Bedömningsgrunder för boendestöd : en intervjustudie med biståndshandläggare i Uppsala kommun

• Main Authors: Ekman, Mattias, Strömberg, Niklas
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Sociologiska institutionen 2013
• Subjects: housing services; mental disability; framework legislation; discretion; front-line bureaucracy; boendestöd; biståndshandläggning; handlingsutrymme; socialtjänstlagen; närbyråkrater
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-192327

This bachelor thesis aims to investigate how social workers in Uppsala describe their procedure when investigating applications for housing assistance (i.e. boendestöd). Boendestöd is a specific type of services for people with disabilities, which aim to assist them in their lives. This welfare service is one of many regulated by the framework legislation that is the social services act (SoL 2001:453). Previous research indicates that civil servants who make decisions based on goal-oriented framework legislations like SoL, have a great freedom to act when they make judgments and decisions. A consequence of this can be that they make judgments and decisions largely based on their own personal interpretations of this legislation. The previous research points to the fact that the individual civil servants freedom to act can be viewed as an infringement of individual rights, but also that this freedom is necessary when it comes to assessing the needs of help seeking persons in the context of social work.   We have carried out six interviews with social workers in Uppsala. These social workers primarily investigate the needs of persons with mental disabilities who apply for different forms of assistance from the city. The analysis suggests that the social workers interviewed are relatively unanimous when it comes to which grounds for judgment or criteria they use when investigating applications for boendestöd. This in spite of the fact that their judgments are based on individual cases as well as their own personal assessments of them.