Be prepared and do the best you can: a focus group study with staff on the care environment at Swedish secure youth homes

This study focuses on the care environment of secure youth homes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care, where youths up to 21 years old are placed according to law due to extensive care needs or sentences. This study examined staff members' experiences of the institutional car...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being 2023-12, Vol.18 (1), p.2168234
Main Authors: Nolbeck, Kajsa, Olausson, Sepideh, Lindahl, Göran, Thodelius, Charlotta, Wijk, Helle
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Attitude of Health Personnel
Biomedical Social
care environment
Child & adolescent psychiatry
design
Detention centers
Empirical Studies
Environmental & Occupational Health
Environmental Health and Occupational Health
Erving Goffman
focus group discussions
Focus Groups
Goffman, Erving (1922-1982)
Humans
Institutional youth care
meanings
Mental health care
Miljömedicin och yrkesmedicin
Nursing
Nursing Homes
Ordinariness
patients perceptions
Public
Qualitative research
quality
Residential care
Risk management
Sciences
Social Work
Socialt arbete
sociomateriality
Sweden
thematic analysis
Youth
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Summary:This study focuses on the care environment of secure youth homes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care, where youths up to 21 years old are placed according to law due to extensive care needs or sentences. This study examined staff members' experiences of the institutional care environment within secure youth homes. Data were collected through three focus group discussions with 17 staff members at two secure youth homes. Subsequently, a thematic analysis was conducted. The analysis indicated two main themes: risk management and damage control in a restricted environment and compensating and reconstructing ordinariness-trying to make the best of it; each theme had three subthemes. The care environment seems to be experienced by staff as characterized by conflicting demands, thus constituting a gap between needs and what is possible to achieve-a balancing act that constitutes a constant struggle. The staff members' constant struggle could be interpreted as conflicting moral and instrumental demands; they know what the youths need, but the environment of the secure youth homes demands the decorous behaviour of sociomaterial control practices-rather than care practices.
ISSN:1748-2631
1748-2623
1748-2631
DOI:10.1080/17482631.2023.2168234