Medication management in elderly care has become a considerable part of the care work. It involves health care professionals, such as registerednurses, formally delegating their tasks to non-professionals, typicall ycare workers. The aim of this article is to explore the medication management in nursing homes for older people. The focus lies on howcare workers and residents interact in relation to the medication management routines. Participant observations were made in seven nursing homes, and the analysis of the empirical material applied the theoretical concepts of local routine culture and materiality. The nursing home residents may try to resist or negotiate the medication management routines, express their reluctance in words or actions, ask questions or make demands. While routines produce institutional bodies, acts of resistance and negotiation may strengthen a person’s sense of self. Medication management affect the relationship between care workers and residents, by enabling interaction. Looking at medication management as a social phenomenon deepens the understanding of how it affects care work and illustrates that in the context of nursing home care, health care and social care are not separate but rather intertwined.

The present paper aims to explore whether a prison literacy project, Bedtime stories from inside, can contribute to improving and maintaining relationships between incarcerated fathers and their children. The analysis is focused on the concepts "doing family" and "affinities". The material consists of anonymous evaluation forms from the incarcerated fathers (70) and the carers (46). The results show that deeper familial connections are possible when fathers are allowed to interact with their children in a way that includes attending to practicalities like reading fairy tales to their children. The family practices within the project contribute to challenging norms of masculinity and overcoming impulses to shut down emotionally. The project highlights the need for the prison system and social work practice to support families in the hard work of forming and maintaining connections.

There are few studies on how social workers deal with cases regarding transnational surrogacy. Our study intends to contribute to filling this gap. In Sweden, surrogacy as an assisted reproductive technology method is not permitted. As a result, many prospective parents have turned abroad, mainly to India, for surrogacy. There are no laws regulating surrogacy in Sweden, and difficulties have arisen in establishing legal parenthood when the parents return with the child. This qualitative interview study with social workers found that legal uncertainty and ethical issues surrounded their handling. With no guidelines, the constructions of parenthood will continue to depend on individual social workers’ conflicting views on how to best meet the surrogate mother’s interest and the best interest of the child. Regulation is thus needed to better protect those involved and minimize the contingent aspects of legal handling by individual officials.

The use of alcohol or illicit substances by youths may be related to sexual motives and experiences. Accordingly, child welfare workers need to address young people's sexuality in their investigative work. In this study, we have examined the significance of different social categories, namely gender and sexual orientation, when child welfare workers assess young people with a substance use and their related sexual health. Fifteen child welfare workers were recruited through a strategic sampling to participate in semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using thematic content analysis. The results consist of three sub-themes: Sexually vulnerable girls; Boys as perpetrators; and Unseen LGBTQ+ youth. Together, these sub-themes constitute an overarching theme where the heterosexual matrix appears to be the interpretative framework when investigating a problematic substance use. The suggested implications for practice include education in sexual and reproductive health and rights for child welfare workers aiming to achieve an equitable assessment process for all youth with a problematic substance use. 

This article outlines Public Social Services’ encounters with irregular migrants in Sweden from the perspectives of institutional and street-level bureaucrats. Staff and executive considerations are influenced by a de jure exclusion of irregular migrants, which is an element of the control of migration. Staff face contradictory demands concerning international and national regulations, which leads to legal ambiguities open to discretionary powers. The aim of this study is to explore the handling of such cases experiences and considerations with an interest in the values that are invoked when AQ1 enacting discretion and to discuss implications of the unclear legal situation. The material was obtained using web-based questionnaires. A tentative analysis confirms that the Public Social Services encounter irregular migrants and that handling differs greatly. It suggests that different approaches and the contradictory legal framework endanger the rule of law. Differing reference points appear to be invoked when enacting discretion: some related to social work and others to controlled migration. The social work values invoked by some respondents might imply an appreciation of a right to services and control of migration as independent processes and jurisdiction related to human rights that are applicable beyond the nationally framed legal status and not subordinated to policies of migration.

Social work with displaced people has an extended background in the history of the profession. Yet, it has taken different forms and remits over time, parallel to the evolving legal and political definition of refugee themselves. Inside Europe, in particular, social work with forced migrants has gained new visibility and increasing complexity after the so-called refugee crisis. Aspects like people's limited visibility and eligibility towards formal welfare services, their uncertain legal status, their temporal “liminality” and their non-linear patterns of mobility have all major consequences for social work practice, research and education. In discussing them, we highlight the need to invest in students' (and practitioners') reflexivity, given both the complexity of building up trust-based relationships with forcibly displaced people, and the risk of cultivating essentialized, stigmatizing or nativist representations about them. In all of these respects, our introduction provides a conceptual basis for this Special Issue of EJSW, and for the broader debate in social work across Europe.

Collaboration on children at risk is essential, but our knowledge about interprofessional collaboration between social workers and educators is limited. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to describe French and Swedish teachers’ social representation of social workers; and (2) to compare these social representations. The French sample group is composed of 77 secondary school teachers (of students from 11 to 18 years old), and the Swedish sample group is composed of 94. The method used was a ‘free association task’, commonly used to access the semantic content of social representation. Two different social representations of social workers were revealed, one for the French and one for the Swedish teachers. The French representation is characterised by highly positive aspects such as support, listening and competence. Swedish teachers’ social representation of social workers is completely different: negative associations were common (44%), and among these, professional secrecy and law and regulations dominated. One plausible explanation is the difference of French and Swedish teachers’ roles regarding collaboration with social workers.

Considering an increasingly repressive focus on sex buyers in recent years, the focus of this study is to explore social work in Sweden targeting individuals who purchase sex. The aim of this study is to explore social workers' understanding of the purchase of sex as a social problem. More specifically, the study focuses on social workers' approaches to the purchase of sex in relation to values, professional practices, and political goals, and how they navigate these aspects in their encounters with individuals who purchase sex. Based on interviews with 10 social workers who meet such individuals, an inductive thematic analysis has been employed. The participants navigated between focusing on the individual sex purchaser and his situation, and having moral opinions on the issue, with some being positive to force change through repressive measures. The participants tried to navigate social work's role in relation to social policy and political ambitions regarding the purchase of sex in Sweden, and did this by navigating between doing moral work, being diplomats or specialists. They did moral work both as individuals and as working groups, which was influenced by moral values, professional ideals, and ideas about social work's role in relation to the judiciary system.

Despite notable bodies of literature on waiting in migration, on the importance of families in migrants' decision-making and on transnational family life, the intersection of waiting as a collective experience remains largely unexplored. This study explores the added value of a collective lens on waiting through the case of family reunification in Sweden. With a qualitative method including semi-structured joint interviews, three couples' reunification experiences depict waiting within student migration, refugee migration, for Swedish citizens and their respective partners. The interviews were chosen from a larger research material and analysed thematically with concepts from transnational family studies. Together, they show that collectivity may expand our understanding of waiting. As conditioned by Swedish welfare state, families' caregiving practices were affected by prolonged waiting caused by parallel bureaucratic processes, while uncertain time frames and maintenance requirements undermined the couples' own ability to plan, prompting both activity and passivity among those in waiting. As a lived experience, collectivity added mutual commitment, delegation of care, emotional support, and care practices as important roles in waiting.

The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex among at-risk adolescents and young adults. To investigate this issue, a survey has been sent to outreach work and non-institutional offices whose work focuses on alcohol and drugs to some extent. The survey was sent to 89 workplaces distributed throughout 33 municipalities in the region of Skåne in southern Sweden. Altogether 229 responses were collected, a response rate of 60.1%. The study shows that social workers have limited opportunities to work with safer sex issues and that the organizational resources to support this work are weak. Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats was applied to the data, with the analysis indicating that knowledge and organizational resources are key to enabling work with safer sex. It is also important that the personnel are interested in the subject and that they feel comfortable working with safer sex. The factors found to have the strongest direct effect on the personnel’s work with safer sex are: having the possibility to set aside time to work with safer sex, experiencing that safer sex is discussed at the workplace and being personally interested in the subject.

Research on whistleblowing in Sweden is scarce. In this explorative study 21 cases of whistleblowing from human service organisations in Sweden were examined. Extensive material from thematic interviews with 28 whistleblowers, 30 key persons and documents from supervisory authorities such as the National Board of Health and Welfare have been analysed. Some findings were that the organisation problems motivating whistleblowing were usually cutbacks in vital services for users, unethical working methods or abuse of clients. Internal whistleblowing was usually met with silence from supervisors and directors. The whistleblowers then went on with external whistleblowing by reporting the bad conditions to the higher supervisory authorities who started thorough investigations. Their actions caused a lot of negative reactions in the organisation, but they were also supported by media and ordinary citizens. The retaliation processes against the whistleblowers were described. Half of the interview group has left their positions, either on sick leave or by changing jobs. The findings show a stigmatisation process with severe consequences for the individuals. But the cited organisations usually had to change their illegal or immoral practices and benefited in the long run from the whistleblowing events.

The gap-mending concept is an analytical tool that helps teachers and researchers in social work to reflect upon what, in their practice, increases, maintains or mends gaps between professionals and service user groups. The article suggests a theoretical background on how gaps in social work practice can be challenged. This includes theories about power and recognition. It then moves on to describe the development of gap-mending strategies in research and education at the School of Social Work at Lund University. Lund University was one of three partners that took the initiative to the international network PowerUs that has focused on gap-mending strategies in social work education. The authors have been working over 10 years in collaboration with service user participation in the education of social workers and in different research projects. In the article, they give examples of gap-mending practices and of challenges that they have faced. The first example is an experimental course that has been given since 2005 where social work students study together with students from service user organizations in a university course. The second example is an attempt to combat homelessness in several Swedish municipalities. Supported by researchers, the development project has been a collaboration between homeless groups, politicians and social workers.

According to a 2005 survey, the people of Rosengård, a culturally heterogeneous borough of Malmö, Sweden, utilise considerably less mental health services in relation to their estimated needs than the rest of the city’s population. A study based on interviews with people living or working in the area revealed several possible reasons. Most important was their perception of what constitutes mental illness. If the cause of one’s disturbed mental state is viewed as a normal life crises rather than an illness, one does not seek medical treatment. The aim of this article is to illustrate how under-utilisation of mental health services by an immigrant population can be explained by their different perceptions of what constitutes mental illness. Interventions should add concerns regarding a client’s socio-economic and psychosocial needs, rather than solely follow a medical model.

In the wake of the increased number of people on the move who arrived in Sweden in 2015, more restrictive migration policies and welfare policies have been introduced and become increasingly intertwined. In this article, we examine the intersection between local housing policy and national migration policy. By looking at the implementation of a new law, the Settlement Act, which makes reception and accommodation of newly settled refugees mandatory for all municipalities in Sweden, we analyse municipal practices of mobility control, emphasising the waiting produced through the provision of temporary housing. Based on interviews, policy documents, reports and news media reporting, we analyse how two municipalities regulate conditions of stay through temporary access to housing and poor living conditions. Such practices involve processes of waiting and produce long periods of uncertainty, preventing migrants from being able to plan a future. This eventually affects the possibility for family reunification and permanent residency, which is conditioned by requirements such as stable housing and employment.

Transnational familyhood is a challenge to western societies, whose implementation of legislation generally works with the assumption that families are nuclear and situated within a nation state. In the present case study Somali transnational family organisation is juxtaposed to the western nuclear family model to illustrate basic differences between the models. The mobility of children in the Somali family system is discussed in relation to child protection in European societies. Cultural variation in family organisation needs to be further discussed in societies that claim to be multicultural. The nature of child protection interventions by social workers will depend on whether society declares universalist or cultural-relativist values as more important.

The last few decades have seen the publication of articles and textbooks containing surveys and comparisons of social work in different countries. This article discusses various attempts at systematic descriptions and comparisons of social work in different parts of the world. Three main ways of making comparisons are identified: comparisons based on models of social policy, profession-oriented comparisons, and practice-oriented comparisons. Each of the three methods captures essential aspects of similarities and differences in social work, but they all have obvious limitations as well. The article sums up what has been discovered by the different methods of comparison and the criticism that can be levelled at them. 

This article explores how different layers of waiting shape the everyday lives of women asylum seekers in the UK and unemployed women in Sweden. We examine the continuity of waiting between and within the migration, labour and welfare complexes. The analysis identifies three layers of everyday waiting: everyday waiting as repetition, everyday waiting as forced and denied work and everyday waiting as invisible and disposable time. We argue that the constant neglect of people’s time – and hence lives – enables exploitation, precarisation and insecurity. The article shows that waiting is a central aspect of how racism is organised and legitimised within the welfare system. While issues of waiting have gained increased attention in social work research, the relationship between waiting and racism remains undertheorised and understudied. This article attempts to contribute to this line of research.

The social worker-client relationship is described as essential to social work but is a broad and multi-layered concept. Today, the relationship is strengthened and challenged by digitalisation. The aim of this configurative literature review is to understand how research on social work from 2015 to 2020 describes and analyses digitalisation’s significance for the social worker-client relationship. Three themes depict the benefits and disadvantages of digitalisation, how digitalisation generates new ethical questions and dilemmas, and the different theoretical perspectives used. Future research should go beyond the pros and cons of digitalisation and should use various theoretical approaches to challenge data, illuminate client perspectives, and pose additional questions.

Many faith-based organisations (FBOs) provide social work services to marginalised groups in need of care such as people who use drugs (PWUD), but little is known about how diaconal or faith-based social work with PWUD is carried out and how staff view their work. The aim of this study was to explore how social work with PWUD within FBOs in Sweden is conducted. This study is based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with 14 employees at a range of churches in Sweden. The empirical material was analysed with qualitative textual analysis. FBO staff channeled a personal calling to offer services through their organisations and found PWUD be in need mainly of emergency support. Staff engaged in boundary work such as differentiating between activities conducted at the church premises or on the streets. Staff accompanied clients to meetings with publicly funded welfare services to the benefit of the clients, and they appreciated their free role compared to social services staff. FBOs mainly act as stabilisers in relation to official public welfare services. The role of prophetic diaconal work aiming at social justice was limited and clients’ emergency needs were in focus, which indicates that FBOs in Sweden mainly complement welfare state services.

Young people in secure state care have impaired general as well as sexual health. Social work practice that addresses SRHR among young people in secure state care is thus called for. Using a qualitative design, this descriptive and comparative paper combines the results of two separate surveys on sexual health with young people 16-29 years old. 7755 young women and men in Sweden and 117 young women and men in secure state care in Sweden participated. The results show large differences in sexual health between the groups. Young women in secure state care are the most vulnerable. Implications for social work are discussed, and a SRHR-affirmative perspective is suggested. This SRHR-affirmative practice is particularly important when social work involving young people is organised in a compulsory fashion.

While there is an international definition of social work as a profession, little is known about whether there is also a shared pedagogy in social work cross-nationally. To our knowledge, this paper is the first empirical study which aims to fill this gap by applying the concept of signature pedagogy in social work education to explore the commonality of social work pedagogy across countries. The study uses a multi-site case study (six universities in five European countries) through applying a ‘critical teacher-researcher’ approach in generating the data, followed by a two-phased thematic analysis. The study evidenced a shared principle of social work pedagogy which nurtures social work student to think and perform like a social worker and develop the professional self through developing relationships and dialogue, professional practice, group work, self-reflection and critical thinking. It is argued from, this exploratory study, that even between countries which have different welfare ideology as well as social work history and education systems, there is some common ground in social work pedagogy where one can learn from another through the use of ‘teacher as researcher’ methodologically.