Nöden har ingen lag

Title: Necessity knows no law : A qualitative study on the processing of emergency assistance in the social services. The aim of this study was to examine how social workers make decisions about financial aid in emergency situations when the user does not have food for the day. We wanted to find out what the social worker needs to know about the user to make a decision and which decision basis they equire. To examine how social workers make these decision and on which base ,we have interviewed six social workers in different municipalities. The empirical findings have been analyzed with Lipskys (2010) heory on street-level bureaucracy and the concepts deserving and un -deserving poor. The results from this study are that the social worker wants three questions answered: What? Which is what has happened to make the emergency arise, How? Which means how the user has tried to solve the emergency on their own. And finally Who? Which contain two elements, first who is the user, how does the social worker perceive the user and second who is the social worker. The social workers own apprehension on who the user is and what social service are supposed to do makes a difference in the assessment. It is possible that the person making the decision affect what the decision is,this is possible because of the discretion the social worker has