Att skapa ett hem långt hemifrån - en kvalitativ studie gjord med hjälp av deltagande observationer på ett HVB-hem för ensamkommande barn

The aim of this thesis is to understand how the feeling of home can appear in a youth care institution for unaccompanied children. Unlike other youth care institutions that deals with psychosocial problems, these youth cares become more permanent to unaccompanied children. The study is made from qualitative approach, with ethnographic studies at a youth care for unaccompanied children. The observations took place during seven different occasions for two hours each time. The study is focusing on the environment and the daily life. The study highlights how youth cares institutions through time been understood strictly as an institution and today strives to become more like a family. We uses Goffman´s theory Asylums and Kusenbach and Paulsen´s description what a home can be to analyze this phenomena. Our result shows that home is something complex and therefore difficult to define. Home is constructed by the current norms in the specific society. The youth care we studied showed various perspective of home. Due to different perspectives among staff and the unaccompanied children, Solgården exists as two homes in one. The fact that physical barriers such as locks on rooms and entries are a common element emphasizes the fact that Solgården have some similarities to an institution. And the people inside these walls are given dissimilar qualities