The World Health Organization (WHO), concludes that child maltreatment is a global concern calling for a multi sectoral interdisciplinary approach. School professionals, such as social workers, teachers, and health care professionals are in positions to discover and report maltreatment enabling social workers to intervene. However, a variety of reports reveal an evident gap between incidences and frequency of number of cases reported. A review of relevant research indicates that the problem of “not reporting” suggests that moral conflicts are activated in the process of decision-making. The aim was to gain a deeper understanding of school professionals’ experiences of reporting suspected neglect and abuse to the Social Welfare Board. In a mixed method approach 32 school professionals, such as teachers, social workers, nurses and psychologists participated in interviews and responded to questionnaires. Findings from the qualitative content analysis were compared to the quantitative analysis in a meta-analysis. Moral conflicts occur when faced with making decisions about how to best deal with a child’s situation. Thoughts about the child’s best interest and relationship with his/her parents as well as the informants´ own safety, were central. The comparative meta- analysis of both data sets revealed these conflicts commence with a moral sensitivity of possible negative consequences for the child. Moral sensitivity can be viewed as a “good” personal attribute, it paradoxically might lead to moral stress despite an open ethical climate. Based on the results of this study, further research on the interpersonal aspects of dealing with moral conflicts involved in reporting suspected child abuse is indicated.

Lärare och personal inom förskola och skola gör allt fler orosanmälningar. Men det väcker ofta svåra frågor och motstridiga känslor. Kan det bli värre för eleven efteråt? Eller tvärtom – bättre? Hur blir kontakten med vårdnadshavarna? Vilket stöd får jag av skolledningen?

Presentation av forskningsstudien Skolan och barn som far illa; en förundersökning om skolpersonalens situation vid anmälan enligt SoL,14 kap§1.

Decision support systems are known to be helpful for professionals in many medical professions. In social work, decision support systems have had modest use, accompanied by strong criticism from the profession but often by praise from political management. In this study the aim of the authors was to collect and report on the published evidence on decision support systems in social work. The conclusion of the authors is that a decision support system gives support to social workers in conducting a thorough investigation, but at the same time gives them the freedom to make autonomous decisions that might be the most helpful for and used by social workers. Their results also indicate that decision support systems focusing on atypical rather than typical cases are perceived as the most useful among experienced staff.

This is a book about social workers and social work. It tells the story of the journey into and through social work of people from around the world living and working in social work today. We hear what has brought them into social work and what has kept them in it since. Their lively accounts demonstrate that commitment and passion remain at the heart of social work today. This new edition of Becoming a Social Worker is made up of entirely new stories. It describes what it is like to be a social worker in a range of different practice settings in different countries. While many of the narratives are from practitioners and educators who either grew up in, or came as adults to, the UK, half of the narratives explores the experiences of social workers and educators working in different parts of the world in countries as diverse as Australia and New Zealand, India and Bangladesh, Ireland, Sweden and Eastern Europe, Nigeria, the USA and Canada. The book ends with a commentary, which argues that social work is truly a global profession.Some of the contributors will be recognised as those who have played a key part in shaping social work over the years and they provide valuable insights into how the profession has developed over time. Other contributors, less well known but no less interesting, give a vivid account of the challenges that social work education and practice face, and the shared values that underpin social work wherever it is located. Social work is a demanding and difficult job that goes largely unseen within society. We only ever hear about social work and social workers when something goes wrong and a vulnerable adult or child is hurt. Becoming a Social Worker sets out to change that - to make social work visible, so that those considering a career in the caring professions across the world can make an informed choice about whether social work is the career for them.

The intended aim of this paperis to discuss motivation and personal traits among social work students andimplication to international social work. An enquiry was made to investigatethe motivation, values and expectation among first year social work students atfour universities in Sweden. There is previous evidence that education havedifficulties forming students values, and the effect follows that it isbecoming vital to attract and accept the best students for the profession. Oneof the investigated universities did have a different form of admission systemsince half of their students were accepted after a test and an interview. Thepresentation aims to present results from the survey as well as discuss how theresults of the Swedish social work students differed in between theuniversities and from international research of social work students.

I nordiska sammanhang är det lite känt om socialarbetares attityder till arbetsvillkor och pågående sociala och politiska trender. Socialarbetare som yrkesgrupp kan betraktas som aktörer som praktiskt ska tolka och genomföra socialpolitik. Resultatet från en omfattande nordisk studie visade att socialarbetarnas attityder varierade inom olika specialiseringar inom kommunal socialtjänst. De socialarbetare som arbetade med ekonomisk hantering var mer missnöjda med sin arbetssituation och mer positiva till sanktioner och restriktioner mot klienter jämfört med kollegor inom andra verksamhetsområden. De är mer benägna att förklara fattigdom med hänvisning till enskilda brister. Vidare visar forskning att socialarbetare inte ser den nordiska modellen som att den underlättar för utsatta människor mer än andra välfärdssystem. Många socialarbetare menar att socialt arbete präglas av ekonomiska omständigheter och en byråkratisk administration. I vår studie diskuterar vi socionomstudenternas motiv och värderingar och jämför med vad uppdragsgivare eftertraktar av professionen. Är det, som några forskare pekar på, att uppdragsgivare, främst kommuner efterfrågar socionomer med framförallt kunskaper i juridik och som kan hantera byråkrati och inte det som vi ser i vår studie socionomstuderande med altruistiska motiv. I den meningen kan diskrepansen mellan ett rationellt kommunalt perspektiv och studenternas altruistiska motiv få konsekvenser.

Ett frågeformulär utvecklades för studenterna och lämnades till dem i början av deras socionomutbildning. Studien genomfördes på fyra olika universitet och högskolor i Sverige och sammanlagt svarade 250 studenter på enkäten. Frågeformuläret som innehöll både fasta och öppna svarsalternativ har bearbetats med hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS och de öppna svaren har kategoriserats.

Resultatet från den kvantitativa undersökningen av studenter på fyra olika socionomutbildningar i Sverige visar att studenters motivation och värderingar är relativt homogena mellan de fyra utbildningsorterna. Det skiljer sig åt när de gäller de mindre högskolorna när det gäller motiv. Ungefär en tredjedel av studenterna anger idealistiska motiv för sitt yrkesval. Lika många en tredjedel av studenterna uppvisar individualistiska motiv och värderingar medan en del av studenterna varken är idealistiska eller individualistiska utan anger att socionomyrkesvalet är ett yrkesval för att få ett arbete. När studenterna anger vilken professionell roll som de helst vill tillskriva sig som socionom anger de i första hand empatisk, kompetent och att bli en god lyssnare.

I vår presentation diskuterar vi elevernas värderingar och förväntningar i förhållande till sin framtida professionella identitet som socionom samt deras personliga motiv för att välja utbildningen till socionom. Vi presenterar också hur resultatet av de svenska studenternas motiv skiljer sig från internationell forskning men diskuterar också hur socionomstudenter skiljer sig åt i ett nationellt perspektiv.