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This presentation provides insights to rewarding and challenging aspects of the work of direct care workers (DCWs) who provide care to individuals with intellectual disabilities. The findings draw on perceptions expressed by 66 DCWs who provided assistance in daily activities (n=30) and in group homes (n=36). Data were collected through a digital questionnaire, and extracts of the written responses were subjected to thematic content analysis to explore and categorize their semantic content. The presentations report findings that DCWs engaged in supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities reported both rewarding and more challenging experiences in their work. Six major themes will be highlighted in the presentation, in which I also make attempts to a) relate overall work satisfaction to various experiences of challenges and negative work experiences, and b) discuss that many challenging work experiences for DCWs sems to be associated with impediments to their ability to develop individualized professional relations and supporting structures. In a concluding section, I address issues for further empirical research and developing professional work practice concerning people with disabilities. One suggestion is brought forward that an institutional framework to understand DCWs experiences of their daily work provides opportunities to explore bilateral relations between micro-level experiences and institutional macro-level circumstances. 

This chapter raises awareness of ethical implications connected to hybrid structures in the Swedish welfare contexts supporting persons with disabilities. Although hybrid structures in social work can take many forms, a shared characteristic is that they have dual, potentially conflicting, visions and objectives, putting social workers in somewhat ambivalent positions. We discuss three organizational contexts based on empirical findings from our own previous research: Disability in the arts environments, inclusive schooling and school-to-work initiatives, and vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities. We apply the concept of institutional logics in an attempt to understand professional challenges and ambivalence in these three contexts. In a concluding section, we address important issues for further empirical research and developing social work practice concerning people with disabilities. We advocate application of an institutional framework to understand hybrid structures, as it provides opportunities to explore dynamic and bilateral relations between micro-level experiences and institutional macro-level circumstances.

Background: There is a consensus among scholars, policymakers, and implementers that addressing the complex nature of intimate partner violence (IPV) requires a collaborative response. However, there is limited literature on how various professionals work collaboratively to address the needs of women with disabilities who experience IPV. This study combines the perspectives of women with disabilities and those of professionals to understand collaboration in providing IPV services to women with disabilities.

Methods: Twenty-nine in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 IPV service providers and 11 women with disabilities. The data were analyzed using reflective thematic analysis.

Results: The findings are presented under three themes: the first shows a consensus among different IPV service providers and disabled women on the importance of collaboration when supporting victims of IPV with disabilities; the second depicts the common ways in which collaboration occurs when supporting women with disabilities; and the third illuminates the critical elements that boost effective collaboration.

Conclusion: Supporting IPV victims with disabilities requires active collaboration at both an internal and external level. Strengthening collaboration among different actors requires trust, specified roles, and the allocation of adequate resources.

Information and communication technology (ICT) and digital media are less accessible for persons with intellectual disability (ID) but are important for citizenship. The aim was to conceptualize officials understanding of ICT usage among people with ID, and to analyze the possible influence of this understanding on the provision of services for people with ID. A qualitative study was conducted, using semi-structured interviews with municipal officials and politicians in the disability service area. Thematic analyses were conducted. ICT use is understood as an arena for democratization. Findings also illustrate the tension between integrity and protection as well as between legal and moral aspects of digital transformation in service provision. This understanding of digitalization is permeated by an individualized approach but conditioned by organizational issues. Disability services can be understood as undergoing digital transformation where regulative and normative elements in this area need to be harmonized to facilitate digitalization successfully.

This study explored the experiences and perceptions of professional service providers offering services to women with disabilities exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). Eighteen in-depth interviews were conducted with service providers working in health care, social work, the police, women’s shelters, and the Centre for Violence Against Women. Our findings suggest that providing adequate IPV services to women with disabilities requires coordination and collaboration. IPV services were organized around five overarching themes: finding services; assessing the risk; identification; protection and care; and becoming independent. This approach was helpful for women who faced disability-related challenges in accessing IPV services.

Background: Living in the digital era, young adults with intellectual disabilities use diverse digital products, the Internet, and social media in their daily lives. However, they may need support in digital undertakings as in other aspects of life. In a disability service context, staff are primary support providers but are restricted and guided by organisational goals and strategies. Previous research has shown that staff have dual roles as support providers and executors of organisational ambitions. This study analyses the motivations and prerequisites, as well as the obstacles to the implementation of digitalisation at a strategic level of disability services.

Method: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with public officials and municipal politicians responsible for providing disability services. A thematic analysis was performed using a constructionist perspective.

Findings: Three themes were identified: Intertwined ideals of digital infrastructures in disability contexts, culture of vertical governance, and developing competencies. These themes can be seen as pillars of the digitalisation of digital services at the organisation's strategic level. In addition to shedding light on specific issues, these themes reveal underlying issues relating to conceptions of support practices and organisational culture.

Conclusion: Digitalisation is motivated by a desire to preserve the organisation's legitimacy and be a relevant service provider. Digital infrastructure is required for digitalisation but is lacking because of intertwined legal and moral issues. Digitalisation also appears to be hindered by organisational structures and organisational culture, whose impact greatly outweighs that of digital issues.

The advent of digital innovations and widespread internet access through computer and mobile technologies has significantly expanded opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to actively participate in social networks and in society. Digitalization is also widely acknowledged as a pathway toward democratization, increased autonomy and participation, and more active citizenship. As a result, welfare services tailored for individuals with intellectual disabilities are currently undergoing a profound 'digital transformation.' This transformative shift poses a challenge for professionals and policymakers who must navigate a complex landscape marked by legal and moral ambiguities. This presentation draws on qualitative datasets obtained from interviews with policymakers and discuss key challenges when welfare services aim to ‘go digital’.

Three distinct thematic areas are introduced and scrutinized in detail. Firstly, the organizational context and the conflicting ideals surrounding digital infrastructure are explored, emphasizing a legal dimension of this transformation. Secondly, the role of professionals emerges as pivotal in dismantling barriers to digital technology and promoting online inclusion, bringing a normative element into focus. Lastly, the discussion extends to the role of risk/reward dichotomies concerning digitalization and online activities as potential barriers or enablers to social inclusion among individuals with intellectual disabilities. In the concluding section the argument is presented for the transformative potential of digitalization in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Five key avenues for further development are proposed, highlighting the promise and possibilities that digital innovations hold for creating pathways for increased autonomy, active participation, and social justice. 

This paper presents a meta-analysis, drawing exclusively on qualitative research (n = 38), which contributes to findings on mental health service user experiences of received provisions and/or encounters in contemporary social and mental health services in the Nordic countries. The main objective is to identify facilitators of, and barriers to, various notions of service user involvement. Our findings provide empirical evidence regarding service users’ experiences of participation in their encounters with mental health services. We identified two overarching themes, professional relations and the regulative framework and current rule and norm system, in the reviewed literature concerning facilitators and hindrances of user involvement in mental health services. By including the interrelated policy concept of ‘active citizenship’ and theoretical concept of ‘epistemic (in)justice’ in the analyses, the results provide foundations for broader exploration and problematization of the policy ideals of what we call ‘epistemic citizenship’ and contemporary practices in Nordic mental health organizations. Our conclusions include suggestions that linking micro-level experiences to organizational macro-level circumstances opens up avenues for further research on service user involvement.

It is common knowledge In the Nordic countries, that user involvement is hailed as part of a larger societal development for democratizing and improving social work practices as well as challenging the history of paternalism against people in need of mental health services. The reasons for user-involving practices are abundant; it corresponds to democratic ideals, for redistributing power in professional relations, making welfare services more efficient, and making professional relations more reciprocal, etc. However, less is known about ways in which to implement inclusive practices and how to assess and value the effects and outcomes of different programs and initiatives with user-involving ambitions. 

This presentation provides fresh findings on these issues in the Nordic countries, drawing from empirical findings in a compilation of knowledge (published in 2022) and a meta-analysis (published in 2023). In detail, the presentation provides answers to Nordic experiences of a) methods used to study user involvement, b) effects and outcomes of user-involving strategies, and c) how they relate to the overarching ambitions of high-quality services in mental health organizations in the Nordic countries. The presentation also provides important insights into factors that differentiate positive/promoting and negative/restrictive user experiences of participation, involvement, and prerequisites for being seen as an epistemic citizen. Finally, the presentation suggests different ways in which these results are important to acknowledge for further empirical research and development of user involvement in the Nordic countries.