Handlingsutrymme och ansvar : En kvalitativ studie om personal på HVB-hem och stödboende för ensamkommande flyktingbarn

Sammanfattning: This thesis is about staff in Sweden working with unaccompanied migrant children, either in supported accommodation or HVB-homes, a form of residential care. A previous study shows that staffs’ acting space often led them feeling a higher sense of responsibility for their work. This study seeks to understand if the staffs’ acting space relate to their sense of responsibility for children in care. To answer this, we have used a qualitative method. We have done eight semi-structured interviews with staff working in HVB-homes and supported accommodation, to take part of the staffs’ perspective and point of views. The theory used for analysing out material is Lipsky’s Street-level bureaucracy: dilemmas of the individual in public services. We have also used Ulla Johansson’s conception analysis Om ansvar. The result of the study shows that staff feel like they have a big acting space at their place of work. Staff also describe how they feel responsible for the children they meet in their work, but not a sense of responsibility that goes beyond their work role. From our interviews we have concluded that it doesn’t seem to be a significant relation between acting space and the staffs’ sense of responsibility for the children. The latter relates more to the staffs’ attitude and their boundaries.