Vad är en specialistsocionom? : En undersökning av socionomers tankar om specialisttjänster i den sociala barn- och ungdomsvården.

Sammanfattning: Abstract Author: Emilie Probert Title: What is a specialist social worker? - A study of social workers thoughts regarding specialist social workers in social child care. Supervisor: Kerstin Svensson Assessor: Anna Angelin The aim for this study was to seek in depth knowledge regarding the arguments towards a more specialized social child care and the implementation of specialist social workers within the organization. This study was based on both semistructured interviews with professional social workers and text documents from leading organizations representing both the professional and the organizational side. The respondents were social workers, specialist social workers and managers from both integrated and specialized social services in municipalities of varying sizes in Sweden. The method used for analyzing the data was content analysis, through which certain patterns and themes were discovered. The main findings in this study was that specialization and specialist social workers were suggested as positive interventions from both organizational and professional leading actors, although from different standpoints. As such it is possible to argue that in theory there is a chance that an implementation of special social workers within the social services can be beneficial for both organization and profession. In reality however different obstacles emerge, such as conflicting thoughts regarding what defines a specialist social worker, what function and role the specialist should play in the organization and thus varying types of specialists have been implemented within the social services. Applying Eliot Freidson´s theory about professionalism as analytical model I found that on one hand one could argue that in implementing specialist social workers, the professional logic is strengthened within the organization. On the other hand there appear to be conflicting motives within in the organization concerning economical and management aspects that relate to the logics of market and bureaucracy that threaten the establishment of professionalism. Thus, there is also a risk that the specialist social worker plays the part of an organizational specialist rather than a specialist of knowledge.