”Ett fyrkantigt yrke” : Om hur barnperspektivet riskerar att hamna i skuggan av organisationens villkor i ekonomiska biståndsärenden

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to investigate how administrators of financial aid experience that legislation and municipal guidelines take a children’s rights perspective into consideration, and whether there, within the organizational structure and its norms, is room for maneuvering in order to meet the needs of children. A children’s perspective has since long been included in Socialtjänstlagen and has only gotten stronger since The Convention on the Rights of the Child became a part of Swedish legislation. According to research prior to this study the public debate has been lively as to what is an acceptable living standard for children and whether or not the conditions should be allowed to be affected by the limited recourses of the guardians. The results of the study show how the financial aids administration mainly focuses on an adult perspective where demands on guardians sometimes trump the needs of children. Furthermore, the study shows that there is no unanimous answer to what can be considered a reasonable standard of living for children. This causes administrators of financial aid to be caught between two contradictory sensations. On the one hand they feel relatively free in how they can maneuver within the guidelines given by the organization, on the other hand they are restrained by national guidelines. In summary it is apparent that the children’s rights perspective within financial aid is dependent on a large number of parameters ranging from the individual human standpoint to the national and formal ones, all of which need to be taken into consideration.