There is a shortage of foster carers in many countries, which means that, in addition to retaining active foster carers, social services must strive to recruit new ones. This study examines how great the interest in becoming foster carers is amongst the general public and what characterizes people who express such an interest. Data were collected through a survey responded to by 2106 members of the Swedish citizen panel, aged 25–64, and recruited on a probability basis. Due to its hesitant approach to placing many children in the same foster home, Sweden is perhaps even more dependent than other countries on the recruitment of new foster carers and therefore serves as an interesting example. The analysis focuses on the small group of respondents, who say that they are likely to apply to become foster carers in the future, the reasons for why they have not done so already and on the factors that might further increase their inclination to become foster carers. Conceptualizing fostering as a hybrid between work, family life and voluntary services, we discuss the implications of the fact that 50% of these respondents express an interest in fostering as an alternative to employment and the fact that almost as many rated a lasting relationship with the child as important for their inclination to foster.

For children identified by social services as needing out-of-home placements, foster care is the preferred option. However, the number of people engaging in fostering is insufficient, which creates a shortage in many countries. Using a community sample survey with approximately 2000 Swedish respondents aged 25–64, this article addresses the question what prevents people from becoming foster carers. Overall, respondents reported a generally positive perception of fostering as a child welfare measure. However, a moderate level of knowledge about fostering was a slightly stronger predictor of a reported intention to becoming a foster carer than extensive knowledge. When asked why they had not engaged in fostering, respondents identified a lack of time or space as the most significant barriers. Additionally, uncertainty regarding their own ability to meet the needs of a placed child, as well as concerns about the availability of support from social services, were also rated as important factors. Future strategies for recruiting foster carers should therefore focus on clearly articulating the requirements of foster carers and not only ensuring the availability of support but also effectively communicating this support in recruitment campaigns.

För barn som enligt socialtjänsten behöver placeras i samhällsvård utgör familjehem den primära placeringsformen. Antalet personer som kan tänka sig att bli familjehem är dock otillräckligt, varför det råder brist på familjehem i många länder. Artikeln undersöker frågan vad som hindrar människor från att bli familjehem. Analysen bygger på en enkät riktad till allmänheten som besvarades av ca 2000 svenskar mellan 25 och 64 år. Överlag gav respondenterna uttryck för en positiv syn på familjehemsplacering som barnavårdsåtgärd. En bedömning av den egna kunskapen om familjehemsuppdrag som måttlig visade sig vara en starkare prediktor för rapporterad intention att bli familjehem än en bedömning av den egna kunskapen som hög. Brist på tid och brist på plats i bostaden rankades som de främsta skälen till att respondenter inte hade sökt uppdrag som familjehem. Osäkerhet beträffande den egna förmågan att möta barnets behov liksom oro gällande socialtjänstens stöd rankades också som viktiga faktorer. Framtida strategier för att rekrytera familjehem bör fokusera på att erbjuda tydliga beskrivningar av vad som förväntas av familjehem. Vidare bör det i rekryteringskampanjer tydligt kommuniceras vilket stöd som erbjuds familjehem.

Social media influencers (SMIs) who publish content on mental health play a vital role in the lives of teenage girls. To examine what kind of mental health advice SMIs give, we interviewed teenage girls and identified SMIs that regularly post content on mental health. The indexing of their YouTube videos (n=234) shows that the advice includes calls to self-improvement; work on the body; and seeking help. Our analysis demonstrates that working strategically to uphold their fame, the SMIs balance the roles of expert and friend; turn consumption into mental health advice; and gain legitimacy via collaborations with health organisations. The logic specific to social media requires an additional layer in the interpretation of mental health content in SMI videos. While reciprocity and support between SMI and follower are enabled, the inclusion of such content is also strategically beneficial for the SMI as it contributes to increase her perceived authenticity.

When social media influencers (SMIs) describe their experiences of mental health problems, they contribute to the circulation of representations of mental health. The aim of this article is to analyse the ways of talking about mental health problems that are made accessible to a wider audience through the YouTube videos published by four Swedish female SMIs. Our analysis shows that much content related to mental health contains traces of, and contributes to discourses informed by, positive psychology. Mostly, mental health problems are represented as manageable, if only the individual assumes responsibility for her mental wellbeing, but a few videos also contain displays of negativity and resignation. In addition to avoiding association with the unattractiveness associated with negativity, the four SMIs navigate expectations placed on them to encourage confidence and self-love while at the same time expressing modesty. The result is representations of mental health that are multi-layered and complex.

I denna artikel undersöks hur tonårstjejer diskuterar representationer av ångest i en Youtube-video där en svensk influencer bemöter kritik hon har fått för att överanvända ordet ångest. För studien intervjuades 38 tjejer vid tre olika gymnasieskolor i en mellanstor svensk stad. Analysen visar att tjejerna till stor del tar influencerns parti genom att betona hennes rätt att själv definiera och etikettera sitt mående. De beskriver också betydelsen av att hon lyckas övertyga sina följare om att hon faktiskt lider av ångest för att inte hennes autenticitet ska bli ifrågasatt. De tydliga ställningstagandena för influencern måste förstås i relation till en social och kulturell kontext, där det kan vara känsligt att ifrågasätta någon annans representation av sina upplevda psykiska besvär som sjukdom. Respekten för influencerns etikettering av sina känslor som ångest kan därför tolkas som en viktig del av tjejernas självpresentation i intervjusituationen. På samma gång är tjejernas förhållningssätt gentemot influencerns video både del av, och bidrar till, en hälsodiskurs som förlägger såväl ansvaret för det egna måendet och rätten att definiera det hos individen.

This article examines how teenage girls discuss representations of anxiety in a YouTube video in which a Swedish social media influencer responds to accusations that she inaccurately uses the word anxiety to describe her feelings. For the study, 38 girls in three different upper secondary schools in a midsized city in Sweden were interviewed. The analysis shows that the girls support the influencer by claiming her right to label the way she feels without being questioned. Furthermore, they defend the influencer’s determination by explaining that it is vital for her to convince her followers that she indeed suffers from anxiety to maintain her perceived authenticity. The girls’ support for the influencer must be viewed in light of a social and cultural context, in which it appears to be controversial to question someone else’s representation of themselves as sick. Therefore, we must consider interpreting the respect that is shown the influencer’s labelling of her feelings as anxiety as part of the girls’ self-presentations in the context of the interview. The girls’ reactions to the influencer’s video reflect and contribute to a dominant health discourse, which emphasizes individual responsibility for one’s well-being as well as the individual’s right to define and label it.

Familjehem är den vanligaste placeringsformen för barn och unga som inte anses kunna bo hos sina föräldrar. Det råder emellertid brist på familjehem och i en nyligen gjord studie svarade 74 procent av de 264 socialtjänster som deltog att det var svårt eller mycket svårt för dem att rekrytera familjehem (Pålsson, Lundström & Sallnäs., 2022). Bristen leder till att barn kan behöva vänta länge på en familjehemsplacering, att barn placeras i ett familjehem som inte matchar deras behov eller placeras på institution i stället. År 2022 var omkring 19 200 barn och unga placerade i familjehem. Det är cirka 500 fler än 2021 (Socialstyrelsen, 2023a). Regeringen har aviserat en satsning på familjehemsvården och antyder att fler barn och unga kan komma att behöva placeras i familjehem, bland annat som en följd av det ökande antalet unga som är inblandade i gängkriminalitet (Sveriges regering, 2023; Sveriges radio, 2023). Behovet av familjehem ser alltså ut att öka de närmaste åren och frågan är om det finns förutsättningar för att kunna rekrytera tillräckligt många. Hur ser intresset för att bli familjehem ut hos den svenska allmänheten? När vi planerade ett större projekt om familjehemsrekrytering och samrådde med våra kontakter inom socialtjänsten efterfrågades särskilt forskning om hur just allmänheten, de personer som socialtjänsten aldrig möter, de som inte efterfrågar information eller anmäler sitt intresse för familjehemsuppdrag resonerar. Hur många finns det som skulle kunna tänka sig att bli familjehem och som socialtjänsten behöver försöka nå? Och är de tillräckligt många? Det är en svår fråga att besvara, men likväl viktig att ställa. För att bidra med kunskap om den har vi genomfört en enkät riktad till den svenska allmänheten med frågor om deras inställning till och intresse för familjehemsuppdrag.

Syftet med den här artikeln är tvåfaldigt. Dels ska vi utifrån resultat från enkätstudien diskutera hur stort intresset för att bli familjehem hos den svenska allmänheten är, dels ska vi försöka beräkna hur många nya familjehem det rapporterade intresset skulle kunna resultera i. Beräkningarna bygger på en rad olika antaganden som resulterar i flera olika scenarier. Anslaget är således explorativt och vår förhoppning är att det kan ge uppslag till vidare forskning.

Considerations of the welfare of the intended child in assisted reproduction include the assessment of candidates’ capacity to care for the child. Swedish legislation prescribes the evaluation of candidates’ psychological and social circumstances only when gametes from a donor are used for treatment. However, accounts of the evaluation process by fertility clinic staff indicate that candidates’ social and psychological circumstances are also considered in non-donor treatment. While legislation demands that a professional behavioural scientist is involved in the assessment for donor treatment, this is not the case for non-donor treatment. Candidates for non-donor treatment are reported as being evaluated by a counsellor only if they attract the negative attention of clinic staff through self-disclosed information or their behaviour during visits to the clinic. The outcome is an evaluation process in non-donor treatment that is non-transparent and therefore unpredictable for candidates. This article is based on focus group discussions with fertility clinic staff at four public clinics in Sweden.

In the guidelines for the assessment of presumptive adopters, foster carers, and recipients of assistedreproduction treatment with donor gametes, socio-economic challenges are considered as one of severalrisk factors. This chapter analyses which facets of unsuitability as parent or carer the consideration ofsocio-economic circumstances in these assessments is presumed to identify. While socio-economicdisadvantages are represented as being a direct threat to a child’s well-being, as well as a cause, orindicator, of parental unfitness in the assessment guidelines for donor conception, the consideration of suchfactors in the assessment of candidates for adoption and of prospective foster carers is related to anevaluation of the candidates’ emotional engagement with the child.

Assessment of the psychological and social circumstances of candidates for assisted reproduction is commonly justified with references to the welfare of the intended child. In nine focus group discussions with 64 clinic staff at four public fertility clinics in Sweden, the responsible use of public resources constituted another important justification for such assessments. Theoretically, this study draws on Julia Black’s (2002) identification of the role of regulatory conversations in decision makers’ policy interpretations. Focus groups defined the desired outcome of assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment as a well - functioning family , and represented the aim of ART treatment as solving problems without creating new problems for the candidates, the intended child or society. In the discourse of solving and preventing problems, the welfare of the child argument, the responsible use of resources argument and the discourse of personal responsibility merge. Lack of consideration for the circumstances in which the child will grow up was not considered a responsible use of resources because ART treatment would then risk creating more problems than it solved. The results of this study suggest that while publicly funded subsidization of fertility treatment has increased accessibility to ART treatment for candidates who lack the financial means to pay, clinic staff justified restricting access to ART treatment with concern for how public resources are spent.

It can be argued that adoption return trips are a new travel industry. Today, transnational adoptive families make adoption return trips while their children are very young. The aim of such trips is to create positive links between the child and their birth country. Based on interviews with ten Swedish transnational adoptive families, this qualitative and interdisciplinary study sets out to explore how adopted children and their parents plan return trips. The analysis shows that both children and parents mobilise memories of places, people and heritage sites from the birth countries while planning their trips. In theoretical terms, the study draws on family tourism in combination with child studies and personal memory tourism. The article challenges the idea that adoption return trips are exclusively for the benefit of the adoptee and suggests that the family planning of adoption return trips makes them into family memory trips.