Idrott i socialt utredningsarbete - hur då? Socialsekreterares förhållningssätt till ungdomars idrottande

Sammanfattning: Sports has been shown to have great potential on influencing youths social, physical and psychological development. But there has been a smaller interest for the developmental aspects of sports for socially vulnerable youths. In social services investigative work with youths there seem to be opportunities for social workers to look in to aspects of sports potential for socially vulnerable youth. This study intends to describe social workers approach to youth sports in their work. Qualitative interviews was engaged with four social workers to approach their knowledge about youth sports and their opportunities to look into sports. Johanssons (2007) theory on bureaucratic organizations was used to study the organizational preconditions to imply sports and individualize its importance. The study shows that the social workers discretion is wide which means that there is great opportunities to individualize the importance of sports. The study also showed that the knowledge on youth sports varied widely among the social workers and that their understanding of the importance of sport in social investigation work differed.