Barnen bakom missbruket : yrkesverksammas erfarenheter av gruppen som stöd

The aim of this essay was to study how the communities work with groups as a support to children with addictive parents, and to increase my understanding of the groups meaning as a support. My main questions have been: How are the child group sessions formed? What kind of experience does the group leaders have regarding their functions? The study is a qualitative investigation that has been turned to prefessionals in the subject area and is based on 6 interviews and secondary sources. The material has been analyzed from a narrativ theory as well as a salutogent perspective. Research shows that children growing up in an addictive environment often have decreased psychological health and are overrepresented amongst those who developed a future addiction. During the 1990- ies the first groups for children in addicted enviroments developed in Sweden and since then the groups have improved intensely. Reasearch shows that support is an important part for children with addictive parents and those who has managed well in life has had an adult to support and confirm them. All of my interviews worked with children are people too (CAP) as a method but the shape of the groups were formed differently. They showed the importance of meeting with other children in the same situations and rebuilding their self esteem. It was important that the child was aware that the parents addiction wasn´t their fault and nothing they could change. My result clearly shows the importance of the group existence and describes that the children progressivly opened up and could talk about their experiences. The need of the group sessions felt as large but the difficulty lies in how to get the children to enter the group. In the matter of development my interviews wanted the public to be more aware of these problems and let them know that these groups existed. Keywords: children, addictive parents, groups, support, professionals perspectiv