Mellan klient och rättssystem : Tvångsvård av barn och unga ur socialsekreterares perspektiv
Between the client and the legal system : Compulsory care of children and young persons from a social worker perspective
Author
Summary, in English
Social workers experience a high level of uncertainty when they have to assess if compulsory care is necessary. My analysis shows that social workers associate the compulsory care process with a risk of losing control of the case. This risk could be minimised by three strategies. The first strategy was to wait for legal evidence that supported their personal moral conviction that compulsory care was in the best interest of the child. A second strategy was to use a problem focused argumentation in written assessments to make sure that the Court made the same assessment as the Social Services. A third strategy was to mention some good things about the family, and especially about the parents and their resources, in written assessments, so that they did not turn their backs on the Social Services if the application for compulsory care failed (?the logics of balancing facts?). The analysis also shows that social workers tend to use different kinds of argumentation depending on whether the case concerns parental neglect or abuse, or if the child/young person has an antisocial behaviour. Cases concerning antisocial behaviour are presented in a massive problem centred way, whereas cases concerning parent's neglect or abuse of children are presented in a more vague and ambiguous way. The consequences are that social workers create different images of the child and the parents in written assessments, depending on whether they primarily try to control/influence the decision of the Court or the parent's future cooperation with the Social Services.
One conclusion is that compulsory care is not regarded as a safe way of saving children and social workers tend to focus their assessment work on achieving parent's consent to care, which is regarded as a safer way to gain control of the case.
Department/s
Publishing year
2007
Language
Swedish
Publication/Series
Lund Dissertation of Social Work
Full text
- Available as PDF - 995 kB
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Document type
Dissertation
Publisher
Lunds universitet, Socialhögskolan
Topic
- Social Work
Keywords
- Social problems and welfare
- children and young persons
- Compulsory care
- parents
- neglect and abuse
- antisocial behaviour
- social workers
- assessment
- discretion
- power
- child welfare
- Social sciences
- legal system
- national insurance
- Samhällsvetenskaper
- Sociala problem
- social välfärd
- socialförsäkring
Status
Published
Research group
- Den sociala barnavården
Supervisor
- Gunvor Andersson
- Claes Levin
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1650-3872
- ISBN: 978-91-89604-36-0
Defence date
26 October 2007
Defence time
10:15
Defence place
Edens hörsal, Paradisgatan 5, Lund
Opponent
- Tommy Lundström (Professor in Social Work)