Kristina Engwall

• associate professor
• Lecturer at Uppsala University

Matching a child with a foster home is a professional practice with considerable room for discretion since there are no specific guidelines in Sweden. The aim is to describe what knowledge do social workers’ assessments build upon in the matching process. The material consists of matching investigation files of 116 children from 6 municipalities in...

The concept of matching refers to the process of selecting a family foster home to fit an individual child in placement. Matching is important for the quality of care, as the carers need the necessary resources to meet the child’s needs. Failure in matching can have negative consequences, such as a ‘breakdown’. The aim of this article is to explore...

"... are absolutely uneducable". The children at Vipeholm 1935–1963 Vipeholm Hospital in Sweden was the only institution for 'uneducated, difficult to care for feebleminded'. Although it was designed for adults, a fifth of those admitted were under the age of 15. The article focuses on the children and their everyday life 1935-1963. The starting po...

Digital daily activities – challenges and opportunities for the digital inclusion of adults with intellectual disability This article analyses challenges and opportunities related to the digitisation of daily activities for adults with intellectual disability (ID) using information and communication technology (ICT). An overarching question is whet...

Children with disabilities are over‐represented in foster care and exposed to more disruptions. This is unfortunate because they need long‐term relationships and predictability, as well as access to special schools and health care. Disruption can be the result of a poor match between the child and the foster family. In this article, we focus on the...

Stability is vital for the development, health and relationships of children in family foster care. Instability can lead to social and school issues, low self-esteem and diminished trust in caregivers. This article examines the risk and protective factors for stability for these children. Data, drawn from case files in six municipalities (n = 116),...

Background The lockdown of a day centre for individuals with intellectual disabilities led to digital activities instead of traditional physical presence. Method This study is based on 17 interviews with staff of a day centre, directors of day centres and support persons. Findings The purpose of the digital activities was to overcome physical dis...

Barns arbete vid teaterföreställningar i Sverige har reglerats i speciallagstiftning sedan förra sekelskiftet. Lagstiftningen innehöll länge ett allmänt förbud, men dispens kunde sökas. Sådana dispensansökningar handlades på många håll in på 1970-talet av barnavårdsnämden till skillnad från ansökningar rörande annat arbete som bedömdes av Yrkesinsp...

We discuss the pandemic strategies in Sweden concerning social psychiatry during the first wave. We argue that the omission of social workers’ perspective in the COVID-19 strategy has negatively impacted clients with psychiatric disabilities and has also weakened the overall pandemic strategy.

This qualitative study, based on semi-structured interviews with eight parents with disabilities and five personal assistants, explores two different but interrelated perspectives: how parents with extensive physical disabilities use personal assistants in their parenting strategies and how personal assistants experience assisting in parenting stra...

Corona-pandemins påverkan på socialtjänsten (Kort sammanfattning av accepterat abstract) Samhällspridningen av Covid-19 har inneburit nya utmaningar för samhällets välfärdsinstitutioner. Sjukvården och äldreomsorgen har uppmärksammats i betydligt högre utsträckning än socialtjänstens individ och familjeomsorg. Detta trots att socialtjänsten och d...

This article scrutinizes children’s participation concerning the assessment process of respite care in Sweden. It is qualitative study based on 82 documents of application of respite care and a group interview with social workers. We use the participation model of Shier, which describes extent of participation as well as the mandate of the organiza...

This study examines how childhoods are constructed within the assessment process concerning respite care for children with disabilities in Sweden. The social workers need to take into consideration the needs of the child with disabilities as well as those of the parents and siblings. The application for respite care compels the social worker to pri...

I den här studien har barnperspektivet vid handläggning av korttidsvistelse enligt LSS studerats. Studien bygger på 88 sociala utredningar från tio kommuner, gruppintervju med LSS-handläggare och fem föräldraintervjuer. Barnperspektiv kan definieras på flera sätt: barnets eget perspektiv, de vuxnas perspektiv på vad som är bäst för barn samt ett b...

Research shows that children with disabilities are victims of violence and abuse to a higher extent than other children and thus need support from social services. In Sweden, cooperation between two different social services units is required to support children with disabilities in socially vulnerable families. In this study, we have examined the...

Independence is highly valued in Swedish disability politics. Consequently, most adult people with intellectual disabilities live in group homes. Yet there are also adult people with intellectual disabilities who live with their parents. Why? In this study, eight parents with adult children in the home and three adults with intellectual disabilitie...

Trots starka normer om egen bostad bor en minoritet vuxna personer med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning kvar i föräldrahemmet i Sverige. Varför då? I denna studie intervjuas åtta föräldrar med hemmaboende vuxna barn. Föräldrarnas motiv handlar om pliktkänsla, att förse barnen med "ett gott liv" samt att ge barnen ett socialt sammanhang. Deras lös...

In Sweden, most adult people with intellectual disabilities live in group homes. Independent living and independence are highly valued in Swedish politics. Yet there are also parents who live with their adult ‘children’ with intellectual disabilities. This article analyses eight parents’ stories about living with their adult children with intellect...

This article draws on interviews with Swedish voluntarily childless women and men in order to discuss their understandings of living in a so-called “child-friendly” welfare society where social policies subsidize families with children. Previous research from Anglo-Saxon countries implies that the social, political and economical interests of the v...

This article studies how disabilities are conceptualized and used by citizens when they report perceived discrimination associated with disability in Sweden. A review of all 485 disability-related complaints filed with the Equality Ombudsman in 2012 shows how disabilities are conceptualized on three different themes. The first involves environmenta...

I journalerna för patienterna som var intagna på sinnessjukhuset Västra Mark finns brevväxlingen mellan de anhöriga och överläkaren bevarad. Av dessa brev framgår tydligt den förändring som skedde under 1960talet då anhöriga övergick från att ses som obetydliga till att betraktas som viktiga i patientens liv.

This position paper argues that issues related to the future are worth emphasizing and discussing with more feminist fervour and engagement than is now the case within feminist studies and futures studies. It is concluded that feminists cannot just be critical from an outside perspective, but must engage in creating alternative futures. These futur...

This article reports from the first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and addresses a so far neglected issue – the embodied experiences of childfree women. These childfree women reject and resist pronatalist understandings that conflate being a woman with being a mother. However, instead of explaining their childlessness by external fact...

Introduction One feminist definition of care is ‘a labour of love’ (Graham, 1983: 13). This nicely captures the nature of caring as work that is both infused with and concealed by the emotional bond that exists between those in a care relationship, especially when that care is given to a disabled son or daughter. In this chapter, we shed light on t...

This article discusses voluntary childlessness and reaching adulthood in Sweden, focusing on childfree women and men with intellectual disabilities (IDs). The article is based on interviews with 19 childfree individuals, four of whom had IDs. It focuses on motives for voluntary childlessness, with three types of motives being mentioned only by the...

I Sverige uppmanas de allra flesta till att bli föräldrar men vissa kategorier såsom exempelvis personer med utvecklingsstörning förväntas avstå från föräldraskap. Dessa motstridiga tendenser påverkar hur frivilligt barnlösa uppfattas. Artikeln bygger på intervjuer med 19 barnfria kvinnor och män i Sverige varav fyra tillskrivs en utvecklingsstörni...

”Barnen är framtiden!” Svensk politik strävar efter ett ”barnvänligt samhälle” där yrkesliv och föräldraskap ska kunna kombineras. Hur upplevs detta av den som väljer att vara barnfri? Om barn ses som ett bidrag till framtidens nation vad tillför då barnfria samhället?

Barn eller inte barn? Det är en fråga som de flesta någon gång tar ställning till. I de nordiska länderna bestämmer sig många för att skaffa barn. Några vill ha barn, men blir inte gravida. Andra bestämmer sig för att inte skaffa barn - de väljer frivillig barnlöshet. Det är om de barnfria som denna antologi handlar. Frivillig barnlöshet handlar o...

This article reports on the results from the two first studies on voluntary childlessness in Sweden and draws on interviews with 30 childfree women and 6 men. The article explores how they managed to create a legitimate childfree position in a soci-ety permeated by pronatalistic norms proclaiming parenthood to be self-evident in an adult normal lif...

The aim of this study was to compare nutritional conditions in Swedish mental hospitals and institutions for “feebleminded” people during the two world wars with those in German institutions of the same era. During World War I, lack of food in Germany and Sweden led to high death rates at institutions containing many patients. During World War II,...