Ingen borde vara bostadslös, alla borde ha ett kontrakt : En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterares handlingsutrymme gällande hemlösa

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study were to explore how social workers experience their autonomy and discretion, related to their responsibilities. Social workers are challenged to meet the client’s needs, while responding to the organization’s resources and the law in the society. This results in a stressful work environment, with overwhelming work pressures. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore how the social workers experience the ethical dilemmas that can arise. To attain this, we based the study on five qualitative semi structured interviews with social workers, who work with providing housing, in three different townships in Skåne County, Sweden. To analyze the material we used Lipsky’s theory about Street level bureaucracy and Foucault’s concept about power and knowledge. The results showed that the interviewed social workers had a different perception regarding their autonomy and discretion. The amount of discretion they experienced are influenced by a number of aspects. The facets of impact composed, that they have power in relation to the client, with the help of knowledge about the subject, but they also have a set discretion to work around. In addition, the social workers also thought that it’s a hopeless challenge to influence higher authorities.