To Örebro University

Detta kapitel tar sin utgångspunkt i ett växande forskningsfält där teorin om sociala reprsentationer används för att studera samverkan, med särskilt fokus på varför det kan vara svårt att kommunicera över professions- och/eller organisationsgränser. I kapitlet presenterar vi dels teoribildningen och dess relevans för samverkan, dels ett empiriskt exempel på hur teorin kan användas för att förstå samverkan.

Collaboration on children at risk is essential, but our knowledge about interprofessional collaboration between social workers and educators is limited.

The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to describe French and Swedish teachers' social representation of social workers; and (2) to compare these social representations. The French sample group is composed of 77 secondary school teachers (of students from 11 to 18 years old), and the Swedish sample group is composed of 94. The method used was a 'free association task', commonly used to access the semantic content of social representation. Two different social representations of social workers were revealed, one for the French and one for the Swedish teachers. The French representation is characterised by highly positive aspects such as support, listening and competence. Swedish teachers' social representation of social workers is completely different: negative associations were common (44%), and among these, professional secrecy and law and regulations dominated. One plausible explanation is the difference of French and Swedish teachers' roles regarding collaboration with social workers.

While progress has been made for including students with disability into mainstream schools, trends point to problems for students with Asperger syndrome (AS) diagnosis who have a propensity to dropping out of school. Teachers’ perceptions and understanding of AS will affect expectations and the attainment of educational targets. Thus, to avoid barriers to students’ learning and participation, there is a need to shed light on teachers’ perceptions and beliefs that bear on teachers educational provision for students with AS. The aim of the study was therefore to elucidate mainstream teachers’ representations of students with AS by using the theoretical framework of Social Representation Theory and particularly looking at the effects of the sex of the teacher, grade level being taught and when the teachers received training themselves. Teachers in mainstream schools in Sweden were invited to complete a web-based questionnaire (N = 170). Data were collected through an association task where the participants were asked to produce up to five words or phrases for the stimulus phrase‘student with Asperger diagnosis’. The data were analysed through categorisation. We found that two-thirds of the macro-categories of mentions relate to ‘disabling aspects’, ‘individual needs’ and ‘individual characteristics’, while a third of the elements were tied to the environment and educational provision. Our results suggest that a medical approach dominates especially earlier trained teachers; however, there is a tendency to view the school environment as increasingly important. Representations about the disabling aspects decreased with the increase in the grades being taught, whereas the educational aspects increase with the increase in grades. Male teachers are more prone to relate to environmental aspects and educational provision while female teachers more often relate to needs and disability. We conclude that teachers tend to view AS from a medical approach but that the school environment is seen as increasingly important.

In this article, we examine supported employment and its impact on the level of employment, disposable income, and sum of allowances, targeting a group of individuals with disabilities. We have particularly focused on individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Supported employment is a vocational rehabilitation service with an empowerment approach that has competitive employment as an expressed goal. Data collected from two Swedish organizations, providing services based on supported employment, have been used. Two groups have been considered: one group focusing on individuals who have received vocational rehabilitation, according to the supported employment approach, and the other group focusing on individuals who declined supported employment (control group). The groups have been examined according to a 'before-and-after the intervention' design. Outcome measures have been retrospectively analyzed. The results indicate that the individuals who received supported employment were hired faster, earned a higher disposable income, and at the same time, had lower individual allowances. The same pattern as that for the overall population emerged for individuals with psychiatric disorders. Vocational rehabilitation based on the principles of supported employment may be very effective for individuals to gain employment, a better disposable income, and a substantial cutback in allowances. The intervention should be tailored according to individual needs rather than organizational rules.

Objective: The aim of this study is to describe and analyse two important dimensions of vocational rehabilitation for disadvantaged groups and persons with disabilities: interagency collaboration and social representations.

Participants: Four focus group discussions were conducted. The participants were 20 officials of various agencies who had taken part in collaboration projects in vocational rehabilitation.

Methods: Qualitative content analysis was used for the analysis. The material was categorised and central themes identified.

Results: Three themes emerged: 'Collaboration Process', 'Other Agencies' and 'Object for Collaboration'. The results indicate that interagency collaboration is very important in vocational rehabilitation, but that there are a number of obstacles to smooth collaboration. The professionals of the different agencies shared social representations to a great extent. Working with people with psychiatric disorders is especially challenging, and conflicts tended to arise between the projects and the home organisations.

Conclusions: Recognition of others' knowledge and respectfulness toward other professions facilitated vocational rehabilitation and the interagency collaboration process. The agencies' lack of flexibility increased the risk of conflicts as attempts were made to integrate the new working methods developed within the projects into the ordinary activities of the agencies.

There is an aspiration and policy within the European Union to fully involve persons with disabilities in the community; this implies an opportunity to gainful employment. A large percentage of disabled persons remain unemployed despite this policy, especially persons with mental health problems. This study aims at investigating how people with mental health problems and caseworkers in different agencies experience the vocational rehabilitation process from an interagency collaboration perspective. The study reveals a number of hindering factors portrayed and discussed in six themes – the time available for rehabilitation, management, new ways of working, absence of an actor, continuity and consensus – and also tables the implications for interagency collaboration in the field of vocational rehabilitation.

The aim of the thesis is, through use of the theory of social representations, to increase knowledge about the meeting between social workers and teachers, as professional groups, during collaboration with regard to the target group, children at risk. The thesis intends to capture the parties’ perceptions of one another and of that about which they are cooperating, as well as to discuss possible consequences of these perceptions in the context of interprofessional collaboration on children at risk. Empirical data was collected through an association study. The informants consisted of 200 teachers and social workers who had participated in various collaborative projects concerning the target group of children at risk.

The study shows that the two professional groups have similar representations of children at risk. The social workers’ representations of the teachers are mostly positive, but the teachers are perceived, in many cases, to lack knowledge about social workers and their field of expertise. Teachers’ representations of social workers are colored to a much greater extent by negative associations. The negative image is primarily related to social services as an organization, not to social workers as individuals. In relation to the specific area of interprofessional collaboration on children at risk, the study indicates that the involved parties’ social representations play a significant role in the collaboration process. The research of this thesis has shown that the theory of social representations provides an effective framework for the study of the collaborating professionals’ group perceptions of one another and of children at risk. A preliminary model that seeks to illuminate the role of social representations, trust, and communication in the collaborative process has been presented.