Ekonomiskt bistånd för ensamkommande barn
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. Theories used to analyze collected data were: organization theory, bureaucracy school, decision making and cognition and Sence of Coherence.
Eight themes were identified: briefing profession, knowledge, values, the individual needs in centrum, assessment of "other living expenses", Malmö City Guidelines, Framework as working tool and finally labour division. These together increase our understanding of the assessment of financial assistance.
The result of my study shows that three factors contribute to the assessment of financial support. 1) Social Service law which is a frame law. 2) The national and local rule tools that complement the law. 3) The social secretaries personal view of the law, frameworks and unaccompanied children. The social workers did not have an internal or external education about the unaccompanied children?s situation or the child perspective. They rather took personal responsibility to help them.