Being a family, friend & rolemodel : A qualitative study about integrationassistants work with unaccompanied refugee children during the asylum process

The aim with this study is to examine and analyze how the employees at two residential care homes for unaccompanied refugee children work with the children during their pending decision for asylum in Sweden. The purpose is to gain insight into the employees’ daily work with the target audience and how they handle decisions with the children. The method to collect data is to carry 6 interviews with the employees at the residential care home. The interviews were semi-structured with purpose of letting the interviewee lead the content of the interview. The results of the interviews show that the employees have very varied types of duties within their profession. The employees must also maintain many different roles, for example family, teacher and friend. The employees do often have to face very difficult situations with the children during their wait for a residence permit decision. The result was analyzed with theories as Integration Theory and Coping theory. The conclusions of this study are that the employees at the residential care homes for refugee children have very multifaceted work tasks with a very important target group. The increased amount of unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents escaping to Sweden has led to a situation that the Swedish society haven’t had time to adjust to. Clarifying how the employees work and treat the unaccompanied children can contribute to spreading this knowledge to other community stakeholders