BARN PÅ BESÖK HOS SIN FRIHETSBERÖVADE FÖRÄLDER

Nielsen, E & Olander, S. Children visiting their incarcerated parent. Degree project in Social work 15 högskolepoäng. Malmö University: Faculty of Health and Society, Department of Social Work, 2019. The purpose of the study was to see how a children perspective looks like in the correctional institution and how it is applied when a child visit their incarcerated parent. The study was also aimed to investigate which possibilities and difficulties staff in correctional services experience in connection with visits. The purpose of the study was to get different perspectives by taking part of the staff's experiences. To answer the questions, a qualitative method was used with semi-structured interviews. The selection in the study was nine people working in the correctional institution in Sweden, with different positions of employment. The authors had personal meetings with three of the people and the remaining interviews were made by phone. As an analysis method, coding and thematization were used. The empirical data was analyzed using the Knowledge Situation and Theory. The theoretical starting points were Goffman's concept Front- and Backstage, Antonovsky’s KASAM and risk and protection factors. The results of the study showed that a children perspective exist in the correctional services, both in how the staff meets the children, but also in how the environment is adapted to children. The result also shows that the most central difficulties when children are visiting their incarcerated parent is the resignation between children and parent and that children are affected by the rules and limitations that exist in the correctional service. The opportunities that are mainly highlighted in the study are that children and incarcerated parents can have contact and that there is an opportunity to end a visit when it’s no longer for the best of the children. One conclusion is that children’s involvement is of great importance when visiting their incarcerated parent and that staff are asking for more education about meeting children in different situations. The study also highlights the benefits of sharing experiences with each other and learning from other institutions in order to reduce the difficulties that exist in the work within the correctional institution and to make children more involved. Keywords: children perspective, correctional services, difficulties, incarcerated parent, possibilitie