ATT MÖTA BARN I UTSATTHET. En antropologisk studie om stödgruppsledares möjligheter och begränsningar

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine how support group leaders experience and describe their work with support groups for children who have a family member suffering from psychosocial issues, as well as the opportunities and challenges that emerge in this work. The findings suggest that support group leaders perceive support groups as important spaces for creating community, support, and meaning for children in vulnerable situations. At the same time, organizational constraints and limited resources restrict the leaders’ ability to provide support, contributing to emotional strain and feelings of inadequacy among the support group leaders. The thesis draws on the theoretical concepts of sense of coherence, interaction rituals, street- level bureaucracy, and emotional labor to analyse how support group leaders experience their work. Based on eight weeks of ethnographic fieldwork, the study combines participant observation at a support group organization with qualitative interviews with support group leaders from three different organizations. The thesis is written in Swedish.