Kontaktfamiljsinsats beviljad... till vad och vilken nytta?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze a group of participants (social workers, contact families and the young adults who had been given a contact family as children) and monitor their experience of the intervention contact family and its goals, contents and design. We also wanted to look into what goals and guidelines are available regarding the interventions design and contents. We also looked into parts of the intervention which the participants found most useful for them individually. The method we used in our study was qualitative interviews. We compared and analyzed our results to research made on the subject and the theoretical frame. We chose to use an eclectic theoretical frame. We combined concepts from general systems theory perspective, such as: input, flow, output, and overview (our translation) as understood by Payne (2010) and Öquist (2008) with Grannovetters (1973) theory of strong and weak ties. We will also apply Hasenfelds (1983) technologies: people-sustaining-, people-processing- and people changing technologies. We will suggest a use of valuation models get a clearer view of the effects from the intervention contact family.  Our results show that the main reason the interventions are approved is relief for the parents and the change of environment and stimulation for the children. The participants' perception is that the relief is beneficial to the family as a whole. Another important reason for the intervention is to provide the child with more secure adult influence and strengthen the child’s social network. Our result showed that all of our participants were positive towards the intervention. We found that the intervention’s lack of monitoring of the participant’s experiences could be one of the reasons it is hard to see any proven effects, combined with the unclear communication of goals. Our study showed that there are no national or local guidelines that regulate the contents of the intervention, most of our participants feel no need for more strict guidelines.