Våld och hot om våld inom socialt arbete : - en studie om fem socialarbetares upplevelser och förståelse av våld och hot om våld från brukare

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers perceive and understand violence and threats of violence from clients, and how it effect their working environment. It seems that the respondents understand the violence and threats of violence from clients as a result of the clients background problems, vulnerability, dependency and from “the reason" that the client is currently in the contact with the organization. How respondents interpret the client´s behaviour based on the above-mentioned factors, seem to determine how the respondents perceive and define the violence and threats of violence by clients directed against them. Interestingly enough, although all respondents in the study experienced violence and threats of violence from clients, none of them perceived themselves as exposed at work. The answer to this is consensual. The respondents argue that they “knew what they got into" and thus violence and threats of violence from clients can be considered as part of the work, that the social workers must be aware of in order to work within the organization. A further aim of this study was to examine how the social workers views the matter of who’s responsible for the threats and violent incidents and how to "best" encounter the violence and threats of violence within the organization. The respondents argue that it is when the social workers communicate in a wrong way, use their power or give "bad decisions" to the clients that most threats and violent incidents occur. The role that the respondents construct for themselves can be understood as they need to ,in their professional role "withstand a little bit" of violence and threats of violence from clients. The respondents then becomes mainly responsible for the threats and violent incidents, because they communicated in a wrong way, used the "unnecessary" exercise of power, or gave "bad decisions" to clients. The clients responsibility is then reduced due to the fact that the client merely reacts to how the respondent acted towards the client. The key element in the prevention of violence and threats of violence seems to be the way the respondents builds relations to the client. However, it also appears that the respondents expect a certain amount of violence and threats of violence from clients. Violence and threats of violence therefore run the risk of becoming something that the respondents get used to and sometimes expect, and something that they to some extent can protect themselves from, but never fully avoid or prevent