Samma mål, skilda förutsättningar - En kvalitativ intervjustudie om alliansskapande arbete med socialsekreterare i urbana kommuner och glesbygdskommuner

Sammanfattning

The aim for this study was to increase the understanding of how social workers in different municipalities, with different municipal conditions, experience their working alliance with clients. The study was based on qualitative interviews with four professional social workers in four different municipalities in Sweden. Two of them worked in rural districts and the other two in urban districts. The empirical material was analysed using Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy, as well as Jürgen Habermas theories from Legitimation crisis. The study found that the social workers experienced that it was important to form an alliance with their clients. Furthermore, the results showed that legislation and governmental directives can impede the possibility for social workers and clients to work on equal terms, together on the client's side. Therefore, the social workers described how the relationship needed trust and reliance to facilitate a successful work. The study also found that municipal conditions such as, the distance within a municipality, the municipality’s financial resources, the size of the population as well as the citizens' possibility within the municipality to benefit from the social welfare, were of importance for the working alliance. Therefore, the study illustrates the complexity that social workers face when they simultaneously need to comply with governmental directives, adapt to municipal conditions and try to attain a working alliance with their clients.