Arbetet med de osynliga barnen : En kvalitativ studie kring arbetet med barn som har minst en psykiskt sjuk förälder

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay was to investigate social workers' work with children who have mentally ill parents in order to gain a better understanding of their work and how it affects the children. Mental illness is today a growing public health problem. The proportion of Sweden's population suffering from some form of mental illness is increasing. Mental illness is both psychiatric conditions and mental disorders. It causes suffering for the individual themself, but it can also affect the individual's surroundings. A parent's mental illness affects the child through an increased risk that the child themself may develop a mental and physical illness as a young adult. Research shows that children who have mentally ill parents are an "invisible" group due to the fact that social workers often target the parents without attending to care for the children. Furthermore, research shows that there is a need for these children to be identified in order for them to receive support and that there is a lack of knowledge about care provision in Sweden.  The method used in this essay is a qualitative method and the data was collected by qualitative interviews. Our collected material has been analyzed through meaning categorization which includes coding. The conclusion that was made in this essay is that the social work with children who have a parent with mental illness is very diverse. There’s different ways a social worker can help the children and there are also factors that can hinder the work. However, it can be seen that the work contributes to the child feeling better and developing positively.