Psykisk ohälsa, utsatthet och en legitimerande oro – diskursiva förståelser av flickor som placeras vid särskilda ungdomshem

Abstract

<jats:p>State-run secure accommodation has a double public function, which places it in the borderland between welfare and legal systems. However, girls in these facilities seldom show criminal beha- viour but often report severe mental health problems. Given this, it has been questioned whether this form of care is suitable for these girls. This article aims to investigate discourses about girls and secure care as they are manifested in interviews with social workers. The interviews are analysed as conversations, and therefore feature the researcher in the material. The analysis is inspired by Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory. The results show that a gendered dichotomy dominates the discourse about girls in contact with social services. Girls are constructed, in relation to boys, by concepts of mental health and vulnerability. This discourse is somewhat destabilized by the suburban girl who simultaneously is given meaning by discourses about the suburbs and their inhabitants as ”the Others”. Further, there seems to be a discursive battle concerning girls placed in secure care, who are constructed both as vulnerable girls and as antisocial in terms that tie them to the constructions of boys. Central to this battle is the social workers’ great concern over the girls’ actions and their consequences. The secure accommodation is discursively constructed on one hand as an institution imbued with meaning of being a horrible place, and on the other hand as a function with the possibility to stop, hold and protect. By emphasizing the connection between the social workers’ concern and the secure accommodation as a holding and protecting function, referring a girl discursively constructed as a vulnerable victim to this locked and discipli- ning form of care is legitimized.</jats:p>

Treatment in the context of confinement

“…For example, shows that while ART teaches the young people to regulate their emotions, this is not always a lesson applicable to their lives outside the institution. Rather than appropriating the principles and logics, their behaviour is aligned with ART principles as a way for the youths to navigate the institutional space and handle conflicts with staff (see also Enell, Mattsson and Sallnäs 2023;Vogel 2020).…”

“…Young people often describe either a lack of treatment measures or an uncertainty of whether they are being offered it or not Vogel 2018bVogel , 2020Enell, Mattsson and Sallnäs 2023). The pervasive critique of treatment expressed by young people in several of the studies in the meta-synthesis should be understood as a critique of the placement and the secure care itself, which is pronounced in many narratives (Vogel 2018b;.…”

Ungas psykiska ohälsa i medicinsk media 1970-2017

“…Konstruktionen av den krisande, utsatta flickan är, trots tal om starka tjejer, girl power och budskap om att du kan bli vad du vill, fortfarande stark och genomsyrar exempelvis ungdomsvården för omhändertagna flickor med psykisk ohälsa. Detta innebär att praktiken, det vill säga hur vi talar om, bemöter och behandlar flickor, riskerar att reproducera föreställningar som den om den krisande flickan, där flickan blir "det svagare könet" (Andersson Vogel 2016).…”

“…En anledning till detta är att flickors problem kan vara svåra för andra att upptäcka eftersom de ofta är av internaliserande karaktär, det vill säga tar sig uttryck i och mot den egna kroppen som huvudvärk, magont, oro eller självskadebeteende. Pojkars problematik tar sig oftare uttryck i externaliserade former som antisocialt beteende, kriminalitet, bråk och alkoholkonsumtion, vilket observeras lättare av omgivningen (Wångby & Stattin 2001;Andersson Vogel 2016).…”

Samhällsvårdens Svarte Petter

“…Medan de folkhälsovetenskapliga studierna är jämförelsevis många, finns det relativt lite kunskap om hur diskursiva kategoriseringspraktiker präglar synen på utsatta barn och unga med psykisk ohälsa i Sverige (Andersson Vogel, 2016;jfr Strong & Sesma-Vazquez, 2015). Ett undantag är Mats Börjessons och Eva Palmblads (2003c) studie om beskrivningar av problembarn, där särskiljandet av barn som inte passar in i skolan undersöks i relation till 1900-talets skiftande medicinska kategoriseringspraktiker.…”