Arbetsplats först - En studie om en kommuns etableringsarbete med ensamkommande ungdomar

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to explore how a small town in Sweden worked with unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents. More specifically on how the municipality of the town through their professional staff and its Labor Market Department worked to establish them into the Swedish society. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore how the staff experienced their autonomy in relation to the assignments that could emerge in the social work they performed on a daily basis. To fulfill the purpose of this study, a qualitative approach was used relying on the semi-structured interview method and with Michael Lipsky’s theory about street-level bureaucracy and Roine Johanssons theories about autonomy as a theoretical base. The results of this study showed that the staff used a range of methods implemented by the Labor Market Department in the municipality to facilitate the work they did. Some of the staff had even worked with unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents in other Swedish municipalities and compared different methods of work. However, the study also showed that the daily interaction through conversations was one of the most important tools in their work. The majority of the staff also mentioned responsibility, accountability, workplace first, school, education and participation as key ingredients in helping these adolescents to feel like a part of the Swedish society. Furthermore, the study showed the importance of the staff´s involvement and interaction with the adolescents and how the building of trust gave a better foundation in the work towards establishing these unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents. Lastly the study showed that the staff disposed of a grate amount of autonomy in the daily work they did and also that this sometimes could collide with what the organization wanted. This in turn left the staff feeling helpless and with a feeling of them not being sufficient in their work.