Det här kapitlet beskriver förekomsten av hot och våld gentemot personal som utför sociala insatser i klienters hem samt undersöker hur personal upplever och tolkar hot och våld från klienter. Resultaten bygger på 2431 anmälningar om arbetsolycksfall orsakade av hot och våld inkomna till Arbetsmiljöverket under åren 2009–2019 samt intervjuer med 79 personal inom öppna sociala insatser: hemtjänst, boendestöd, personlig assistans samt öppenvårdsbehandling för familjer med barn och personer med problematiskt substansbruk. Resultaten visar att antalet anmälningar om våld ökat över tid och att personal som utför personnära omsorgsinsatser är mest utsatta. Anmälningar gällande hot ligger emellertid lågt under tidsperioden. Analysen av intervjuerna visar att personalen i huvudsak tolkar hot och våld i linje med en professionell logik där hantering och förebyggande ses som om del i personalens arbete. Denna logik döljer de organisatoriska faktorer som ökar risken för hot och våld. En slutsats är därför att det behövs mer nyanserade angreppssätt för att förebygga hot och våld inom olika omsorgssektorn, som tar hänsyn till såväl klientens problematik, personalens kompetens och organisatoriska faktorer.

  In recent decades, a new type of organisation—independent foster care agencies (IFAs)—has emerged in Sweden and other countries. These organisations operate outside the public sector, marking a significant shift in how foster care is provided. The presence of IFAs signifies the establishment of a foster care market, where responsibilities once managed by child welfare authorities are now outsourced. In this article, the position of IFAs in the Swedish foster care market is analysed. IFAs are viewed as intermediaries facilitating the provision of foster homes and often providing support to foster families. As IFAs primarily operate as for‐profit entities, they are analysed within the context of market dynamics and financial considerations in child welfare. The study is based on data from the state inspectorate, including a register of IFAs, framework agreements outlining the requirements for IFAs, and a national survey on IFAs, which includes social workers’ assessments of quality and costs. In Sweden, there were around 400 IFAs in 2024, ranging from large care corporations to small companies, frequently used by child welfare services. As for the services provided by IFAs, professionals hold mixed views, with some questioning their value for money. IFAs are an international phenomenon, and they have faced criticism for generating large profits from foster care services. The entrance of IFAs represents a form of radicalisation of the “love or money” dichotomy that has been a recurring theme in the foster care field.

Summary

Home care workers often work alone and are geographically distant from colleagues, managers, and security services, placing them at a high risk for client-initiated violence. Studies have shown that home care workers are subjected to significant degrees of such violence, yet there is an indication of underreporting. Based on 25 individual and group interviews with 79 staff from various types of home care services in Sweden this study aims to enhance our understanding of why home care workers choose to report or not report violence.

Findings

Using a theoretical lens of emotional labor, the findings reveal that, in the face of violence, workers manage their emotions in accordance with organizational and professional norms. This contributes to and perpetuates a view of client-initiated violence as something that workers should endure, manage, and prevent, rather than acknowledge and report. In the long run, this idea shifts the focus away from the organization and its responsibilities, redirecting it toward the individual worker.

Applications

As the findings suggest that violence is often minimized and normalized, finding a common definition of client-initiated violence in the organization could relieve workers from having to define and, at worst, reinterpret violent incidents. Furthermore, norms contributing to an understanding of violence as a professional failure should be addressed. Organizations and cultures that facilitate swift reporting, provide organizational support and work against the stigmatization of those who report are likely to create safer and better work situations for their home care workers.

Social services in the welfare sector consist of women-dominated jobs generally characterised by arduous working conditions, including exposure to client violence. Although there is a rather extensive research base on client violence in institutional social services, less is known about how client violence is handled in noninstitutional social services. Using longitudinal data obtained from the Swedish Work Environment Agency's register on work injuries caused by workplace violence, we examined the effects of organisational factors and employee characteristics on the reporting of client violence in noninstitutional social services. We found that most of the reports about work injuries caused by client violence are filed by public employers and that most reports concern occupational groups performing direct care services in clients' homes. Moreover, although most reports include female employees and incidents of physical violence, reports concerning male employees are comparatively more likely to include physical violence, and reports concerning female employees are comparatively more likely to include threats. Taken together, our findings point to a much-needed improvement of health and safety measures for care workers in noninstitutional social services in Sweden.

Despite concerns about negative consequences for clients and permanent staff, temporary agency workers (TAWs) are frequently employed to manage staff shortages in personal social services (PSS) in Sweden and elsewhere. Drawing on qualitative interviews with thirty-four TAWs, managers and permanent social workers, this article aims to enhance our understanding of how TAWs are utilised in the PSS and the impact this has on (i) the preconditions for TAWs and (ii) the work environment for permanent employees. The findings suggest that TAWs are mainly contracted for core tasks, and often for heavy-duty work. In order to meet demands for expedient case administration, the supportive aspects of social work are sometimes deprioritised. Permanent staff report that positive effects of the use of TAWs include relief of workload and an influx of new knowledge, whereas negative effects include stagnated work development, deteriorating group dynamics and additional work. Moreover, it is shown that TAWs often reside in the periphery of the organisation and that they typically are contracted on an ad-hoc basis and during times of crisis. It is suggested that the organisational conditions that TAWs are contracted to help remedy paradoxically are unlikely to create the best preconditions for a successful use.

Stationäre Wohngruppen und Heime sind ein integraler Bestandteil der meisten Kinder- und Jugendhilfesysteme. Ein wesentliches Hauptmerkmal ist dabei die spezifische Verschmelzungpsychosozialer Hilfe und Kontrolle. In Schweden wird eine heterogene Gruppe von jungenMenschen in stationären Settings betreut. Dabei trägt die Kinder- und Jugendhilfe dieumfangreiche Verantwortung auch für jugendliche Straftäter*innen. Der Bereich derstationären Unterbringung junger Menschen wird daher in geschlossene und offeneUnterbringung unterteilt: Die geschlossenen Unterbringungseinheiten (secure Residential CareUnits (RCUs)) werden vom Staat betrieben und sind zur Anwendung restriktiver M-.aßnahmenberechtigt, während die offenen stationären Einrichtungen überwiegend an gewinnorientierteprivate Träger ausgelagert sind, die keine derartigen Maßnahmen anwenden. In der politischenDiskussion wurden stationäre Wohngruppen und Heime als Unterbringungsform in der KinderundJugendhilfe lange Zeit vernachlässigt, doch in letzter Zeit hat diese Jugendhilfeleistungpolitische Aufmerksamkeit auf sich gezogen. Diese fokussiert sich zum einen aufKinderrechtsverletzungen in stationären Einrichtungen in privater Trägerschaft und zumanderen auf das vermeintliche Versagen des Systems bei der wirksamen Resozialisierung vonJugendlichen mit delinquentem Verhalten in den geschlossenen stationären Einrichtungen.Derzeit werden öffentliche Untersuchungen zu den teilweise widersprüchlichen ThemenKinderrechte und verstärkten repressiven Maßnahmen durchgeführt. In diesem Beitrag wirdanalysiert, wie Kinderrechte und Restriktionen in stationären Einrichtungen in den jüngstenöffentlichen Untersuchungen und Richtlinien der schwedischen Regierung diskutiert undadressiert werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Regierung a) sich stärker an Straf- undZwangsmaßnahmen orientiert, b) darauf drängt, die offene stationäre Unterbringung stärker andie geschlossene Unterbringung anzugleichen, und c) einen rigideren, d.h. auf Disziplin und Sanktionen Setzenden Ansatz ingeschlossenen Einrichtungen umsetzt. Die Vorschläge werden auf der Grundlage vonUntersuchungen zu Rechten und Einschränkungen in der stationären Unterbringung erörtert.

In this article, we discuss residential staff in Sweden. Here, residential care is part of the municipal child welfare system, which covers services targeting juvenile delinquency as well as other residential care services. Children and young people placed in Swedish residential care have diverse needs, from mainly supportive needs to advanced behavioral problems, and the field consists of open and secure residential care units. There is limited knowledge about the staff working in residential care. This article helps to fill this knowledge gap by giving an overall picture of staff educational attainments, age and gender in Swedish residential care between the years of 2008–2020. To reason about staff qualifications, we use theoretical concepts from sociological theory on professions. Findings show that residential care in Sweden can be analyzed as a pre- professional field, dominated by staff with low levels of educa-tion. In addition, we show that the field is dominated by women – even if the proportion of men is higher than in other areas of social work – and that the majority of staff are between 30 and 64 years old. Some differences between open and secure residential care were found, the most notable concerning edu-cational levels and gender.

The practice of hiring agency social workers, i.e. social workers who are employed by for-profit staffing agencies but rented out to the social services, has been questioned and depicted as legally complex, costly and unsustainable. Nevertheless, it continues to be an institutional way of handling vacancies and understaffing in the social services. In this article, professionals’ reasoning about the use of agency workers is investigated through qualitative interviews with 21 social workers/managers in the social services. According to the interviewees’ descriptions, agency social workers are hired in order to achieve numerical stability, i.e. to maintain services notwithstanding staff absence and vacancies. Similar to findings in previous literature, the interviewed professionals describe that workload, turnover and recruitment difficulties are reasons behind the use of agency workers. However, they also highlight other aspects that are associated with the use, such as chronic understaffing and a large proportion of newly qualified social workers. Throughout, the use of agency workers is described as reactive, i.e. as an acute (and often unwanted) solution, and not as deliberate and planned.

Användningen av socionomkonsulter har ofta framställts som juridiskt komplicerad, kostsam och ohållbar. Trots detta har användandet ökat sedan början av 2000-talet, och idag är det ett vanligt sätt att hantera personalbrist inom socialtjänstens individ- och familjeomsorg. I den här artikeln undersöks hur professionella inom individ- och familjeomsorgen resonerar kring anledningarna till användandet av inhyrd personal. I artikeln visas att individ- och familjeomsorgen använder socionomkonsulter som ett sätt att uppnå numerisk stabilitet, dvs. som ett sätt att fortsätta bedriva sin lagstadgade verksamhet trots vakanser och personalbrist. I likhet med resultat från tidigare forskning framkommer att arbetsbelastning, personalomsättning och rekryteringssvårigheter ligger bakom användningen av socionomkonsulter. De professionella i denna studie lyfter dock också fram andra faktorer, som exempelvis den höga andelen nyexaminerade socialarbetare och brist på erfarna kollegor, samt en kronisk underbemanning. Genomgående beskrivs användningen av socionomkonsulter som reaktiv, dvs. som en (oönskad) lösning på akuta situationer och inte som en medveten strategi.

The use of staffing agencies and agency social workers in statutory social work has not been given much attention from scholars, despite the extensive implications it may have for the organizations, employees and clients. By analysing the result of structured telephone interviews with representatives from 102 Swedish municipalities, this article brings some knowledge to this scarcely researched field. The aim is to map the extent of use of agency social workers, to analyse the reasons behind the use, and to identify any potential variation between municipalities and branches of social work. The findings show that the use of agency social workers is common, widespread and surprisingly unrelated to socioeconomic, geographic and demographic characteristics of the municipalities. The most common reasons for hiring agency workers appear to be related to achieving numerical stability of staffing levels, despite vacancies and recruitment difficulties. Although there were few detected differences between municipalities, there were great differences between branches of social work. It was far more common for child welfare units to contract agency social workers compared to social assistance and substance abuse units. Considering the vulnerability of the children that come into contact with the social services and the importance of continuity in these cases, this is a cause for concern. In addition, practically all hired agency social workers were contracted to investigate and assess the clients’ needs, i.e. partaking in the exercise of public authority, which adds legal and professional complexity.