Barn som anhöriga. En implementeringsstudie av vuxenhabiliteringens stöd till barn som anhöriga ur ett barnombud/kurators perspektiv

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to explore how healthcare counselors in their role as child representatives at adult habilitation clinics in Sweden experience the implementation of support for children as next of kin. Healthcare law in Sweden states that children as next of kin are entitled to information, advice and support by healthcare professionals when living together with an adult relative that has; a mental disorder or a mental disability, a serious physical illness or injury, are addicted to alcohol or other addictive substances or if the adult unexpectedly dies (SFS 2017:30, 5:7). Previous research has shown that children are at a higher risk of experiencing harm or illness when they have parents with a lifelong disability. In this study qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight healthcare counselors assigned the role of children´s representative at a total of eight adult habilitation clinics in Region Skåne. The empirical data has been analyzed with Fixsen et al. (2009) theory ’Core implementation Components’. Four themes were identified during analysis: the leadership, competency of the user, organizational support and the patient´s receptivity. It has emerged that the work of providing information, advice and support to children as next of kin varies widely between adult rehabilitation clinics in Skåne. How successfully habilitation centers manage to implement support for children as next of kin depends on how the work is organized at the clinic, what support the children's representative has from their immediate manager and the children's representative's own initiative in driving the implementation forward. Children's representative's ambiguous mission and Region Skåne's inability to transform the intention of the 'Children as next of kin' action program into concrete goals constitutes a recurring obstacle to the implementation of support for children as next of kin. Based on the findings in this study it is clear that there is a big difference in how far the habilitation clinics have come in their implementation of support to children as next of kin according to Fixsen et al. (2009) implementation phases.