Medberoende anhöriga: socialtjänstens arbete för att nå, fånga upp och erbjuda hjälp. : - En kvalitativ intervjustudie.

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to understand how social workers, working for social services in Sweden, reach out, catch up and offer co-dependent relatives to individuals with alcohol- and/or substance abuse help. Scientific research show that co-dependent people often develop a dependent relationship to their relatives with addiction, which cause feelings of shame and stigmatization. To decrease the codependency and negative emotions the relative need professional help. This paper will focus on how social workers work with reaching out to co-dependent relatives and how they offer them help. For this reason, the paper will also giveperspective on how organisations can help to improve the work with relatives to people with alcohol- and substance abuse, as well as how the social workers can use their own discretion to reach out and catch up the relatives in need of emotional support. This study is based on seven social workers experiences (in six different municipalities) of including relatives to individuals with addictions to either alcohol, substances, or gambling problems in their work and offer them help.