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

• Published in: International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being Vol. 18; no. 1; p. 2168234
• Main Authors: Nolbeck, Kajsa, Olausson, Sepideh, Lindahl, Göran, Thodelius, Charlotta, Wijk, Helle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis 01.12.2023; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Taylor & Francis Group
• 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; 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; Sweden; focus group discussions; thematic analysis; care environment; Institutional youth care; Erving Goffman; sociomateriality
• DOI: 10.1080/17482631.2023.2168234
• ISSN: 1748-2631; 1748-2623

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.