Klientrelaterat hot och våld i socialt arbete : Socialsekreterares copingstrategier och upplevelser av stöd från sin arbetsgivare

Sammanfattning: This qualitative study's aim is to understand how social workers in child care protective services handle client initiated violence. The aim is also to explore the social workers' experiences of their managment's support regarding client initiated violence. Data from seven social workers have been analyzed using the theory about coping by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). This studys' result show that social workers can experience negative feelings when exposed to client initiated violence. Some social workers cope with these feelings by using emotion-focused coping strategies such a distancing, avoidant behavior, understanding, empathic approach or trying to see the situation through the eyes of the client. The results also show that social workers also use problerm-focused coping strategies in theratening or violent situations. This can entail self-reflection, erasing personal data from the internet, clear communication, support from colleauges or managers, participating in supervision and learning to set limits. Sometimes the social workers used both emotions-focused and problem-focused coping strategies at the same time. Furthermore the social workers' experiences of their managments' support and preventive work was mainly positive but some claim that the preventive work could improve to increase work saftey and well being among the social workers.