animal legislation was adopted in 1988 and is one of the most rigorous legislations in the world. Despite this, Sweden import beef from countries where animal legislation is not in accordance to the Swedish legislation. The meat consumption in Sweden has, just like the importation of beef, increased while Sweden?s own beef production has decreased.

The aim of the study was to get a deeper understanding of how social workers at the welfare office think and act when it comes to methadone or buprenorphine treatment. What role does the welfare office take when it comes to methadone- or buprenorphine treatment, what does the welfare office think about this form of treatment, what possibilities does the welfare office have when it comes to decide the selection to this kind of treatment and what consideration does the welfare office take to the separate individuals demands when it comes to methadone- or buprenorphine treatment. The study is done in the perspective of society as a social construction. The method that was used was qualitative interviews with professionals at the welfare office and professionals at the reception of methadone- and buprenorphine treatment. The result of the study is that the attitude towards methadone- and buprenorphine treatment is complicated and the opinions are partly divided..

The purpose with this study was to get a deeper understanding of how the social welfare secretaries experience the meeting with clients.Our main questions were how the social welfare secretaries thinks about their own way to behave in the meeting with clients, which difficulties/obstacles there can be a and which factors they think affect the meeting. What is it that makes the social welfare secretaries experience a meeting as good or less good.Theory used: ?naive theory? and ?theory of communication?. The social welfare secretaries emphasised the importance of respect and clarity in their relations with the clients. By contrast with literature, the hover between power and support was not found difficult.The goal is that the social welfare secretaries and the clients understand each other and that they reach the purpose with the meeting..

Animal welfare is of increasing concern in present society. In commercial pig farming, animal welfare problems are common. One of the causes for these problems is the barren environment in which pigs are housed, which can cause oral manipulation of pen mates. Providing straw might be one solution to this problem. Another solution could be reached through genetic selection.

Animal welfare can be measured in several different ways; for example by using animal-based measurements. It has been shown that register data from the Swedish Official Milk Recording Scheme can be helpful when identifying herds at risk of having poor animal welfare, which led to a development of the advisory service of ?Ask the Cow? and the web report ?Animal Welfare Signals?. The aim of this project was to find out if register data from ?Animal Welfare Signals? can be used as a screening tool for detecting herds at risk of having poor animal welfare and in need of an ?Ask the Cow?.

Social policy has now received an increased attention in the European Union. The European welfare states experience a high level of unemployment, which the EU now tries to handle through the European Employment Strategy (EES). The core of this essay is whether the welfare institutions of the European member states are integrating through an institutionalization process or not. Within the EU four different types of welfare models can be identified: the Scandinavian, the Continental, the Southern and the Anglo-Saxon. The welfare models differ in the institutional settings e.g.

Electrical stunning is the method that has been used in Sweden to stun broilers prior to slaughter. However, for reasons of animal welfare and meat quality, research has been made in the EU to develop new stunning methods. Gas stunning is now regarded as the best alternative. In this study literature has been reviewed with focus on different gas stunning systems and observations have been made at two different slaughterhouses regarding animal welfare before, during and directly after stunning. At one slaughter plant carbondioxide was used in a two-stage system where the birds were standing on a conveyer belt during the stunning procedure.

Swedish farmers have the possibility to be subsidized by EU rural development programme for grazing animals on pastures to promote the biodiversity of flora and fauna. The environmental remedy sometimes does not allow supplementary feed and at the same time the Swedish Animal Welfare Act and the Swedish Agricultural Board?s regulations for animal welfare and protection states that animals, in this case horses, shall be fed with food of good quality and adapted for the species. The regulations also state that they should have an individual feeding regime that enables them to maintain a normal body condition. The aim with this master thesis has been to investigate if it is possible to keep Gotland ponies on extensive pastures, during late spring and summer and still maintain animal welfare. The horses were assessed every fourth week using a welfare assessment protocol developed in line with the Welfare quality® project (submitted, Viksten et al) where physical, behavioural and resourcebased parameters were observed. Twelve one-year old stallions of the breed Gotland ponies purchased from different breeders were used in the study.

The purpose with this essay is to take part of the process when a family is placed on the family-institution, Trollbacken. We want to know what makes the social welfare secretaries place a family in institutional care. Has Trollbacken lived up to the social welfare secretary expectations and are the social welfare secretaries following Trollbackens recommendation regarding the follow up treatment. We also want to know to what value the social welfare secretary assigns Trollbackens investigation and are they able to see changes in the family due to the placing on Trollbacken. The method is qualitative and is based on interviews from six social welfare secretaries that work around and in West Sweden.

Abstract The Act of Education outlines that good quality in schools and preschools, focusing on continuous improvement, promote children?s learning and this in turn is on of the most important factors for child and youth welfare.This thesis was based on the authors´ pre-understanding that there are opportunities to improvement in the quality of preschools. The focus was on studying how analyses can provide a base for quality work, and the purpose of this study was to identify and describe the analytical methods that can be used in the process of continual improvement for quality development in preschools.A qualitative study was conducted in two preschools that have received quality awards. It was conducted through interviews with the preschool principals and through studies of various documents.In the comparative analysis of theory and empirical data, it was made clear that there was a regular analysing process going on at the investigated preschools and an emphasize of reflection could also be identified. Keywords: Quality development, preschool, analytical methods, processes, reflection .

According to the basic values of the Swedish Trotting Association the horse and its welfare should always be held in highest consideration. One part of the animal welfare work in the organization is to ensure good horse management practices by controlling all active trainers through the local licensing committees situated at the Swedish racetracks. The Swedish Board of Agriculture stated that high quality animal welfare assurance programs used by the industry organizations can be used in the risk assessment of the official animal welfare control to make the official control work more effective and the ambition of the Swedish Trotting Association is to establish an animal welfare assurance program which may be approved by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. Racehorses are exposed to welfare hazards both in their management as well as during training and racing and factors like handling, training, feedstuff, stable environment, medication and the possibility to express natural behavior all affect the welfare of the horses. The aim of the project is to investigate and evaluate the animal welfare work performed by the licensing committees and to give advice on how to improve the industry?s animal welfare control.

This qualitative study is about the individual supportive conversation with the school welfare officer in upper secondary school. The main aim of the study was to find out what the pupils get out of a series of conversations with the school welfare officer and what it means for the pupils that the welfare officer belongs to the school organization. Six qualitative interviews were held with pupils who had conversation contact with the school welfare officer during their time at upper secondary school.I found that these pupils and welfare officers were oriented towards change and solutions. I found that the most important thing for the pupils was to achieve a good and trusting relationship with the welfare officer. After this the pupil starts a process of change in cooperation with the welfare officer, with the aim that the pupil should be happy and satisfied with the current life situation.