Balansgång i socialtjänsten – Nyutexaminerade socionomers reflektioner kring sitt yrkesutövande

Sammanfattning: Newly qualified social workers (NQSW) in Sweden are often thrust into statutory social work. In the context of statutory social work, social workers need to navigate a professional rationale, on which the social work profession rests, with an organizational rationale, on which the welfare organization – the social services – rests. This is due to the fact that social workers often are reliant on working within a welfare organization to perform professional social work, just as the social services are reliant on the social workers to filter out welfare subsidies to the citizens. For social workers to be able to navigate the diverse rationales and perform social work, they need to utilize other skills and perspectives than solely those that they have acquired through formal education. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine how NQSW reflect on their practice in the context of statutory social work in Swedish social services. To gather participants for the study we reached out to NQSW who had graduated within 12 months of the study taking place in November–December 2022. The method used was a qualitative focus group interview with 12 NQSW in different sections of the statutory social work system, in different parts of Sweden. In analyzing the results, we utilized Evetts’ concepts of organizational and occupational professionalism. This study found that the NQSW describe almost being pulled towards both rationales at the same time, as they highlight aspects of both that have favorable as well as unsatisfactory impacts on them and their practice. The social workers also highlight different strategies and methods that they utilize to integrate skills and perspectives in their practice to navigate this conflict and perform social work.