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I want you to bring my mother here… - Conditions for family-work with    youth in residential careAbstract

This thesis is about a special type of institutional treatment called family-work. It can be described as different ways to involve the families of the youth in their treatment programme. The locus of the study are special treatment homes which provide treatment for youth with serious social and behavioural problems.The study concerns three units at three institutions. The thesis has a qualitative and interpretative approach with using of observations, field studies combined with interviews and field notes.

The study focuses at the pre-conditions for the local ”family projects” run by the care workers. With ”project” means a process where different actions take place. The Theory of Action concept facilitates the understanding of these types of process and the importance of the internal (subjective) and external (objective) conditions in proportion to the space of action. Several local conditions influenced the pre-requisites for the staff to be able to carry out a “family project” and decide how to realize an intention. Important conditions were commissions given by the social services and the treatment focus at the units.

The units are functioned as kinds of overall social ”project contexts” with four basic characteristics: the treatment focus and structure, the professionalism and the organisation of the work. The conclusion from the study is that none of the ”project contexts” at the three units provided good pre-requisites for family-work. “Family projects”, realised by care-workers were however professional and seem to have helped both the parents and the young persons but ”the projects” were, in total, relatively few. It appeared that a successfully completed ”family project” is the last step in a long process in which many different conditions contribute to the destiny of the ”project”. A clear, family focused structured treatment at a unit can provide the employees with good conditions for realising the opportunities they see for working with the families. 

In Swedish with a summary in English.

Keywords: Family-work, special treatment homes, youth, residential care, “family project”, case-workers,  process, internal and external conditions, space of action, professionalism, intention, competence, “project context”.

                                Departement of Education, Stockholm University

                                              106 91 Stockholm, Sweden