Social Workers and Child Welfare

in a children's home (1984). She has also published a follow-up study of children who have been separated from their parents (1988) and a book about social workers ' child welfare work, Social Work with Small Children (1991). This article is a part of this recently finished research work. She has also published articles in Swedish and Nordic journals. SUMMARY What problems do social workers a; social services offices have to face in their child welfare work? How do they handle the problems, and how important is the relation between the social worker and the child's parents? The research project includes 189 child welfare cases with 0-3-year-old children in ten local communities in Sweden. The article shows that the social work can be categorized into four different types of work, where the work done, as well as the relation between the social worker and the child's parents, differ. (1) The social worker is mediating help and support and has a positive contact with the child's parents. (2) The social worker is exercising control and authority and has a negative contact with the child's parents. (3) The social worker is doing treatment-orien-ted work and has a personal involvement and a relation to the parents that is important fo