Socialtjanstmarknaden : om marknadsorientering och konkurrensutsattning av individ- och familjeom... more Socialtjanstmarknaden : om marknadsorientering och konkurrensutsattning av individ- och familjeomsorgen
International Journal of Social Welfare, Dec 21, 2006
Wiklund S. United we stand? Collaboration as a means for identifying children and adolescents at ... more Wiklund S. United we stand? Collaboration as a means for identifying children and adolescents at risk
... Legislation concerning pre-assessment leaves, however, wide scope for municipal interpretatio... more ... Legislation concerning pre-assessment leaves, however, wide scope for municipal interpretation (Sundell & Egelund, 200035. Sundell, K. and Egelund, T. 2000. ... It is also worth noting that the investigative procedure in child welfare does not encompass a substantiation element. ...
In recent years, scholars have called for studies exploring how key concepts originating from the... more In recent years, scholars have called for studies exploring how key concepts originating from the children's rights discourse are understood in local contexts. In Sweden, national policy advocates that a child perspective should guide social assistance (SA), a cash benefit constituting society's last safety net. The study analyses the child perspective as an idea (i.e. an ambiguous principle), which is translated (i.e. reformulated and interpreted) at the local level. The findings indicate multiple and partly inconsistent translations of a child perspective. The study argues that it is unclear what adopting a child perspective implies for children in families receiving SA.
I rapporten beskrivs och analyseras ungdomsplaceringar som avslutas i fortid pa socialtjanstens i... more I rapporten beskrivs och analyseras ungdomsplaceringar som avslutas i fortid pa socialtjanstens inititativ i fem kommuner i Uppsala lan. Rapportens empiriska tyngdpunkt ligger pa intervjuer med for ...
Research concerning outcomes for children who have been placed in out-of-home care has indicated ... more Research concerning outcomes for children who have been placed in out-of-home care has indicated that the care may have unwanted consequences. However, there has been no coherent terminology for differentiating between different types of such unwanted consequences. In this article therefore, we attempt to disentangle different aspects of potentially harmful care for looked after children, as well as to discuss potential pathways to more systematically approach and report adverse events for this group. In this endeavour, we turn to two adjacent disciplines, medicine and psychology, where these issues have received more interest. The applicability of the concepts used in these fields is discussed, and it is concluded that although they provide some help in categorizing different aspects of harmful care, the complexity of out-ofhome care makes existing models difficult to adopt without adjustments. This has consequences for the possibility of evaluating care in research, as well as for monitoring adverse events in practice. Importantly, the causality will often be unknown. We therefore suggest that it is essential to shed more light on how decisions should be made about when to intervene or not in out-of-home care, despite limited information. KEYWORDS adverse events, looked-after children, malpractice, negative effects, out-of-home care 1 | INTRODUCTION Validating the effectiveness of care for looked after children-that is, children placed in foster homes and in residential care-has evolved as a highly prioritized objective in Swedish child welfare and in many other international counterparts during the last decades. Evidencebased practice (EBP) has been a key concept in this respect, extensively guided by rationales derived from the medical discourse, such as assessing the effectiveness of specific interventions by rigorous study designs and conducting systematic reviews on research studies in the field. This undertaking, however, has recurrently been subject to criticism by Swedish (e.g., Bergmark, Bergmark, & Lundström, 2011) and international scholars (Gray, Plath, & Webb, 2009). The core of such criticism has less to do with the ambition as such, but rather the complexity of social interventions, which often have a plethora of objectives in respect to target groups with heterogeneous predicaments and needs. In stark contrast to the medical discourse, however, there is an apparent lack of a systematic approach in evaluating any detrimental effects of interventions employed in child welfare. In fact, the paramount ethical principle in medicine of not inflicting harm on the patient has not to the same extent been the subject of discussion of social work interventions such as residential and foster care for children. The possibility of care being harmful has however been subjected to discussion in child welfare work. For example, malpractice by abusive foster parents has been subjected to state inquiries in many countries (NOU, 2004:23; Ryan, 2009; SOU, 2011a) as well as more or less arbitrary findings from studies which have investigated negative outcomes for antisocial children placed in groups in residen
This article analyzes the transformation of Swedish residential care for children from a regional... more This article analyzes the transformation of Swedish residential care for children from a regionally coordinated, public social service system into a thin, but highly profitable, national spot market in which large corporations have a growing presence. Marketization and privatization are theorized as complex processes, through which the institutional structure and logics of this small, but significant, social policy field changed profoundly. Using official documents, register data, media reports and existing research, three consecutive phases in the development of the children's home market are identified since the early 1980s. Change was driven on one hand by policies inspired by New Public Management, which shifted public authority horizontally to the private sector, and vertically to local authorities (funding) and to the state (regulation). On the other hand were the responses of local authorities and private actors to the changing incentives that policy shifts entailed. During the first two phases, both the proportion and size of for-profit providers increased, and the model of family-like care was replaced by a professional model. Cutting across the trend of privatization in the third phase was establishment of a parallel system of homes for unaccompanied refugee childrenmostly in public ownership. Similarities with privatization in the English system of children's care homes are noted. By showing how the Swedish market for residential care has been created by policy and by actors' responses to those reforms, the article provides a foundation for thinking through how the predictable, significant and well-documented problems of such care markets might be addressed.
FöRoRD 3 INLEDNING 5 SocIALbIDRAGET och möDRARNA 6 Socialbidraget som försörjningssystem och fatt... more FöRoRD 3 INLEDNING 5 SocIALbIDRAGET och möDRARNA 6 Socialbidraget som försörjningssystem och fattigdomsmått 6 Ensamstående mödrars bidragstagande över tid 9 Ensamstående mödrars bidragstagande är ofta varaktigt 9 Ersättningsnivåerna varierar kraftigt inom gruppen 10 Några sammanfattande slutsatser 10 EKoNomISK RESURSSVAGhET och bARNEN 12 Ekonomisk resurssvaghet och barns utveckling på sikt 12 Ekonomisk resurssvaghet och barns situation här och nu 16 Socialbidrag och barnavårdsinsatser 19 Några sammanfattande slutsatser 20
In many countries, there are calls for children to be allowed to participate in social work decis... more In many countries, there are calls for children to be allowed to participate in social work decision-making. This article analyses child participation vis-à-vis social assistance (SA), which is a municipal cash benefit representing the last safety net. In Sweden, SA is part of the professional field of social work and national policy recommends that children are consulted. The aim is to analyse local policies and practices regarding child participation, and the data are based on case studies in six social service offices. Unlike most participation studies, children's participation is conceived as an institutional pressure and the concept of decoupling is used to examine how local authorities relate to participation. The findings show that in local policies there is a general openness towards participation, but in practice no efforts are being made to promote participation. The absence of participation is analysed as deriving from organisational barriers (practices are adult-centred and child welfare units are seen as responsible for participation) and the scepticism of social workers (participation is an infringement on parental obligations and children should be protected from involvement in financial issues). The article ends with a discussion on the decoupling and adequacy of children's participation in settings comparable with Swedish SA.
ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses, with the help of both client and social worker data ... more ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses, with the help of both client and social worker data on 423 applications for social assistance in Sweden, (i) the extent to which social assistance benefits and labour market strengthening measures are granted and (ii) factors concerning clients as well as social workers that are associated with the granting of benefits. Considering (i), the results show that social assistance is granted in about 74% of cases while only 6% of applicants are granted additional labour market strengthening measures. With regard to (ii), the results indicate that the granting of benefits seems to depend on a broad spectrum of factors at both the client and the social worker levels. For example, more experienced social workers are less willing to grant social assistance while chances increase when an applicant is already registered at the local public employment service and/or social insurance office. Moreover, the granting of benefits also co-varies with more or less invariable factors at the client level: social workers are in general more generous towards women and people born outside Sweden, but rather less generous vis-à-vis single parents. The findings are discussed in terms of workfare and professionalization among social workers.
Barnperspektiv och ekonomiskt bistånd I vilken utsträckning kan generositet respektive restriktiv... more Barnperspektiv och ekonomiskt bistånd I vilken utsträckning kan generositet respektive restriktivitet ses som ett uttryck för skilda strategier? Child perspective and social assistance: To what extent are generosity and restrictiveness expressions of different strategies? In Sweden, welfare institutions are urged to acknowledge children in decision-making. An example is that social assistance decision-making should adopt the principle of a child perspective. However, it is not evident how a child perspective should be concretized in a traditionally adultcentred practice. This article builds on case studies of six municipalities which differ in terms of approval and economic generosity to households with children. Based on institutional theory, the concept of child perspective is conceived as an idea that undergoes translation at the local level. The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the strategies and values of municipalities in relation to households with children and whether the degree of generosity may conceal differences in how a child perspective is concretized. The material consists of guidelines, interviews and case file information. Findings show that there are manifold translations of a child perspective in social assistance decision-making, but differences can only to a small extent be attributed to generosity. Further, the actual work methods to a small degree focuses children and it can be debated whether they impact children's predicaments. In the discussion, findings are related to theory and previous research. David Pålsson är lektor i socialt arbete vid Stockholms universitet. Stefan Wiklund är professor i socialt arbete vid Stockholms universitet.
ABSTRACT For decades, lone mothers have been vastly overrepresented among Swedish social assistan... more ABSTRACT For decades, lone mothers have been vastly overrepresented among Swedish social assistance recipients. In Sweden, social assistance is administered in the personal social services. The study aims to explore and analyse factors associated with long-term recipiency among lone mothers. The empirical material consists of micro data on 875 randomly selected lone mothers receiving social assistance in any of the three major cities of Sweden in 2007. In the analysis, a distinction is made between household demographics (e.g. ethnicity) and individual factors (subdivided into individual impairments (e.g. psychosocial conditions) and financial vulnerability (e.g. unemployment)). The main findings are: (1) even though household demographics alone show low explanatory value for long-term social assistance recipiency, analysed factors remain significant when controlling for individual factors; (2) among individual factors, only variables indicating financial vulnerability are significant. A main conclusion in the study is that social workers should be attentative that subgroups within the larger population of lone mothers have higher risk of long-term recipiency (e.g. non-native origin). Furthermore, policy revisions should be considered for this group, since personal social services extensively address individual impairments whereas long-term recipiency is strongly associated with structural factors.
Socialtjanstmarknaden : om marknadsorientering och konkurrensutsattning av individ- och familjeom... more Socialtjanstmarknaden : om marknadsorientering och konkurrensutsattning av individ- och familjeomsorgen
International Journal of Social Welfare, Dec 21, 2006
Wiklund S. United we stand? Collaboration as a means for identifying children and adolescents at ... more Wiklund S. United we stand? Collaboration as a means for identifying children and adolescents at risk
... Legislation concerning pre-assessment leaves, however, wide scope for municipal interpretatio... more ... Legislation concerning pre-assessment leaves, however, wide scope for municipal interpretation (Sundell & Egelund, 200035. Sundell, K. and Egelund, T. 2000. ... It is also worth noting that the investigative procedure in child welfare does not encompass a substantiation element. ...
In recent years, scholars have called for studies exploring how key concepts originating from the... more In recent years, scholars have called for studies exploring how key concepts originating from the children's rights discourse are understood in local contexts. In Sweden, national policy advocates that a child perspective should guide social assistance (SA), a cash benefit constituting society's last safety net. The study analyses the child perspective as an idea (i.e. an ambiguous principle), which is translated (i.e. reformulated and interpreted) at the local level. The findings indicate multiple and partly inconsistent translations of a child perspective. The study argues that it is unclear what adopting a child perspective implies for children in families receiving SA.
I rapporten beskrivs och analyseras ungdomsplaceringar som avslutas i fortid pa socialtjanstens i... more I rapporten beskrivs och analyseras ungdomsplaceringar som avslutas i fortid pa socialtjanstens inititativ i fem kommuner i Uppsala lan. Rapportens empiriska tyngdpunkt ligger pa intervjuer med for ...
Research concerning outcomes for children who have been placed in out-of-home care has indicated ... more Research concerning outcomes for children who have been placed in out-of-home care has indicated that the care may have unwanted consequences. However, there has been no coherent terminology for differentiating between different types of such unwanted consequences. In this article therefore, we attempt to disentangle different aspects of potentially harmful care for looked after children, as well as to discuss potential pathways to more systematically approach and report adverse events for this group. In this endeavour, we turn to two adjacent disciplines, medicine and psychology, where these issues have received more interest. The applicability of the concepts used in these fields is discussed, and it is concluded that although they provide some help in categorizing different aspects of harmful care, the complexity of out-ofhome care makes existing models difficult to adopt without adjustments. This has consequences for the possibility of evaluating care in research, as well as for monitoring adverse events in practice. Importantly, the causality will often be unknown. We therefore suggest that it is essential to shed more light on how decisions should be made about when to intervene or not in out-of-home care, despite limited information. KEYWORDS adverse events, looked-after children, malpractice, negative effects, out-of-home care 1 | INTRODUCTION Validating the effectiveness of care for looked after children-that is, children placed in foster homes and in residential care-has evolved as a highly prioritized objective in Swedish child welfare and in many other international counterparts during the last decades. Evidencebased practice (EBP) has been a key concept in this respect, extensively guided by rationales derived from the medical discourse, such as assessing the effectiveness of specific interventions by rigorous study designs and conducting systematic reviews on research studies in the field. This undertaking, however, has recurrently been subject to criticism by Swedish (e.g., Bergmark, Bergmark, & Lundström, 2011) and international scholars (Gray, Plath, & Webb, 2009). The core of such criticism has less to do with the ambition as such, but rather the complexity of social interventions, which often have a plethora of objectives in respect to target groups with heterogeneous predicaments and needs. In stark contrast to the medical discourse, however, there is an apparent lack of a systematic approach in evaluating any detrimental effects of interventions employed in child welfare. In fact, the paramount ethical principle in medicine of not inflicting harm on the patient has not to the same extent been the subject of discussion of social work interventions such as residential and foster care for children. The possibility of care being harmful has however been subjected to discussion in child welfare work. For example, malpractice by abusive foster parents has been subjected to state inquiries in many countries (NOU, 2004:23; Ryan, 2009; SOU, 2011a) as well as more or less arbitrary findings from studies which have investigated negative outcomes for antisocial children placed in groups in residen
This article analyzes the transformation of Swedish residential care for children from a regional... more This article analyzes the transformation of Swedish residential care for children from a regionally coordinated, public social service system into a thin, but highly profitable, national spot market in which large corporations have a growing presence. Marketization and privatization are theorized as complex processes, through which the institutional structure and logics of this small, but significant, social policy field changed profoundly. Using official documents, register data, media reports and existing research, three consecutive phases in the development of the children's home market are identified since the early 1980s. Change was driven on one hand by policies inspired by New Public Management, which shifted public authority horizontally to the private sector, and vertically to local authorities (funding) and to the state (regulation). On the other hand were the responses of local authorities and private actors to the changing incentives that policy shifts entailed. During the first two phases, both the proportion and size of for-profit providers increased, and the model of family-like care was replaced by a professional model. Cutting across the trend of privatization in the third phase was establishment of a parallel system of homes for unaccompanied refugee childrenmostly in public ownership. Similarities with privatization in the English system of children's care homes are noted. By showing how the Swedish market for residential care has been created by policy and by actors' responses to those reforms, the article provides a foundation for thinking through how the predictable, significant and well-documented problems of such care markets might be addressed.
FöRoRD 3 INLEDNING 5 SocIALbIDRAGET och möDRARNA 6 Socialbidraget som försörjningssystem och fatt... more FöRoRD 3 INLEDNING 5 SocIALbIDRAGET och möDRARNA 6 Socialbidraget som försörjningssystem och fattigdomsmått 6 Ensamstående mödrars bidragstagande över tid 9 Ensamstående mödrars bidragstagande är ofta varaktigt 9 Ersättningsnivåerna varierar kraftigt inom gruppen 10 Några sammanfattande slutsatser 10 EKoNomISK RESURSSVAGhET och bARNEN 12 Ekonomisk resurssvaghet och barns utveckling på sikt 12 Ekonomisk resurssvaghet och barns situation här och nu 16 Socialbidrag och barnavårdsinsatser 19 Några sammanfattande slutsatser 20
In many countries, there are calls for children to be allowed to participate in social work decis... more In many countries, there are calls for children to be allowed to participate in social work decision-making. This article analyses child participation vis-à-vis social assistance (SA), which is a municipal cash benefit representing the last safety net. In Sweden, SA is part of the professional field of social work and national policy recommends that children are consulted. The aim is to analyse local policies and practices regarding child participation, and the data are based on case studies in six social service offices. Unlike most participation studies, children's participation is conceived as an institutional pressure and the concept of decoupling is used to examine how local authorities relate to participation. The findings show that in local policies there is a general openness towards participation, but in practice no efforts are being made to promote participation. The absence of participation is analysed as deriving from organisational barriers (practices are adult-centred and child welfare units are seen as responsible for participation) and the scepticism of social workers (participation is an infringement on parental obligations and children should be protected from involvement in financial issues). The article ends with a discussion on the decoupling and adequacy of children's participation in settings comparable with Swedish SA.
ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses, with the help of both client and social worker data ... more ABSTRACT This article explores and analyses, with the help of both client and social worker data on 423 applications for social assistance in Sweden, (i) the extent to which social assistance benefits and labour market strengthening measures are granted and (ii) factors concerning clients as well as social workers that are associated with the granting of benefits. Considering (i), the results show that social assistance is granted in about 74% of cases while only 6% of applicants are granted additional labour market strengthening measures. With regard to (ii), the results indicate that the granting of benefits seems to depend on a broad spectrum of factors at both the client and the social worker levels. For example, more experienced social workers are less willing to grant social assistance while chances increase when an applicant is already registered at the local public employment service and/or social insurance office. Moreover, the granting of benefits also co-varies with more or less invariable factors at the client level: social workers are in general more generous towards women and people born outside Sweden, but rather less generous vis-à-vis single parents. The findings are discussed in terms of workfare and professionalization among social workers.
Barnperspektiv och ekonomiskt bistånd I vilken utsträckning kan generositet respektive restriktiv... more Barnperspektiv och ekonomiskt bistånd I vilken utsträckning kan generositet respektive restriktivitet ses som ett uttryck för skilda strategier? Child perspective and social assistance: To what extent are generosity and restrictiveness expressions of different strategies? In Sweden, welfare institutions are urged to acknowledge children in decision-making. An example is that social assistance decision-making should adopt the principle of a child perspective. However, it is not evident how a child perspective should be concretized in a traditionally adultcentred practice. This article builds on case studies of six municipalities which differ in terms of approval and economic generosity to households with children. Based on institutional theory, the concept of child perspective is conceived as an idea that undergoes translation at the local level. The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the strategies and values of municipalities in relation to households with children and whether the degree of generosity may conceal differences in how a child perspective is concretized. The material consists of guidelines, interviews and case file information. Findings show that there are manifold translations of a child perspective in social assistance decision-making, but differences can only to a small extent be attributed to generosity. Further, the actual work methods to a small degree focuses children and it can be debated whether they impact children's predicaments. In the discussion, findings are related to theory and previous research. David Pålsson är lektor i socialt arbete vid Stockholms universitet. Stefan Wiklund är professor i socialt arbete vid Stockholms universitet.
ABSTRACT For decades, lone mothers have been vastly overrepresented among Swedish social assistan... more ABSTRACT For decades, lone mothers have been vastly overrepresented among Swedish social assistance recipients. In Sweden, social assistance is administered in the personal social services. The study aims to explore and analyse factors associated with long-term recipiency among lone mothers. The empirical material consists of micro data on 875 randomly selected lone mothers receiving social assistance in any of the three major cities of Sweden in 2007. In the analysis, a distinction is made between household demographics (e.g. ethnicity) and individual factors (subdivided into individual impairments (e.g. psychosocial conditions) and financial vulnerability (e.g. unemployment)). The main findings are: (1) even though household demographics alone show low explanatory value for long-term social assistance recipiency, analysed factors remain significant when controlling for individual factors; (2) among individual factors, only variables indicating financial vulnerability are significant. A main conclusion in the study is that social workers should be attentative that subgroups within the larger population of lone mothers have higher risk of long-term recipiency (e.g. non-native origin). Furthermore, policy revisions should be considered for this group, since personal social services extensively address individual impairments whereas long-term recipiency is strongly associated with structural factors.
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