Hur ska jag fråga? : En studie om socialarbetares upplevelser av att fråga klienter om våld i nära relationer

Sammanfattning: Swedish social services have a responsibility to help victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) according to the Social Services Act (SFS 2001:453). The aim of this study is to investigate how social workers experience the assignment of screening clients for IPV. To further understand the social workers' experiences, the results were analyzed using Bolton’s understanding of emotional labor and the concept of discretionary space as constructed by Svensson et al. The data was collected through six semi-structured interviews with social workers. A thematic analysis was applied to the collected data which created two main themes: organizational factors along with social and individual factors. The first theme discusses routines, specialization and the role of the leader. The second theme discusses the client-perspective, cooperation with colleagues and the complex social worker. This study shows that routines regarding asking clients about IPV are notably lacking, which places a lot of responsibility on the social worker alone. In addition, the results show that the way in which social workers ask clients about IPV varies considerably. This could be explained by the inadequate routines. Ultimately, the study concludes that further research regarding the experience of asking clients about IPV is needed.